THE MULTIPLIER EFFECT: DRIVING HAITI'S RECOVERY BY SPENDING AID DOLLARS LOCALLY
(Minnpost) - By Jacob Kushner, Global Post
PORT-AU-PRINCE — Just days after a cholera epidemic began infecting thousands of Haitians in October 2010, Salim Loxley received a phone call at his desk in Port-au-Prince from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), one of the largest-spending organizations operating in the post-earthquake nation.
“We need 4.5 million bars of soap by Friday,” said the man on the other end, anxious to distribute the soap to Haitians who were living in unsanitary displacement camps and vulnerable to the highly infectious disease.
Normally such a call would go to one of UNDP’s US-based suppliers, who would truck the soap over from a warehouse in Haiti or ship it down from the States. But, as a director of entrepreneurial NGO called Building Markets at the time, Loxley had a database at his fingertips that included eleven local soap suppliers and three manufacturers who produce soap here in Haiti.
Loxley helped connect UNDP with Fritz Brandt, whose company Carribex has been producing soap, oil and other food products for local consumption in Haiti since 2004.
Carribex was able to produce and begin delivering the special type of soap UNDP needed to slow the cholera epidemic in just two days — so fast, in fact, that UNDP momentarily ran out of space to put it all.
“I started delivering in 72 hours, and finished three million bars in less than a week,” said Brandt, who also helped UNDP identify a recipe for a particular laundry soap that would be more effective than typical bar soap in killing cholera bacteria. “I had to stop delivering because they didn’t have any warehouse to put what they asked for.”
Brandt said the $252,000 soap deal, which was followed shortly by a $600,000 deal with UNICEF, marked the first time in seven years of operating his factory that one of the foreign NGOs or international bodies that spend billions of aid dollars annually on supplies and equipment had ever contracted with him.
The $10.2 billion in aid pledged to post-earthquake reconstruction in Haiti is largely bypassing the nation’s local producers and importers. Only 2.4 percent of the $205 million in aid contracts by the US government in Haiti as of September 2011 went to Haitian companies, according to an analysis by the Center on Economic and Policy Research of the Federal Procurement Database System.
Now in the final weeks of its campaign in Haiti as its own funding runs out, Building Markets is working to get the thousands of other NGOs to send more contracts to local businesses — the first time many of these businesses have had access to foreign NGO dollars.
By investing in local business, Loxley, formerly the organization’s country director, said aid dollars could have a “multiplier effect” — bringing workers into the factories and warehouses of Port-au-Prince and off the crowded streets where hundreds of thousands of vendors hawk imported soap, rice and products in an informal economy.
“You’ve got the international community coming down, the UN coming down and creating a massive economic footprint on the ground with projects, programs to deliver, humanitarian aid to deliver,” Loxley said. “[The Caribbex soap deal] is an interesting story because it tells you that there is capacity in Haiti. Buyers don’t understand what’s here, they don’t trust the organizations that are here.”
Caribbex is just one of hundreds of contracts the organization has facilitated here in Haiti. It helped a Chinese importer contract with a Haitian fishing cooperative to buy 10 tons of sea cucumbers each month. The demand created by that deal helps employ the estimated 5,000 workers from 50 different fishing outposts across Haiti.
And after the earthquake damaged a local businessman’s brand new air conditioning unit plant, Building Markets helped win the company win contracts for energy-efficient AC units for the UNDP, Haiti’s Ministry of Justice and its National Police.
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Building Markets (formerly Peace Divided Trust) began operating in Haiti before the January 2010 earthquake with the hopes of replicating its success getting the United Nations to contract with local companies in Afghanistan. The organization studied the UN’s activities there and found that an estimated 80 percent of aid money directed to local businesses generated local economic impact, versus 15 percent for funds that went through foreign NGOs and contractors. The US military spent $14 billion on contracting there in 2009 alone, according to Reuters.
Former commander of US forces in Afghanistan Gen. David Petraeus urged the US and other actors in his counterinsurgency strategy to “Hire Afghans first, buy Afghan products, and build Afghan capacity.”
By contracting locally, he argued, the military intervention could help strengthen Afghanistan’s stagnant economy and win the confidence of more of the Afghan people in the process. Reuters reported that 80,000 of the estimated 112,000 contractors used by the US military there currently are Afghan-operated.
Loxley said Building Markets hopes to emulate that message in Haiti. The importers and manufactures that operate here struggle to compete for large contracts by NGOs and the US government, which often ultimately go to American firms. As of September 2011, only 23 of 1537 post-earthquake contracts by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) had gone to local businesses, with nearly 40 percent awarded to Beltway contractors from D.C., Maryland and Virginia.
And according to documents obtained by the GlobalPost, USAID allocated $1.1 billion dollars in humanitarian assistance to Haiti in fiscal year 2010 through dozens of different organizations — but not a single dollar went directly to a Haitian organization or business.
“When big international organizations like the UN get tasked with responding to an earthquake, their job and their first priority is, ‘How do I respond to this crisis immediately?’” Loxley said. “They’re trying to do this as fast as possible, and they don’t have time to try to find out who are the reliable suppliers.”
But by seeking out local businesses, verifying and certifying their work, and publishing them in an online directory, Building Markets essentially does that for them.
The NGO has facilitated $32 million in contracts between Haitian companies and buyers, and more than 500 Haitian companies have already received contracts with more than 100 international organizations. The organization’s online directory now includes 3,500 Haitian businesses, one-fourth of which are in the construction sector.
The result is more foreign aid dollars going the way of companies like Carribex, which many NGOs don’t know exist or don’t believe are reliable, often deciding it’s simply easier to stick with the American companies they know.
Brandt, the owner of Carribex, said Building Markets is forming a line of communication between businesses like his and large foreign organizations that never existed previously.
“Both parties have their negative parts,” Brandt said. “We have never gone to the NGOs to tell them ‘Here we are, this is what we’re producing in case you’re interested.’ We didn’t’ make any sales approach to them. For their part, they didn’t care to ask any government entity if there was anyone here producing a particular product.”
*****
Sari Kaipainen, reconstruction manager for the NGO Finn Church Aid that designs and builds schools in Haiti, says often NGO procurement officers don’t approach Haitian businesses because of the assumption that foreign-produced products are of superior quality or because contracting locally can be more complicated.
“Dealing with Haitian businesses, in the commercial sense it’s still a very young culture,” Kaipainen said. “Things like financing and invoicing are still very basic, and we’ve been trying to help them organize that. We’re trying to help them understand that a contract is a legal document they must abide by.”
Kaipainen says the biggest challenges are ensuring the company delivers exactly what was ordered at a reasonable price.
“Sometimes prices have no reflection on reality at all, or [local companies] think ‘because you’re a foreign NGO we can charge whatever we want.’” She says Building Markets reduces that price gouging by introducing what she calls “reasonable competition” into the market.
One of the largest obstacles to Haiti’s long-term development is the lack of jobs and its inability to produce many goods or services that can infuse wealth into its ailing economy. Studies over the past decade have estimated Haiti’s unemployment as high as 70 percent — a figure many say is kept high by Haiti’s reliance on foreign-manufactured goods.
“Not only was I giving them the soap they really needed in the timing they wanted, but also the deal would help me keep my [workers],” Brandt said.
Haiti’s government has often called on NGOs to spend more aid dollars on contracts with Haitian companies.
“We also want to encourage NGOs to simplify their procurement procedures to facilitate greater participation with local suppliers,” said Marie Pascale Theodate, member of the cabinet of Haiti’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry in an April speech commending female entrepreneurs in Building Markets’ program. “The course was clearly set at the Ministry on the need to free the country from its dependence on international assistance and boost growth through coherent public policies.”
