The protest, supported by several grassroots organizations, occurred not far from the Champ de Mars, the sprawling public plaza in front of the broken presidential place. Once the pride of Haitians, it has become an eyesore with thousands of tarp-covered shacks of quake victims.

President Michel Martelly announced Wednesday that he was relocating the 20,000 residents of the plaza. Turning to Canada’s visiting International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda, he said the relocation “means a lot for us Haitians. It means that reconstruction is on its way. Things are going back to normal.’’

Canada announced it was giving Haiti $20 million toward the relocation.

This week the EU also announced that it was giving $42.8 million to the Haitian government to help displaced people return home, rehabilitate neighborhoods, and repair and reconstruct 11,000 damaged and destroyed houses. The project will focus on the neighborhoods of Martissant and Baillergeau in Port-au-Prince.

The aid announcements, including another $180 million from the World Bank for investments in education and infrastructure, come as Haitians criticize the progress of recovery efforts. Some lawmakers also oppose renewing the mandate of the much-criticized U.S.-backed commission charged with recovery.

“What progress? We still have 500,000 people under tents,” said Sen. Steven Benoit, who represents the region that includes the capital. “Billions were wasted.”

The U.N.’s Fisher said he can understand the frustrations, but people should remember that Haiti’s problems did not begin on Jan. 12, 2010.

“So much of what we are seeing today and dealing with today is the Haiti that existed before the earthquake — the lack of social infrastructure accessible to the poor, the lack of jobs, weak government,’’ he said. “These kinds of things don’t get resolved by a year or two of humanitarian and early recovery assistance.”

Still, there has been progress.

In Petionville, two major parks are cleared of tents. The country’s private sector announced more than $100 million in projects and Clinton and Prime Minister Garry Conille plan to announce on Thursday a new $7 million science university. Almost half of the money was raised by members of Haiti’s private sector. The Clinton Bush Foundation gave $2 million and bought all of the lab equipment.

Earlier this week, Paul Farmer, a deputy to Clinton in his role as U.N. Special Envoy, unveiled what will be the country’s largest hospital when construction is completed in the spring. The privately funded $16 million, 320-bed hospital is in the city of Mirebalais, 30 miles north of Port-au-Prince. It expects to employ 900 Haitian clinical and support staff while treating about 500 patients a day.

“It’s probably five times bigger than initially planned and built to earthquake standards. This thing is unbreakable and unshakeable,” said Farmer, sitting in one of the rooms of the pristine white building.

Although the teaching hospital, which will be publicly run, was conceived before the quake, Farmer said, it was made possible because of the quake.

“Two years after the earthquake we are behind where we want to be. But I also think we may have had unrealistic goals,” Farmer said. “We should have seen cholera coming. We should have known that internal, constitutionally demanding elections would slow down reconstruction. All of those things weren’t really factored in the projects…. So we are behind.”

Still, Clinton said he’s not discouraged. “By the end of the year, we will have our best year yet,” he said. “I think we will have a lot of new employment.”

Miami Herald Photographer Carl Juste and Herald Special Correspondent Amelie Barron contributed to this report from Port-au-Prince.