The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund created at the initiative of President Barack Obama by two former Presidents of the United States after the earthquake in January 2010, will cease its activities on 31 December 2012, announced Friday, Meg Galloway Pearce, vice president of marketing and communication of fund, because it will have spent all $54.4 million collected from businesses, organizations and individuals. The fund will no longer accept donations and proposals from this date.

"We never intended to be an ongoing operation," Ms Pearce said in a telephone interview. Now that the money is gone, we step back."

The money was allocated in grants, loans and equity investments among fifty Haitian businesses. Some investment involved development projects in the long term as a bank micro-credit or a clothing manufacturer. Part of the money was also used to support emerging sectors such as an insurance company, a project that aims to propose mortgages to low-income families and a non-profit organization that provides solar energy to a country that is severely lacking energy sources.

HL/ HaitiLibre