But having nearly exhausted its three-year grant from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Building Markets communications officer David Einhorn said the organization is planning to end its Haiti operation at the end of June.
We applied for additional funding and it wasn’t available,” Einhorn said. “Thanks to CIDA we were able to facilitate a lot of local transactions in Haiti. These organizations can’t fund projects forever — we’re grateful for the support they’ve given us.”
Einhorn said Building Markets is in the process of transferring its online directory and some of its other services over to Haiti’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry, which has been collaborating closely with the organization. For months, Building Markets employees have worked at the Ministry office to help Haiti’s government make it easier for foreign organizations to contract with Haitian businesses.
“This was the original intent,” said Einhorn of the hand-over. “We’ve tried to plant a seed of this idea here, and they’ve received it very enthusiastically.”
“A lot of NGOs are pulling out of Haiti now,” he added. “We’ve helped Haiti through a difficult time and we believe that this kind of project could continue to help Haiti — the need is still there.”
Showing posts with label Articles - Economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Articles - Economy. Show all posts
Monday, June 18, 2012
Sunday, June 17, 2012
ARTICLE - HAITIAN HANDCRAFTS
BOOST HAITIAN HANDCRAFTS VALUE CHAIN
(Haiti Libre) -
Prime Minister, Laurent Lamothe, and Carlos Alberto Moreno, President of the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB), have inaugurated, this Wednesday, the "Discover Haiti" exhibition directed by Donna Karan, with the collaboration of Urban Zen and Nomad Two Worlds, who support artisans in Haiti. The exhibition showcased the work of artisans from Léogâne and Croix des Bouquets, among others, to make visible the cultural and artistic wealth of the country.
When fashion designer and philanthropist Donna Karan first traveled to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, she was shocked by the scale of destruction and despair. But even amid the rubble she saw glimmers of hope in people making beautiful objects out of stone, metal, wood, paper and bone. In a matter of months, her Urban Zen Foundation launched the Haitian Artisan Project, with the mission of helping talented craftsmen and women gain access to high-end markets.
Over the past two years Karan invested time and money in the project, providing financial assistance and guidance to artisans in Port-au-Prince, Léogâne and Jacmel. Those efforts resulted in a line of remarkable home decoration articles and fashion accessories, some which will be on display at the art gallery of the Inter-American Development Bank's Cultural Center until June 27. The "Discover Haiti" exhibit, first held at the Urban Zen Center in New York City, will soon travel to London for the Summer Olympics.
At a reception held for the official opening of the "Discover Haiti" exhibition in Washington, DC, Karan joined Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe in inviting participants to "look at Haiti through a different lens." The designer, who is also assisting the Haitian government in showing the Caribbean country as a place brimming with creativity and promise, urged Haiti's friends to work in partnership: "We just have to get together and make it happen."
Laurent Lamothe thanked Karan and actor Sean Penn, who attended the event, for their work in Haiti and commended the artists and artisans responsible for the prints and objects featured in Discover Haiti, for upholding their culture, and for promoting their country. "Things are improving. Things are getting better. Things are moving in the right direction."
Prior to the reception, former U.S. president Bill Clinton and IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno held a public discussion on how the international community, the private sector and non-profits could help Haiti overcome its economic challenges. One of the keys, they agreed, would be to pool efforts and coordinate with the Haitian government, in order to achieve greater impact.
In that spirit, earlier in the day, Karan met with an IDB team led by Executive Vice President Julie T. Katzman and Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) General Manager Nancy Lee. They were joined by representatives from other organizations interested in promoting entrepreneurship in Haiti, including the Clinton Foundation, which has worked with Urban Zen to open foreign markets for Haitian artisans.
The goal of the meeting was to discuss a value-chain approach to the Haitian handicraft sector. The MIF is already funding projects of that nature in Haiti involving mango and coffee production. According to an assessment commissioned by the MIF, tens of thousands of Haitian artisans could benefit from such an approach, which would tackle a range of problems not addressed by more narrowly focused projects that reach fewer people.
Paradoxically, as the assessment noted, the Haitian artisan sector is not facing a demand problem, but rather one of supply. Buyers, from independent retailers to wholesalers, say they are interested in buying more handcrafts from Haiti, as consumers value the creativity and unique styles of its artisans. However, buyers routinely run into problems such as inconsistent pricing, uneven quality, unreliable deliveries and high shipping costs. A shortage of capable intermediaries was a frequently cited complaint.
A value-chain approach would work with local artisan organizations, helping their members hone their business skills and gain financial literacy. In parallel, partner organizations such as Urban Zen would assist craftsmen and women in product development and marketing, targeting new buyers. Complementary services would be developed such as access to financing and group purchases of raw materials. Most importantly, the project would have a long timeline to allow artisans to cement relationships with clients.
"All Haitian artisans are artists in their own right. What they need is some support to turn their art into a means of living. This is where we, as a development institution, clearly have a role to play," said lead specialist Maria Teresa Villanueva, who coordinated the MIF's projects in Haiti after January 12, 2010.
(Haiti Libre) -
Prime Minister, Laurent Lamothe, and Carlos Alberto Moreno, President of the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB), have inaugurated, this Wednesday, the "Discover Haiti" exhibition directed by Donna Karan, with the collaboration of Urban Zen and Nomad Two Worlds, who support artisans in Haiti. The exhibition showcased the work of artisans from Léogâne and Croix des Bouquets, among others, to make visible the cultural and artistic wealth of the country.
When fashion designer and philanthropist Donna Karan first traveled to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, she was shocked by the scale of destruction and despair. But even amid the rubble she saw glimmers of hope in people making beautiful objects out of stone, metal, wood, paper and bone. In a matter of months, her Urban Zen Foundation launched the Haitian Artisan Project, with the mission of helping talented craftsmen and women gain access to high-end markets.
Over the past two years Karan invested time and money in the project, providing financial assistance and guidance to artisans in Port-au-Prince, Léogâne and Jacmel. Those efforts resulted in a line of remarkable home decoration articles and fashion accessories, some which will be on display at the art gallery of the Inter-American Development Bank's Cultural Center until June 27. The "Discover Haiti" exhibit, first held at the Urban Zen Center in New York City, will soon travel to London for the Summer Olympics.
At a reception held for the official opening of the "Discover Haiti" exhibition in Washington, DC, Karan joined Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe in inviting participants to "look at Haiti through a different lens." The designer, who is also assisting the Haitian government in showing the Caribbean country as a place brimming with creativity and promise, urged Haiti's friends to work in partnership: "We just have to get together and make it happen."
Laurent Lamothe thanked Karan and actor Sean Penn, who attended the event, for their work in Haiti and commended the artists and artisans responsible for the prints and objects featured in Discover Haiti, for upholding their culture, and for promoting their country. "Things are improving. Things are getting better. Things are moving in the right direction."
Prior to the reception, former U.S. president Bill Clinton and IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno held a public discussion on how the international community, the private sector and non-profits could help Haiti overcome its economic challenges. One of the keys, they agreed, would be to pool efforts and coordinate with the Haitian government, in order to achieve greater impact.
In that spirit, earlier in the day, Karan met with an IDB team led by Executive Vice President Julie T. Katzman and Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) General Manager Nancy Lee. They were joined by representatives from other organizations interested in promoting entrepreneurship in Haiti, including the Clinton Foundation, which has worked with Urban Zen to open foreign markets for Haitian artisans.
