Nearly seven months after an earthquake almost wiped out Port-au-Prince, Haiti, the city's mayor is frustrated with relief efforts, saying the citizens need jobs, not handouts.

"They're sick and tired of  (non-governmental organizations) coming to give them handouts, a little rice here, a little peas here," Jean-Yves Jason told GlobalAtlanta on a recent visit to Atlanta. "They (Haitians) need to leave the tent cities and go home. They need work. They need jobs."

The mayor complained that his office has been ignored in the relief efforts, and that many of the donations pouring into the capital city are worthless.

"The favorite thing to give is tattered clothing and how about expired medicine?" said Mr. Jason. "People say they're giving, yet whatever they don't need is what they send."

Even donations such as bottled water cause problems because of the plastic that has to be hauled away, he added.

"The gift of water is also the gift of trash," he said.

Mr. Jason said he is rarely consulted by NGOs on the relief work they are doing and that the work is often uncoordinated and duplicated.

"You will find five NGOs doing the same thing in the same place in the same city," he said. "There is no coordination."

He concedes, however, that the Haitian central government, not the city of Port-au-Prince, is the contact point for much of the relief work. Port-au-Prince does not have a police department. The central government handles not only security in the capital city but also many other functions such as trash collection.

Still, the mayor believes relief efforts would be improved if he were at least consulted.

"Talk to us," he said. "Just listen to us. Work on our needs with us. Stop this picture taking and photo-op thing with our misery."

The mayor is not alone in his frustration over the slow pace of rebuilding Haiti following the Jan. 12 earthquake. Former U.S. president Bill Clinton on Friday told The Associated Press that some international donors have been reluctant to honor their pledges of financial support for the rebuilding effort.

The commission Mr. Clinton co-chairs with Haiti Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive plans to endorse a list of $300 million in rebuilding projects later this month, hoping to get donations flowing, the former president told the AP.

"We just want to get this show on the road," he said.

The slow pace of the recovery is due in large part to the scope of the earthquake damage, Brian Feagans, spokesman for Atlanta-based relief agency CARE, told GlobalAtlanta.

"I think everyone would like to move faster, but this disaster was on a scale that would have set even the best prepared country reeling, let alone one already suffering from widespread poverty," he said.

Yet there has been steady progress and relief agencies work with the United Nations to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort, said Mr. Feagans.

Yet there has been steady progress, with no major disease outbreaks and virtually all the displaced citizens now in some sort of shelter, said Mr. Feagans. Relief agencies work with the United Nations to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort, he added.

The Port-au-Prince mayor, who was in his office at City Hall when the quake caused the building to collapse, is encouraging programs that will lead to jobs for Haitians so that they can help themselves recover from the earthquake. He cited a program by Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co. that is designed to help 25,000 mango farmers.

Coke announced in March that it will invest $3.5 million in the Haiti Hope Project, and expects to receive contributions from the Inter-American Development Bank and other partners. An estimated $7.5 million will be invested over the next five years in an effort to double the income of mango farmers on the island nation.

A Washington-based nonprofit group, TechnoServe, which specializes in fighting rural poverty, will implement the project with business advisers who will help mango farmers grow their crops more efficiently, produce additional crops and build new businesses.

Coke is launching a new juice drink in the U.S. called Odwalla Haiti Hope Mango Lime-Aid and a similar drink in Canada. All the profits from the drink will be donated to the Haiti Hope Project.

Coke has been operating in Haiti since 1927. Brasserie de la Couronne, Coke's bottler in Haiti, is the largest private-sector employer in the country.

CARE has designed programs in Haiti to maximize job creation, such as paying Haitians to build temporary housing, said Mr. Feagans.

Mr. Jason, who recently returned from a conference of mayors in Shanghai,  was hosted in Atlanta by the Haitian Alliance, a community organization representing Georgians of Haitian descent. By some estimates, there are as many as 50,000 Georgians of Haitian descent, said Saurel Quettan, spokesman for the Alliance.

The mayor stopped by a Buckhead clothing store, Coposhi, where volunteers for performer Usher's New Look Foundation filled 500 backpacks with school supplies for shipment to Haiti.

"That's going to make a huge difference in Haiti when these backbacks get into the hands of our students," he said, explaining that 75 percent of Port-au-Prince was leveled during the earthquake, including all eight schools. More than 200,000 lives were lost. 

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