BY JACQUELINE CHARLES

The Obama admin­is­tra­tion is qui­etly advo­cat­ing a plan to recon­struct Haiti that could involve a cen­tral role for for­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clinton.

The plan, designed by U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clinton’s staff and pre­sented to top Hait­ian offi­cials in recent days, calls for the cre­ation of an Interim Haiti Recov­ery Com­mis­sion to over­see the “urgent early recov­ery” over the next 18 months.

The commission’s top pri­or­ity: cre­ate a Hait­ian Devel­op­ment Author­ity to plan and coor­di­nate bil­lions in for­eign assis­tance for at least 10 years.

The plan, obtained by The Miami Her­ald, states that the com­mis­sion could be co-chaired by the Hait­ian prime min­is­ter and “a dis­tin­guished senior inter­na­tional fig­ure engaged in the recov­ery effort.”

Haiti observers believe the job descrip­tion describes Clin­ton although he’s not named in the doc­u­ment. The United Nations has already named him to coor­di­nate its recon­struc­tion efforts.

“I think he’s a good choice if he can com­mit him­self to doing the job,” said Robert Maguire, a Haiti expert who is a pro­fes­sor at Trin­ity Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­sity and chair of the U.S. Insti­tute of Peace’s Haiti Work­ing Group. “He seems to be a log­i­cal choice, some­one with a deep com­mit­ment, con­nec­tions and the trust of most, if not all of the players.”

Clin­ton could not be reached for comment.

IN PREVAL’S HANDS

Sources famil­iar with the plan say it was pre­sented to Hait­ian Pres­i­dent René Pré­val dur­ing Clinton’s visit last week­end, and it was endorsed by Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills. Mills trav­eled to Haiti with Clin­ton in their sec­ond visit to the Caribbean nation since the Jan. 12 earthquake.

A State Depart­ment spokesman declined to com­ment, point­ing instead to the sec­re­tary of state’s com­ments about the impor­tance of trans­parency and account­abil­ity in Haiti’s reconstruction.

The administration’s plan is among sev­eral that have been floated over the last week to Hait­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials. On Wednes­day, Prime Min­is­ter Jean-Max Bel­lerive called a meet­ing of inter­na­tional part­ners in Haiti to dis­cuss the var­i­ous proposals.

Washington’s pro­posal comes a month before inter­na­tional donors are sched­uled to meet in New York to raise bil­lions to help rebuild a coun­try that in less than a minute lost more than 250,000 build­ings, includ­ing pri­vate homes, schools, hos­pi­tals and gov­ern­ment offices.

The cost to rebuild Haiti remains elu­sive but econ­o­mist Jef­frey Sachs esti­mated that the country’s recov­ery needs could tally about $3.5 bil­lion annu­ally over the next four to five years to cover recon­struc­tion, social assis­tance, devel­op­ment, peace­keep­ing and justice.

In recent years, the coun­try has received about $1.2 bil­lion in for­eign aid, half of which has gone to peace­keep­ing and just 25 per­cent — $30 per Hait­ian cit­i­zen — for development.

Led by Bel­lerive, the gov­ern­ment is expected to present its devel­op­ment plan dur­ing the con­fer­ence. Donor nations and finan­cial insti­tu­tions have been jock­ey­ing behind the scenes to influ­ence the recon­struc­tion blue­print. Their sug­ges­tions have included var­i­ous ver­sions of the Wash­ing­ton plan.

TRUST FUND

For exam­ple, Canada is con­sid­er­ing advo­cat­ing for a trust fund man­aged by the World Bank. The idea, also out­lined in Washington’s pro­posal, calls for donors to chan­nel fund­ing through a sin­gle mul­ti­donor trust fund. Sachs, who does not sup­port the Wash­ing­ton plan, is push­ing for the Inter-American Devel­op­ment Bank to man­age a sim­i­lar trust fund.

“We should not see this as a U.S. polit­i­cal effort but a mul­ti­lat­eral one,” he said. “It clearly should be the Hait­ian gov­ern­ment alone. It shouldn’t have a mixed mem­ber­ship of the pres­i­dent and inter­na­tional figures.”

Pré­val has not pub­licly com­mented on the pro­pos­als although he made a vague ref­er­ence to the Wash­ing­ton plan on Sat­ur­day to a group of vis­it­ing Caribbean leaders.

WHAT’S NEEDED

Bel­lerive, who has called for greater donor coor­di­na­tion on Haiti, told The Miami Her­ald that the Wash­ing­ton plan is “very close to what is needed to ensure trans­parency, effi­ciency and a lead­er­ship role of the Hait­ian government.”

But the final deci­sion rests with Pré­val, who could form the interim recov­ery com­mis­sion by decree.

The plan out­lines the struc­ture of the interim com­mis­sion, which gives the Hait­ian pres­i­dent veto power. It also solic­its advice from donors and experts in Haiti and the diaspora.

Maguire, who has not read the State Depart­ment doc­u­ment, said the plan sounds sim­i­lar to an idea that Hillary Clin­ton was con­sid­er­ing long before the earth­quake. Her office has sought over the past sev­eral months to bet­ter coor­di­nate assis­tance to Haiti, which remains impov­er­ished despite bil­lions of dol­lars in for­eign aid.

“I think there is an approach­ing chaos of peo­ple get­ting involved in the recon­struc­tion of Haiti, peo­ple who just want to make deci­sions on their own or peo­ple who want to prof­i­teer from this,” Maguire said. “There is a des­per­ate need for some sort of decision-making entity and it’s clear the gov­ern­ment of Haiti needs reenforcement.”