The goal of the meeting was to discuss a value-chain approach to the Haitian handicraft sector. The MIF is already funding projects of that nature in Haiti involving mango and coffee production. According to an assessment commissioned by the MIF, tens of thousands of Haitian artisans could benefit from such an approach, which would tackle a range of problems not addressed by more narrowly focused projects that reach fewer people.
Paradoxically, as the assessment noted, the Haitian artisan sector is not facing a demand problem, but rather one of supply. Buyers, from independent retailers to wholesalers, say they are interested in buying more handcrafts from Haiti, as consumers value the creativity and unique styles of its artisans. However, buyers routinely run into problems such as inconsistent pricing, uneven quality, unreliable deliveries and high shipping costs. A shortage of capable intermediaries was a frequently cited complaint.
A value-chain approach would work with local artisan organizations, helping their members hone their business skills and gain financial literacy. In parallel, partner organizations such as Urban Zen would assist craftsmen and women in product development and marketing, targeting new buyers. Complementary services would be developed such as access to financing and group purchases of raw materials. Most importantly, the project would have a long timeline to allow artisans to cement relationships with clients.
"All Haitian artisans are artists in their own right. What they need is some support to turn their art into a means of living. This is where we, as a development institution, clearly have a role to play," said lead specialist Maria Teresa Villanueva, who coordinated the MIF's projects in Haiti after January 12, 2010.
ARTICLE - CFI MEETS POTENTIAL INVESTORS
THE CFI MET WITH POTENTIAL INVESTORS
(Haiti Libre) -
Karl Louis Jean, the Director General of the Center of Facilitation of Investments (CFI) met Wednesday at the Karibe Convention Center with U.S. firms, about investment opportunities in Haiti; a meeting that took part of the evaluation approach of the Haitian market by foreign investors.
Karl Louis Jean declared that these potential investors, "are there to look at the possibility of investment in Haiti. In the textile sector, we had the opportunity through SAE-A, which is already in the industrial park of Caracol, to tell them this is what happens, where we are, what we have done together, in terms of the preparation of the Industrial Park; which remains to be done. Here are the opportunities that exist in Haiti, here is what the CFI do [...] we are awaiting you, we are ready to give you all the assistance you need to come and invest in Haiti [...]
Some were visiting Caracol in Cap Haitien, others have visited some firms in the textile industry. It allowed them to see and to have perspectives of investment in the country. The Target Company is very interested. There are others who look at the opportunity from Caracol to extend their business in Haiti, so yes there is a lot of interest [...]
I organized with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) the investment forum in November 2011 ["Invest in Haiti"]. There will be benefits from August... we will start the construction of the Marriott Hotel. 4 other companies have decided to invest, they have signed, including Sherwin-Williams. There are others who will come to Caracol..."
Karl Jean Louis explained that between the intention to invest for a foreign company, get all the information to incorporate them into their decision process, it necessarily takes time, because it is a decision to invest money and this is why "Haiti needs political stability and strong institutions, to support these investors."
(Haiti Libre) -
Karl Louis Jean, the Director General of the Center of Facilitation of Investments (CFI) met Wednesday at the Karibe Convention Center with U.S. firms, about investment opportunities in Haiti; a meeting that took part of the evaluation approach of the Haitian market by foreign investors.
Karl Louis Jean declared that these potential investors, "are there to look at the possibility of investment in Haiti. In the textile sector, we had the opportunity through SAE-A, which is already in the industrial park of Caracol, to tell them this is what happens, where we are, what we have done together, in terms of the preparation of the Industrial Park; which remains to be done. Here are the opportunities that exist in Haiti, here is what the CFI do [...] we are awaiting you, we are ready to give you all the assistance you need to come and invest in Haiti [...]
Some were visiting Caracol in Cap Haitien, others have visited some firms in the textile industry. It allowed them to see and to have perspectives of investment in the country. The Target Company is very interested. There are others who look at the opportunity from Caracol to extend their business in Haiti, so yes there is a lot of interest [...]
I organized with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) the investment forum in November 2011 ["Invest in Haiti"]. There will be benefits from August... we will start the construction of the Marriott Hotel. 4 other companies have decided to invest, they have signed, including Sherwin-Williams. There are others who will come to Caracol..."
Karl Jean Louis explained that between the intention to invest for a foreign company, get all the information to incorporate them into their decision process, it necessarily takes time, because it is a decision to invest money and this is why "Haiti needs political stability and strong institutions, to support these investors."
Saturday, June 16, 2012
ARTICLE - CARIBBEAN ECONOMY - EUROPE CRISIS
EUROPEAN ECONOMIC CRISIS THREATENS CARIBBEAN GROWTH
(Atlanta Black Star) -
The continuing Eurozone crisis could contribute to the Caribbean seeing further weakened growth in the medium term, but an increased rate of growth is projected for the region due to expected strengthening in the US economy.
The growth rate for Caribbean countries is expected to increase to 3.5 per cent for 2012 from the 2.7 last year, according to the World Bank’s recently released report on the economies of developing countries.
“Improvements in the US labor market will support remittances and demand for tourism services benefiting countries in Central America and the Caribbean,” said the report. “The recent improvement in economic sentiment in the US economy and the expected gradual recovery bodes well for countries that have strong industrial economic links to the world’s largest economy.”
Healthy rates of growth are especially expected for both the Dominican Republic and Haiti, due to the former’s continued expansion of mineral outputs, and the latter’s improved political stability and accelerations in its construction and agricultural sectors.
However, the World Bank sees growth in Jamaica remaining weak, “notwithstanding a gradual recovery in the United States”, due to its large debt burden and other factors constraining investment such as crime.
Heavy debt and a hovering cloud of economic instability in the Euro area present a potential slowdown for the entire region as well.
“Should the situation in Europe deteriorate sharply, no developing region would be spared,” said the World Bank. “The world’s poorest countries will feel the fallout — especially countries that are heavily reliant on remittances, tourism or commodity exports or that have high levels of short-term debt.”
The ability of regional countries to respond to a possible sharp deterioration in global conditions as a result of the economic uncertainty in Europe will also be constrained by the depreciation of most currencies against the US dollar, as well as high oil prices.
“A significant downside risk for some of the Caribbean economies, notably Grenada, Guyana, and Jamaica, is that of a change to the concessional financing terms offered by Venezuela for oil imports,” the report said. “This could result in substantially higher oil import prices adding further pressure on current account balances. Increased competition for FDI and tourists from Cuba represent additional downside risks for the tourism-dependent economies in the region.”
(Atlanta Black Star) -
The continuing Eurozone crisis could contribute to the Caribbean seeing further weakened growth in the medium term, but an increased rate of growth is projected for the region due to expected strengthening in the US economy.
The growth rate for Caribbean countries is expected to increase to 3.5 per cent for 2012 from the 2.7 last year, according to the World Bank’s recently released report on the economies of developing countries.
“Improvements in the US labor market will support remittances and demand for tourism services benefiting countries in Central America and the Caribbean,” said the report. “The recent improvement in economic sentiment in the US economy and the expected gradual recovery bodes well for countries that have strong industrial economic links to the world’s largest economy.”
Healthy rates of growth are especially expected for both the Dominican Republic and Haiti, due to the former’s continued expansion of mineral outputs, and the latter’s improved political stability and accelerations in its construction and agricultural sectors.
However, the World Bank sees growth in Jamaica remaining weak, “notwithstanding a gradual recovery in the United States”, due to its large debt burden and other factors constraining investment such as crime.
Heavy debt and a hovering cloud of economic instability in the Euro area present a potential slowdown for the entire region as well.
