Based on its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) earnings, Guyana has emerged as the “most generous” contributor to earthquake-relief efforts for Haiti, closely followed by the African nation of Ghana.
Pledges of financial aid and other assistance to the Haitian people are being tracked by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and details were recently released by the Data Blog, hosted on the UK Guardian newspapers’ website.
The information published on Data Blog was sourced from Relief Web and it captured contributions to the Haiti Earthquake recovery effort as of 24th January 2010. It reported that Guyana was the “most generous” country in terms of its financial pledges when measured against the country’s GDP. Guyana is the third poorest country in the hemisphere, after Haiti and Nicaragua.
The Guyana National Committee for Haiti Relief has netted close to $260M since President Bharrat Jagdeo first announced a US$1M donation to Haiti. Private donors have consistently made pledges to Haiti since a call was issued publicly here for assistance and cash donations.
Efforts outside of the national committee include fund raising exercises by the Guyana Red Cross; the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company; Digicel Guyana and a Kaieteur News fund. Guyana was also mentioned in the list among the most giving people in terms of how much money was donated per person, ranking sixth behind Canada; Sweden; Norway; Denmark and Finland.
Country earnings based on GDP placed Ghana as the second most generous country to have pledged assistance to the earthquake ravaged Caribbean country. Canada rounded out the top three, followed by Sweden, Estonia, Denmark, Spain, Finland, Norway and Australia. The US was ranked as the country which has pledged the most cash to Haiti with a total of $168M followed by Canada ($131M), Spain ($45M), UK ($32M), France ($31M), Sweden ($23M), Germany ($20M), Brazil ($15M), Australia ($14M) and China ($13M).
According to Data Blog, the OCHA has the tricky task of trying to orchestrate the efforts of the dozens of aid agencies, either in Haiti or on their way there.
The OCHA list of donors tracks both monetary sums and donations in the form of assistance and equipment, both from governments and corporations. However, it does not cover the millions of pounds of private donations pouring into appeals such as that launched in the UK by the Disasters Emergency Committee, the blog reported.
The blog said also that while a lot of money has been handed over by governments, there is still a gap in funded projects and promises to do so.
