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Haiti, January 2010
On the 12th January 2010, a huge earthquake struck Haiti, one of the world's poorest nations..
The destruction it caused to this small, struggling country prompted a massive international aid effort.
Emergency Aid
Emergency aid is short-term support given in the aftermath of a disaster.
Many governments around the world dispatched emergency aid to Haiti in the first few days following the earthquake.
Food, water, medical supplies and rescue workers were sent to help save the victims.
But Haiti was so badly damaged that more long-term assistance is needed to help the country recover sustainably.
Development Aid
Since the earthquake, the international community has donated billions of dollars to the country for its development.
This aid is intended to help Haiti improve its building standards and infrastructure for a safer future.
Bilateral aid
About 75% of official development aid is bilateral, or country-to-country donations.
Multilateral aid
The remainder of international development aid is multilateral aid.
This is aid provided through international organisations like the World Bank's International Development Association, the IDA, which divides donations among poorer countries according to their needs.
Donor countries meet every three years to replenish IDA funds.
In 2010, 51 countries donated a total of $49.3 billion in aid.
Multilateral aid works to fairly distribute donations and helps to prevent conditional or tied aid.
Conditional aid
Conditional aid is when one government donates money to another with certain conditions attached that usually favour the donor.
For instance, aid might be offered on the condition that it is used to buy goods and services from the donor country.
Charitable aid
It is not only governments and international organisations contributing to Haiti's recovery.
Charities have also offered emergency assistance and issued appeals for public donations.
There have been benefit concerts and text message campaigns to raise money for the relief effort.
But even after receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in all types of aid, Haiti is still suffering.
It may take many years to pull the country out from under the rubble.