“Should the situation in Europe deteriorate sharply, no developing region would be spared,” said the World Bank. “The world’s poorest countries will feel the fallout — especially countries that are heavily reliant on remittances, tourism or commodity exports or that have high levels of short-term debt.”
The ability of regional countries to respond to a possible sharp deterioration in global conditions as a result of the economic uncertainty in Europe will also be constrained by the depreciation of most currencies against the US dollar, as well as high oil prices.
“A significant downside risk for some of the Caribbean economies, notably Grenada, Guyana, and Jamaica, is that of a change to the concessional financing terms offered by Venezuela for oil imports,” the report said. “This could result in substantially higher oil import prices adding further pressure on current account balances. Increased competition for FDI and tourists from Cuba represent additional downside risks for the tourism-dependent economies in the region.”
Monday, June 11, 2012
ARTICLE - D.R. BORDER MARKETS - $900 MILLION
BORDER MARKETS, NEARLY 900 MILLION IN SALES FOR THE DOMINICANS
(Haiti Libre) -
According to a report published by the Center for Export and Investment of the Dominican Republic (CEI-RD), the Dominicans have sold to Haiti, from January 2004 to December 2010, through the border trade where Dominicans and Haitians are doing business weekly [Jimaní, Dajabón, Elías Piña et Pedernales], goods worth a total of 872.7 million U.S. dollars.
Most transactions were made at the border of Jimaní where, during this period (7 years), the sales of Dominican products sold to Haitians were estimated at 541.6 million dollars, mainly: cotton fabrics, clothing made of synthetic fibers, steel rods for construction, various edibles, gray cement, antidiarrheal products, wheat flour, fuel, and tents, among others...
At the border market of Dajabón have been sold for a value of 143.8 million: cotton, wheat flour, gray cement, chicken and offal, tank tops and other textiles, broken rice, bananas, pasta, detergent powder, and others.
At the market of Elias Piña reported $105.7 million in the sale of wheat flour, plastic bags, zinc plates, steel rods, broken rice, cement, automotive paint, cookies, soy oil and other various products.
The market of Pedernales where transactions are more modest, sold mainly, wheat flour, desiccated coconut, black beans, used clothing, salami, raw sugar cane, bananas, detergent powder, household utensils, and other plastics for a total of $14.3 million.
The report states that sales on the border markets, for an amount of $67.3 million, were made in other sectors, without specifying their nature. During the first 9 months [January 2010 to September 2011], the CEI-RD has identified a total of 1,334 product lines: industrial, agricultural and crafts exported to Haiti.
(Haiti Libre) -
According to a report published by the Center for Export and Investment of the Dominican Republic (CEI-RD), the Dominicans have sold to Haiti, from January 2004 to December 2010, through the border trade where Dominicans and Haitians are doing business weekly [Jimaní, Dajabón, Elías Piña et Pedernales], goods worth a total of 872.7 million U.S. dollars.
Most transactions were made at the border of Jimaní where, during this period (7 years), the sales of Dominican products sold to Haitians were estimated at 541.6 million dollars, mainly: cotton fabrics, clothing made of synthetic fibers, steel rods for construction, various edibles, gray cement, antidiarrheal products, wheat flour, fuel, and tents, among others...
At the border market of Dajabón have been sold for a value of 143.8 million: cotton, wheat flour, gray cement, chicken and offal, tank tops and other textiles, broken rice, bananas, pasta, detergent powder, and others.
At the market of Elias Piña reported $105.7 million in the sale of wheat flour, plastic bags, zinc plates, steel rods, broken rice, cement, automotive paint, cookies, soy oil and other various products.
The market of Pedernales where transactions are more modest, sold mainly, wheat flour, desiccated coconut, black beans, used clothing, salami, raw sugar cane, bananas, detergent powder, household utensils, and other plastics for a total of $14.3 million.
The report states that sales on the border markets, for an amount of $67.3 million, were made in other sectors, without specifying their nature. During the first 9 months [January 2010 to September 2011], the CEI-RD has identified a total of 1,334 product lines: industrial, agricultural and crafts exported to Haiti.
ARTICLE - INVEST IN AN INNOVATIVE REVOLUTION
WHY HAITI MUST INVEST IN AN INNOVATIVE REVOLUTION
(Caribbean Journal) - By Ilio Durandis
Haitian government officials are saying that the country is ready for takeoff, but the destination is unknown, and how the country will take off is still not clear. The time can no longer be about restating the glorious events of two centuries ago to convince a modern world that Haiti is open for its investments.
As a people, we have our work cut out for us. Like a marathon, the clock is ticking ever so slowly, only for the winner to arrive at the finish line ever so quickly.
Before we know, it could be all over. The unfortunate and massively destructive earthquake of January 2010 has left us no choice but to start anew, with a cohesive national vision, and an all-inclusive social contract.
There are many ways to improve the present and secure the victory for the future, but nothing can be done until the country invests itself in an innovative revolution. It is evident to even a newborn that conditions at present within the country are unacceptable and inadmissible to sustain human life. Therefore, our national focus should center on how best to build a modern state for future generations, while engaging and demanding much more from the present stakeholders.
This innovative revolution would not use destructive weapons to build that prosperous future; instead, its weapons should be the will of the Haitian people and their desire to break from more than two centuries of subhuman conditions.
It is a revolution that should be cemented in the grandiose ideals of a people that once taught the world that peace and liberty do not have to be supported by oppressive measures such as slavery and torture.
If the chains of slavery were dissolved in a river of blood, the heavy load of poverty that the Haitian people have been forced to carry could be unloaded through the ingenuity of innovative ideas.
The world is not short on great ideas, but the human capacity to execute them seems to not have the will. Our moment to make change happen has arrived.
Haiti can invest in its own development by making sure that a bonded all-inclusive social contract between government officials and the population is respected. After so many false starts, this engine must start for good if the taking off is to happen. No long lecture is needed to propose the immediate steps that must be taken to start the engine of Haiti’s development.
For starters, Haiti ought to revolutionize its educational system. Students need to learn materials that can be applied practically and successfully in the progress of the nation. Of course, money is needed to build new vocational, technical and professional schools, to train new and brighter teachers; however, more importantly, Haitian educators must come up with an innovative curriculum that suits the sustainable development of the country.
Education should no longer be confined to the physical walls of a school building. With all the advances in technology, universal free education is now doable, regardless of location.
The physical reconstruction needs to happen, but unless a sound investment is made toward reconstructing the fragile Haitian mentality, any physical reconstruction will be short-lived.
As part of the new social contract, an effort must be made to empower those who have been marginalized for too long, especially Haitian women, unemployed youth, the handicapped and definitely those who live in rural areas.
The talk of decentralization is great, but it must be supported financially, and local authorities must be given the power to work autonomously.
One of the greatest innovations that this new revolution must lead to ought to be a solution for Haiti to become self-sufficient in food production. Agro-industry must be allowed to flourish, and detrimental importation policies must be revised. More programmes and grants should be made available to students, entrepreneurs and others to take full advantage of Haiti’s potential to completely feed itself.
An ambitious goal to make this happen within the next five to 10 years must be the order of the day.
Lastly, this innovative revolution must promote a national altruism value, where every Haitian would allow themselves to see beyond their own self-interest, while focusing more on what is good for the country as a whole.
It is a challenging proposition, but great leaders make daunting concepts easy to understand and apply. Our leaders must set the good example and serve as ethical models.
Everyone wants to see Haiti takes off, but not to just anywhere or to come back to the same place in worse shape than when it took off. The fuels that will ignite the engine are expensive, scarce and valuable.
