War-torn Georgia to get $4.55 billion in aid

International donors pledged a higher-than-expected $4.55 billion to help Georgia recover from its war with Russia. The European Commission said the sum pledged at a one-day conference in Brussels included $3.7 billion in public loans and grants and $850 million from the private sector.

Henrietta Fore, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said, “At a time of financial turmoil, this is extraordinarily strong.”

The United Nations and the World Bank had estimated that Georgia, an energy transit route, would need $3.25 billion over the next three years to help tens of thousands of people forced from their homes and to repair and develop infrastructure.