More aid needed for Haiti rebuilding

Haiti's President Michel Martelly on Wednesday said his poverty-stricken country is still in dire need of international aid, after being devastated by a January 2010 earthquake. The United Nations Office of the Special Envoy for Haiti announced this week that slightly more than half of the $5.33 billion pledged by donors to help rebuild the struggling Caribbean nation has been distributed. But Martelly said much more financial assistance is needed to help Haiti, telling CNN that his still is "a country where everything is to be done." "Right after the earthquake, we had evaluated about $12 billion" would be needed for reconstruction, he said. With respect to the aid already in hand, Martelly said: "I must tell you, right after the earthquake that money was used to feed people, to take care of them -- so it wasn't really engaged in reconstruction." The 51-year-old former singer known as "Sweet Micky," is in New York this week for the United Nations General Assembly gathering and for a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, an aid effort involving business and non-profit leaders spearheaded by former president Bill Clinton. Martelly took the helm of the poorest country in the western hemisphere in May 2011. His government is still grappling with the aftermath of the quake, which killed over 200,000 people, destroyed the capital Port-au-Prince and left hundreds of thousands homeless.