We have been fortunate in the sense that we still have a chance to start over: therefore, let’s not overplay our luck. It is the moment of truth; history will not be kind to us, if, once again, we do not take care of the present and strategize to win the future.
Every one of us has a role to play in executing and taking part in this innovative revolution. Haiti must invest in its own future and sustainable development.
Through the power of innovation, we won our liberty from our oppressors and that same innovative thinking can give us peace of mind, peace in our pocket and eventually peace in our belly.
Haiti is open for an innovative revolution.
Ilio Durandis, a Caribbean Journal contributor, is the founder of Haiti 2015, a social movement for a just and prosperous Haiti. He is a columnist with The Haitian Times.
Follow Ilio Durandis on Twitter: @durandis
(Caribbean Journal) - By Ilio Durandis
Haitian government officials are saying that the country is ready for takeoff, but the destination is unknown, and how the country will take off is still not clear. The time can no longer be about restating the glorious events of two centuries ago to convince a modern world that Haiti is open for its investments.
As a people, we have our work cut out for us. Like a marathon, the clock is ticking ever so slowly, only for the winner to arrive at the finish line ever so quickly.
Before we know, it could be all over. The unfortunate and massively destructive earthquake of January 2010 has left us no choice but to start anew, with a cohesive national vision, and an all-inclusive social contract.
There are many ways to improve the present and secure the victory for the future, but nothing can be done until the country invests itself in an innovative revolution. It is evident to even a newborn that conditions at present within the country are unacceptable and inadmissible to sustain human life. Therefore, our national focus should center on how best to build a modern state for future generations, while engaging and demanding much more from the present stakeholders.
This innovative revolution would not use destructive weapons to build that prosperous future; instead, its weapons should be the will of the Haitian people and their desire to break from more than two centuries of subhuman conditions.
It is a revolution that should be cemented in the grandiose ideals of a people that once taught the world that peace and liberty do not have to be supported by oppressive measures such as slavery and torture.
If the chains of slavery were dissolved in a river of blood, the heavy load of poverty that the Haitian people have been forced to carry could be unloaded through the ingenuity of innovative ideas.
The world is not short on great ideas, but the human capacity to execute them seems to not have the will. Our moment to make change happen has arrived.
Haiti can invest in its own development by making sure that a bonded all-inclusive social contract between government officials and the population is respected. After so many false starts, this engine must start for good if the taking off is to happen. No long lecture is needed to propose the immediate steps that must be taken to start the engine of Haiti’s development.
For starters, Haiti ought to revolutionize its educational system. Students need to learn materials that can be applied practically and successfully in the progress of the nation. Of course, money is needed to build new vocational, technical and professional schools, to train new and brighter teachers; however, more importantly, Haitian educators must come up with an innovative curriculum that suits the sustainable development of the country.
Education should no longer be confined to the physical walls of a school building. With all the advances in technology, universal free education is now doable, regardless of location.
The physical reconstruction needs to happen, but unless a sound investment is made toward reconstructing the fragile Haitian mentality, any physical reconstruction will be short-lived.
As part of the new social contract, an effort must be made to empower those who have been marginalized for too long, especially Haitian women, unemployed youth, the handicapped and definitely those who live in rural areas.
The talk of decentralization is great, but it must be supported financially, and local authorities must be given the power to work autonomously.
One of the greatest innovations that this new revolution must lead to ought to be a solution for Haiti to become self-sufficient in food production. Agro-industry must be allowed to flourish, and detrimental importation policies must be revised. More programmes and grants should be made available to students, entrepreneurs and others to take full advantage of Haiti’s potential to completely feed itself.
An ambitious goal to make this happen within the next five to 10 years must be the order of the day.
Lastly, this innovative revolution must promote a national altruism value, where every Haitian would allow themselves to see beyond their own self-interest, while focusing more on what is good for the country as a whole.
It is a challenging proposition, but great leaders make daunting concepts easy to understand and apply. Our leaders must set the good example and serve as ethical models.
Everyone wants to see Haiti takes off, but not to just anywhere or to come back to the same place in worse shape than when it took off. The fuels that will ignite the engine are expensive, scarce and valuable.
We have been fortunate in the sense that we still have a chance to start over: therefore, let’s not overplay our luck. It is the moment of truth; history will not be kind to us, if, once again, we do not take care of the present and strategize to win the future.
Every one of us has a role to play in executing and taking part in this innovative revolution. Haiti must invest in its own future and sustainable development.
Through the power of innovation, we won our liberty from our oppressors and that same innovative thinking can give us peace of mind, peace in our pocket and eventually peace in our belly.
Haiti is open for an innovative revolution.
Ilio Durandis, a Caribbean Journal contributor, is the founder of Haiti 2015, a social movement for a just and prosperous Haiti. He is a columnist with The Haitian Times.
Follow Ilio Durandis on Twitter: @durandis
ARTICLE - HAITI DEVELOPMENT DEBATE
PROMISE OF JOBS SPURS HAITI DEVELOPMENT DEBATE
(Miami Herald) - By Jacqueline Charles
The emergence of a new industrial park in northern Haiti has reignited discussion about the best way for Haiti to develop.
CARACOL - It’s precisely the kind of development that just about everyone has been saying Haiti needs: foreign governments pooling dollars to build housing, create jobs and foster hope.
But a $300 million investment to help create tens of thousands of textile jobs in this rural northern village has reignited debate over whether banking on Haiti’s past as a garment-assembly capital will bring the kind of social and economic development needed to lift the country out of abject poverty. Some argue the funds are better invested in agricultural projects to feed the country and boost farmers.
The debate illustrates the challenges facing Haiti where natural disasters, political turmoil and weak institutions have left few options.
It also reflects the challenges of President Michel Martelly’s year-old administration, which has adopted the slogan, “Haiti is open for business” but has yet to address the fundamental issues needed to attract investors.
“Nations traditionally cannot thrive on a single industry,” said Mark D’Sa, senior advisor for Haiti at the U.S. State Department, and a former senior director for a major U.S. retailer. “It can be a starting point, but ultimately there needs to be a diverse set of services. We know from the experiences of countries around the world, as well as from our own in regions of the U.S., that the apparel industry can be a good economic catalyst.”
Georges Sassine, head of the Haitian government’s commission to take advantage of U.S. Congress-approved trade preferences benefiting Haiti’s struggling garment industry, agrees.
“We never said the assembly sector was the way to success,” he said. “We only said that by having approximately 100,000 people working, it will start to create new economic impulses and give time for other sectors to come into play.”
Still, critics point out that even at its height of 100,000 jobs in the 1980s, Haiti’s garment industry failed to be an economic catalyst.
Today, they not only question the revived development plan but whether the Caracol Industrial Park being built in northern Haiti can even be replicated elsewhere. They argue the international community would be better off pouring its aid dollars into modernizing Haiti’s agriculture sector, which has been hampered by everything from soil erosion to a lack of property titles and modern equipment to outdated laws.
Meanwhile, even those desperate for a livelihood question the opportunities for upward mobility in an industry that pays minimum wage.
“Haiti used to be self-sufficient in rice production; it used to be self-sufficient in most of the cereals, the food that it consumed,” said Alex Dupuy, a sociologist at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, who has written about the failures of the Haitian assembly industry.
“Very few of the dollars that are invested in Haiti in these assembly industries are going to remain in Haiti,” he said. “And since the assembly industry is the only game in town, and there is nothing else being planned around it to grow the economy, it’s not going to have any long-lasting effect on the growth of the economy.”
