In a town where it is hard go a day without an invitation to a grand meal during the World Economic Forum, the executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP) told how it is "every step a nightmare" in Haiti where bodies are still being collected more than two weeks after the devastating earthquake.

"It is the most complicated catastrophe we have ever been confronted" with, she told a special meeting on the quake held for the 2,500 executives, politicians and academics at the glitzy Davos forum.

It is difficult to explain to people running top companies about the problems faced: hardly a government official left, hardly a school left -- which means 500,000 children without education, no more tax collection, little drinking water, banks without cash and houses turned to rubble where disease spreads like wildfire.

The disaster has shocked and touched the whole world. But Sheeran and the heads of other key UN agencies know they need the Davos crowd in particular to help rebuild the Caribbean nation where at least 150,000 people were killed and about one million left destitute by the 7.0-magnitude quake.

Former US president Bill Clinton, now a UN special envoy on Haiti, is also in Davos to launch an initiative bringing the private sector into reconstruction.

Haiti needs cash not goods now and in the long term the shellshocked Haitian state will require massive help to virtually rebuild the country, Sheeran and the heads of two other UN agencies told the meeting.

Sheeran, Ann Veneman, executive director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and Catherine Bragg, deputy director of the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) have all been to Port-au-Prince since the January 12 disaster.

Despite the scope of the destruction, all three said the administration of President Rene Preval had to control the rebuilding. Sheeran said the government was "strongly aware" of what has to be done.

Sheeran said textiles and agrobusiness were prime areas in which foreign enterprises could invest in Haiti.

But first Haitians need cash to survive. "We can use it in a very targeted way. It is the best, the most flexible way," said Sheeran.

Bragg said the people "desperately" need ready-to-eat meals and tents ahead of a looming rainy season.

Energy biscuits and 200,000 family sized tents top the wanted list. Aid groups say there are only 40,000 tents now in 400 camps spread around Port-au-Prince.

The agency leaders said donors must back the experienced non-government groups already working in Haiti and halt the "simplistic" criticism of the American aid operation in the stricken country.

Veneman said Haiti's children had been left in a terrible plight, even though many were little more than domestic slaves before the quake.

She said a UNICEF priority was to open special centres for orphan children so that they could be protected against traffickers.

"The protection of young girls is a problem in the camps," she said, while thousands have had limbs amputated after being trapped in the quake rubble.

The United Nations is looking for companies and aid groups who can invest in the production of prosthetic limbs in Haiti.

The children "need to be fed, they need to be sheltered, they need to be found, and to be kept alive and safe," said Veneman.

Among the multitude of projects, one aims to provide cash for work by the stricken population, clearing up the ruins. Another would give microcredit for women who rebuild stores and small businesses.

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