UNITED NATIONS -- Former President Bill Clinton has called on donor countries to make good on financial pledges to help Haiti recover from back-to-back storms last year.

Since a donors conference in April, at which $760 million had been pledged, only $21 million has actually been disbursed, said Clinton, the United Nations special envoy for Haiti.

The difference needs to be paid ``now,'' Clinton said late Wednesday at a U.N. Security Council special session on the situation in Haiti. In addition to Clinton, Haitian Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis and U.N. special representative Hedi Annabi addressed the council.

The meeting was scheduled to follow up on a critical assessment that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made in February.

``Cautious optimism,'' was the theme for the gathering, chaired by U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, who holds the council presidency for September.

The common thread throughout the presentations was that Haiti could be rebuilt, but only with cooperation between the Haitian government, the international community and the Haitian diaspora.

Clinton, who expects to return to the country with a trade mission later this month, made it clear the path to recovery will be long and hard.

``In spite of the absence of basic infrastructure and the inadequacies of health, education and other areas. . . . I am convinced that Haiti has a remarkable opportunity to escape the chains of its past,'' he said.

Clinton told the council the Haitian government is collectively committed to building a modern state with a diversified economy. He added that he believed this time there is a will to do it.

It was Clinton, as U.S. president, who led the efforts to topple the Haitian military regime in 1994.

Clinton said that this time, the Haitian ex-patriot community in the U.S., Canada and France is intent on contributing directly to the rebuilding efforts.

Both national and multi-national donors have made what the former president termed ``substantial pledges'' of aid to help build a sustainable modern society, but those efforts still remain unfulfilled.

Clinton also pointed out that Haiti has provided an unusual venue for the rare cooperation among the U.S., Venezuela and Cuba.

``In our neighborhood, there is a deep, wide sense that we can and should support Haiti,'' he said.

The U.N. could do that through support of the Haitian government's recovery program concentrating on the needs of the middle class, he said.

The support needed for recovery rivals that of the support generated for that of the 2005 tsunami in the Pacific region, Clinton said.

More private sector investment with a goal to make Haiti even more competitive to maximize investment potential is needed, he said.

``Transparency, accountability and effectiveness'' will be key to success, he said.

Hedi Annabi, the U.N. special representative who leads the organization's aid efforts in Haiti, told the session ``it is critical that all branches of government enhance collaboration, avoid inflammatory language and jointly assume responsibility for hard decisions...Such cooperation is indispensable.''

Prime Minister Pierre-Louis told the council that ``the problems of Haiti are grave and complex whose solutions require important investments.''

The prime minister emphasized that the pledges made at the donor conference in Washington should be turned ``into reality.''

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