‘THE SAME WORDS’
Robert Fatton, a Haiti expert at the University of Virginia, said he isn’t sure if returning to Haiti’s past will provide a solution for the future.
“I don’t see a significance difference between this kind of development and the one we had in the ’70s,” he said. “They are using the same words that were used then: ‘We are going to create jobs; We are going to be the next Taiwan; We are going to export to the U.S.’ There were tax breaks and tariff breaks to export services. This is the same model. And I don’t see it giving fundamentally different results.”
At the center of the debate is the state-owned 600 acres where the park is being developed, and 357 Haitian farmers informally cultivated before it was donated by former President René Préval’s administration.
The farmers have since been compensated with either cash for their crops, relocation to another plot or enrollment in a training program to another kind of business, said Agustín Filippo, private sector development specialist for the Inter-American Development Bank.
Filippo and others note that surveys conducted as part of the IDB’s $3.5 million farmers’ compensation package showed that while the 123 acres farmers cultivated generated an estimated $50,000 in annual income, the same land in five years is expected to pay about $45 million in local workers’ salaries annually from Korean manufacturer Sae-A, the park’s largest employer.
For the IDB, which has partnered with the United States to develop the park, it’s not a question of emphasizing textiles over agriculture, spokesman Peter Bate said. The bank is spending more than $200 million in agriculture projects, including a recent grant of $15 million it provided to Haitian authorities to help modernize the sector, he said.
Cheryl Mills, counselor and chief of staff for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said tapping agriculture is an important part of the U.S.’s strategy in Haiti. It is investing about $300 million in the sector, including in the very areas where the industrial park is located.
“In the end, it’s going to require the [Haitian] government to ensure that the park and other investments in the region that they are guiding, adequately produce the long-term economic development and benefit for the entire region,” she said.
EROSION’S ROLE
Mats Lundahl, a Sweden-based consultant and development-economics expert, said agriculture remains a hard sell in Haiti because of the erosion process caused by population pressure.
“The more people who enter the agricultural sector, the more severe the erosion,’’ he said. “You need to get people out of that sector so that it can be reformed: holdings that are large enough to sustain a family at a decent income level; tree crops instead of what you have now; and a [registry] to straighten out the land title issue. All this is very difficult, but sooner or later the issue must be faced.
“Textiles is admittedly a low-wage sector, but it is better to have a low-paid job than no job at all,” Lundahl added. “If you want state-led development you must have an honest, viable state, not one which is about to fail.”
(Miami Herald) - By Jacqueline Charles
The emergence of a new industrial park in northern Haiti has reignited discussion about the best way for Haiti to develop.
CARACOL - It’s precisely the kind of development that just about everyone has been saying Haiti needs: foreign governments pooling dollars to build housing, create jobs and foster hope.
But a $300 million investment to help create tens of thousands of textile jobs in this rural northern village has reignited debate over whether banking on Haiti’s past as a garment-assembly capital will bring the kind of social and economic development needed to lift the country out of abject poverty. Some argue the funds are better invested in agricultural projects to feed the country and boost farmers.
The debate illustrates the challenges facing Haiti where natural disasters, political turmoil and weak institutions have left few options.
It also reflects the challenges of President Michel Martelly’s year-old administration, which has adopted the slogan, “Haiti is open for business” but has yet to address the fundamental issues needed to attract investors.
“Nations traditionally cannot thrive on a single industry,” said Mark D’Sa, senior advisor for Haiti at the U.S. State Department, and a former senior director for a major U.S. retailer. “It can be a starting point, but ultimately there needs to be a diverse set of services. We know from the experiences of countries around the world, as well as from our own in regions of the U.S., that the apparel industry can be a good economic catalyst.”
Georges Sassine, head of the Haitian government’s commission to take advantage of U.S. Congress-approved trade preferences benefiting Haiti’s struggling garment industry, agrees.
“We never said the assembly sector was the way to success,” he said. “We only said that by having approximately 100,000 people working, it will start to create new economic impulses and give time for other sectors to come into play.”
Still, critics point out that even at its height of 100,000 jobs in the 1980s, Haiti’s garment industry failed to be an economic catalyst.
Today, they not only question the revived development plan but whether the Caracol Industrial Park being built in northern Haiti can even be replicated elsewhere. They argue the international community would be better off pouring its aid dollars into modernizing Haiti’s agriculture sector, which has been hampered by everything from soil erosion to a lack of property titles and modern equipment to outdated laws.
Meanwhile, even those desperate for a livelihood question the opportunities for upward mobility in an industry that pays minimum wage.
“Haiti used to be self-sufficient in rice production; it used to be self-sufficient in most of the cereals, the food that it consumed,” said Alex Dupuy, a sociologist at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, who has written about the failures of the Haitian assembly industry.
“Very few of the dollars that are invested in Haiti in these assembly industries are going to remain in Haiti,” he said. “And since the assembly industry is the only game in town, and there is nothing else being planned around it to grow the economy, it’s not going to have any long-lasting effect on the growth of the economy.”
‘THE SAME WORDS’
Robert Fatton, a Haiti expert at the University of Virginia, said he isn’t sure if returning to Haiti’s past will provide a solution for the future.
“I don’t see a significance difference between this kind of development and the one we had in the ’70s,” he said. “They are using the same words that were used then: ‘We are going to create jobs; We are going to be the next Taiwan; We are going to export to the U.S.’ There were tax breaks and tariff breaks to export services. This is the same model. And I don’t see it giving fundamentally different results.”
At the center of the debate is the state-owned 600 acres where the park is being developed, and 357 Haitian farmers informally cultivated before it was donated by former President René Préval’s administration.
The farmers have since been compensated with either cash for their crops, relocation to another plot or enrollment in a training program to another kind of business, said Agustín Filippo, private sector development specialist for the Inter-American Development Bank.
Filippo and others note that surveys conducted as part of the IDB’s $3.5 million farmers’ compensation package showed that while the 123 acres farmers cultivated generated an estimated $50,000 in annual income, the same land in five years is expected to pay about $45 million in local workers’ salaries annually from Korean manufacturer Sae-A, the park’s largest employer.
For the IDB, which has partnered with the United States to develop the park, it’s not a question of emphasizing textiles over agriculture, spokesman Peter Bate said. The bank is spending more than $200 million in agriculture projects, including a recent grant of $15 million it provided to Haitian authorities to help modernize the sector, he said.
Cheryl Mills, counselor and chief of staff for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said tapping agriculture is an important part of the U.S.’s strategy in Haiti. It is investing about $300 million in the sector, including in the very areas where the industrial park is located.
“In the end, it’s going to require the [Haitian] government to ensure that the park and other investments in the region that they are guiding, adequately produce the long-term economic development and benefit for the entire region,” she said.
EROSION’S ROLE
Mats Lundahl, a Sweden-based consultant and development-economics expert, said agriculture remains a hard sell in Haiti because of the erosion process caused by population pressure.
“The more people who enter the agricultural sector, the more severe the erosion,’’ he said. “You need to get people out of that sector so that it can be reformed: holdings that are large enough to sustain a family at a decent income level; tree crops instead of what you have now; and a [registry] to straighten out the land title issue. All this is very difficult, but sooner or later the issue must be faced.
“Textiles is admittedly a low-wage sector, but it is better to have a low-paid job than no job at all,” Lundahl added. “If you want state-led development you must have an honest, viable state, not one which is about to fail.”
