PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Former US President Bill Clinton’s role as UN special envoy to Haiti will help raise world awareness of its plight as the poorest state in the Americas, Haiti’s prime minister said on Wednesday.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this week named Clinton, who has sought international support for Haiti’s reconstruction, to be his special envoy to the Caribbean state, which was battered by riots and hurricanes last year.

Praising Clinton as a “great friend of Haiti,” Haitian Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis told Reuters he was instrumental in helping her government win $324 million in new aid commitments at an April donors’ conference in Washington.

“We will work with him to better make the case of Haiti to the international community and to build a new, solid and efficient partnership to improve the Haitian people’s living conditions,” Pierre-Louis said.

Haiti’s people are the poorest in the Americas and the tiny state’s fragile economy was pummeled by a series of major hurricanes last year that caused mudslides and flooding, killing about 800 people. This came hard on the heels of a global food crisis that had pushed up staple food prices.

According to the US-based international relief agency Food For The Poor, the average family in Haiti lives on less than $2 a day. Without immediate action, thousands of malnourished Haitians may die, Food For the Poor says.  Diplomats have said Clinton’s appointment could attract investment to Haiti and help stabilize the country.