Sunday, June 10, 2012
ARTICLE - MOBILE MONEY STUMBLES AT START
MOBILE MONEY PLAN STUMBLES AT START IN HAITI
(Houston Chronicle) - By Trenton Daniel
PORT-AU-PRINCE — Getting money in Haiti can be a harrowing experience: Bank branches are few, most of them are in the capital and a simple transaction can take half a day. Cash machines are scarce as well, and often broken or empty. And then there are the thieves who often wait nearby in hopes of finding a mark.
So aid agencies trying to remake Haiti after a catastrophic earthquake are promoting a new way to bypass banks altogether: easy money transfers by cellphone. The U.S. government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have pumped millions of dollars into the plan, which lets people save and move money in mobile phone accounts and quickly withdraw it at a network of retail stores around the country.
As yet, though, few Haitians are buying the idea, which has become one of many post-quake projects to fall short of expectations and a reminder of how hard it is to change a society that has been repeatedly set back by political upheaval and natural disasters.
"I'm not going to invest my money in something I don't see," said James Alexis, a 33-year-old truck driver, as he stood in line at a bank in downtown Port-au-Prince, a wait he expected would take two hours. "It could be a trick."
Backers admit adoption has been slower than expected, though they remain optimistic it will expand, in part because so many Haitians rely on cellphones, often to find jobs. Some 800,000 people initially registered for the service, even if only about 22,000 people regularly use it.
The service "has gone on in the face of political violence, political instability, cholera, gas shortages, you name it, and we're this far," said Greta Greathouse, director of a U.S. Agency for International Development program to improve financial services in Haiti. "Does it mean we're there yet? No. We want it to be sustainable and there's a lot of work that needs to be done."
A spokesman for the Gates Foundation in Seattle, Chris Williams, said by telephone that the project is a "work in progress" but that it's going well.
"It's not a huge surprise to find some disconnect between the number of registered users and currently active users," Williams said. "It takes some time to build up to scale."
The project began months after the January 2010 earthquake when the Gates Foundation announced that it was creating the Haiti Mobile Money Initiative with a $10 million donation. USAID contributed another $5 million for technical assistance.
The idea was to help the 90 percent of Haitians who don't use banks by replicating a mobile money-transfer system that has gained popularity in countries such as Kenya, Uganda and the Philippines.
Two local cellphone companies, Digicel Group Ltd. and Voila, rushed to compete for the money by setting up their own mobile money transfer systems, and so far have been awarded a total of $6.8 million from the foundation.
The system is essentially an account linked to the telephone. Users can transfer up to $250 at a time to another subscriber, who can then withdraw the money from a network of shops ranging from auto-parts stores to internet cafes. As much as $1,500 can be transferred in a month. So far, international transfers are not allowed.
Digicel-Haiti's former CEO, Maarten Boute, said at a Barcelona conference in February that it wasn't easy to explain the system. "Our main lesson learned is how difficult it is to educate customers," said Boute, who is now a senior adviser to the Jamaica-based company. "When we launched the service we assumed it would be something like selling a mobile phone, where you stick a mobile phone into someone's hand and almost anyone can start using it quite quickly because it's very easy to understand. With a mobile banking service or a mobile money service it's not quite that easy."
The Christian charity World Vision joined the program, seeing it as a simple, cash-free way to pay small rental subsidies to help people move out of the gloomy settlements that sprang up after the earthquake.
But many people didn't understand how to use the technology and were leery of it, said Keith Chibafa, who oversees the project for World Vision. The nonprofit registered 6,000 subscribers for the service, but only 1,000 actually use it.
Confidence was undermined on one occasion when residents of a camp in the city of Croix-des-Bouquets, outside the capital, went to collect their payments and were told there was no money.
"We did have an agent running out of cash," Chibafa said. "It was a problem, a serious problem."
Cab driver Ernst Figaro said he doesn't trust the new service any more than the banks, which are not known for their customer service.
"The electronic system in Haiti is not standing on its feet yet," Figaro said while taking a break from work on a park bench. "I just don't trust putting my money in this system."
Others, such as Wilner Destina, have become converts. The 40-year-old street painter signed up six months ago because he was eager to avoid the frustrating hour-long lines at commercial banks. "It allows us to do (money) transfers with ease," Destina said outside a Digicel store in downtown Port-au-Prince after sending the equivalent of $50 to a friend in Gonaives, a port city 110 kilometers (68 miles) northwest of Haiti's capital.
David Sharpe, Digicel's director of products and services, hopes to find more people like Destina, attracting them with features such as a lottery played on the cellphone and, later, international wire transfers.
More users will arrive through a new government program that will use the service to make transfers to as many as 100,000 mothers who keep their children in school.
With the recent acquisition of Voila, Sharpe joked in an interview that mobile banking will take off in the coming years. "I'll put 10 bucks down that we beat all of your expectations."
(Houston Chronicle) - By Trenton Daniel
PORT-AU-PRINCE — Getting money in Haiti can be a harrowing experience: Bank branches are few, most of them are in the capital and a simple transaction can take half a day. Cash machines are scarce as well, and often broken or empty. And then there are the thieves who often wait nearby in hopes of finding a mark.
So aid agencies trying to remake Haiti after a catastrophic earthquake are promoting a new way to bypass banks altogether: easy money transfers by cellphone. The U.S. government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have pumped millions of dollars into the plan, which lets people save and move money in mobile phone accounts and quickly withdraw it at a network of retail stores around the country.
As yet, though, few Haitians are buying the idea, which has become one of many post-quake projects to fall short of expectations and a reminder of how hard it is to change a society that has been repeatedly set back by political upheaval and natural disasters.
"I'm not going to invest my money in something I don't see," said James Alexis, a 33-year-old truck driver, as he stood in line at a bank in downtown Port-au-Prince, a wait he expected would take two hours. "It could be a trick."
Backers admit adoption has been slower than expected, though they remain optimistic it will expand, in part because so many Haitians rely on cellphones, often to find jobs. Some 800,000 people initially registered for the service, even if only about 22,000 people regularly use it.
The service "has gone on in the face of political violence, political instability, cholera, gas shortages, you name it, and we're this far," said Greta Greathouse, director of a U.S. Agency for International Development program to improve financial services in Haiti. "Does it mean we're there yet? No. We want it to be sustainable and there's a lot of work that needs to be done."
A spokesman for the Gates Foundation in Seattle, Chris Williams, said by telephone that the project is a "work in progress" but that it's going well.
"It's not a huge surprise to find some disconnect between the number of registered users and currently active users," Williams said. "It takes some time to build up to scale."
The project began months after the January 2010 earthquake when the Gates Foundation announced that it was creating the Haiti Mobile Money Initiative with a $10 million donation. USAID contributed another $5 million for technical assistance.
The idea was to help the 90 percent of Haitians who don't use banks by replicating a mobile money-transfer system that has gained popularity in countries such as Kenya, Uganda and the Philippines.
Two local cellphone companies, Digicel Group Ltd. and Voila, rushed to compete for the money by setting up their own mobile money transfer systems, and so far have been awarded a total of $6.8 million from the foundation.
The system is essentially an account linked to the telephone. Users can transfer up to $250 at a time to another subscriber, who can then withdraw the money from a network of shops ranging from auto-parts stores to internet cafes. As much as $1,500 can be transferred in a month. So far, international transfers are not allowed.
Digicel-Haiti's former CEO, Maarten Boute, said at a Barcelona conference in February that it wasn't easy to explain the system. "Our main lesson learned is how difficult it is to educate customers," said Boute, who is now a senior adviser to the Jamaica-based company. "When we launched the service we assumed it would be something like selling a mobile phone, where you stick a mobile phone into someone's hand and almost anyone can start using it quite quickly because it's very easy to understand. With a mobile banking service or a mobile money service it's not quite that easy."
The Christian charity World Vision joined the program, seeing it as a simple, cash-free way to pay small rental subsidies to help people move out of the gloomy settlements that sprang up after the earthquake.
But many people didn't understand how to use the technology and were leery of it, said Keith Chibafa, who oversees the project for World Vision. The nonprofit registered 6,000 subscribers for the service, but only 1,000 actually use it.
Confidence was undermined on one occasion when residents of a camp in the city of Croix-des-Bouquets, outside the capital, went to collect their payments and were told there was no money.
"We did have an agent running out of cash," Chibafa said. "It was a problem, a serious problem."
Cab driver Ernst Figaro said he doesn't trust the new service any more than the banks, which are not known for their customer service.
"The electronic system in Haiti is not standing on its feet yet," Figaro said while taking a break from work on a park bench. "I just don't trust putting my money in this system."
Others, such as Wilner Destina, have become converts. The 40-year-old street painter signed up six months ago because he was eager to avoid the frustrating hour-long lines at commercial banks. "It allows us to do (money) transfers with ease," Destina said outside a Digicel store in downtown Port-au-Prince after sending the equivalent of $50 to a friend in Gonaives, a port city 110 kilometers (68 miles) northwest of Haiti's capital.
David Sharpe, Digicel's director of products and services, hopes to find more people like Destina, attracting them with features such as a lottery played on the cellphone and, later, international wire transfers.
More users will arrive through a new government program that will use the service to make transfers to as many as 100,000 mothers who keep their children in school.
With the recent acquisition of Voila, Sharpe joked in an interview that mobile banking will take off in the coming years. "I'll put 10 bucks down that we beat all of your expectations."
Saturday, June 9, 2012
ARTICLE - HAITI'S GRIM HISTORY - BUSINESS
HAITI'S GRIM HISTORY OF BEING "OPEN FOR BUSINESS"
(Haiti Liberte) - By Haiti Grassroots Watch)
The gold mines planned for Haiti’s north come on the heels of centuries of foreign investment in – and extraction of – the country’s minerals as well as other natural and agricultural resources.
1492: Writing in his journal during his first voyage, Christopher Columbus said the people of what would later be called “Hispaniola” – today comprised of Haiti and the Dominican Republic – gave the sailors gold with “such generosity of heart and such joy that it was wonderful.” Every other entry has references like “great pieces of gold,” and “pieces of gold as large as the hand.” In the years that followed, hundreds of thousands, some say millions, of indigenous people died in gold mines and due to Spanish-borne diseases.
A decade after Columbus’ first trip, the Spanish crown was already getting its “royal fifth” (20% of all gold found) from the Caribbean, collecting 8,000 ducats (about 884 ounces) in 1503, and about 120,000 ducats (13,272 ounces) in 1518.
1697-1804: The labor of an estimated 800,000 African slaves earned the French colony the nickname “Pearl of the Antilles” because of the massive wealth produced for the French crown and French investors exporting sugar, coffee and indigo. According to some researchers, by 1789 the colony exported one-half the world’s coffee and accounted for about 40% of France’s foreign trade.
1857: U.S. sea captain Peter Duncan proclaimed La Navasse Island, off Haiti’s lower “arm,” a “U.S. territory” under the 1856 U.S. Guano Island Act, which proclaimed that any U.S. citizen could take “peaceable possession” of any guano-rich “island, rock or key” that is “not within the lawful jurisdiction of any other Government.” Guano – bird dung – was in high demand as a fertilizer.
La Navasse was part of Haiti, but no matter. The U.S. claimed the island and a company town was built to “mine” the dung. Today, the company is long gone, but La Navasse is still considered a U.S. territory by Washington. But Haiti still claims La Navasse and lists the island as national territory in its 1987 Constitution.
1910: Hayti Mines Company, based in New York, bought Compagnie Minière de Terre-Neuve. Over 10 years, the company exported 436 tons of copper ore. No more information is available.
1911: W.R. Grace backed U.S. entrepreneur James MacDonald, allowing him to take over Haiti’s National Railroad Company. In exchange for promising to build a railway from Port-au-Prince to the northern city of Cap-Haïtien, MacDonald was given 50-year concessions for all the land alongside the eventual 320-kilometer railway line for banana plantations – two kilometers in each direction – as well as a 50-year monopoly on banana exports. The MacDonald Company issued US$35 million worth of bonds which were 60% guaranteed by the Haitian government. MacDonald failed and fled. During the 1915-1934 U.S. occupation, the Haitian government was forced to pay out over $4 million to investors.
1915-1934: U.S. occupation of Haiti. Explained President Woodrow Wilson in 1913: “Our responsibility to the American people demands that we assist American investors in Haiti.” In 1914, U.S. Marines seized Haiti’s gold reserves, and within months U.S. Marines invaded again to begin the longest of all U.S. military occupations.
After a puppet parliament passed a law allowing foreigners to own land, over 1,000 square kilometers of land were granted to U.S. companies between 1917 and 1927, and another 1,000 square kilometers were sold to U.S. companies after 1928. U.S. pineapple, sugar, banana, and sisal companies expelled tens of thousands of farming families from their plots. Firms included familiar names like United Fruit and Standard Fruit, but also Haitian Products Co., Haitian American Sugar Co., etc. Most U.S. plantations ended in failure.
This period also saw massive migration of Haitian laborers, illegally and legally, to Cuba and the Dominican Republic in search of work. Total numbers are not known but from 1915 to 1930, between 5,000 and 20,000 mostly male labors legally went to Cuba each year.
1935: Standard Fruit and Steamship Company signed a 10-year contract, which was renewed for another five years. The New Orleans-based firm was given a monopoly over all banana exports for the first 10 years, and over most exports for the period 1945-1950. By 1945, in the Artibonite Valley alone, the company controlled 3,900 hectares directly and bought bananas from farmers on another 5,000 hectares. Growers who refused to plant bananas often faced repression and torched fields. Bananas became one of the country’s major exports by 1945, but the corruption of government authorities and other factors contributed to a gradual decline.
1941: The Haitian American Agricultural Development Company (SHADA in French) was formed in order to supply the U.S. government with rubber and sisal (for rope) for World War II. The firm got a US$5 million loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank and a concession of some 60,000 hectares of farmland and pine forest for the dual purpose of logging and planting rubber and cryptostegia, a rubber bush. In addition, SHADA got over 130,000 hectares of land in the north and northeast, which it logged completely, in order to set up sisal plantations. Farmers thrown off their land received a pittance in compensation – between $5 and $25 per carreau (1.29 hectares). A million fruit trees in Haiti’s southwest alone (Grande Anse) were cut down. In just one year, 1943, over 30,000 families were expelled from their lands. The rubber project closed down in 1945, with a $6.8 million loss. Other SHADA projects lost over $2 million that year, too. SHADA is considered the worst fiasco “development” project in Haitian history.
1944: Reynolds Haitian Mines, Inc., obtained an exclusive monopoly on bauxite and a concession to mine near Miragoâne. Over about 40 years,13.3 million tons of bauxite was sent up to Corpus Christi, Texas. Haitian bauxite accounted for almost one-fifth of Reynolds’ bauxite acquisition in the years between 1959 and 1982. Reynolds was given access to 150,000 hectares. Thousands of families were expelled.
The Haitian government got royalties of 90 US cents on the metric ton at first, then US$1.29. When Haiti and other countries formed the International Bauxite Association (IBA) in 1974, royalties went up again, but within six years, Reynolds had pulled out, having extracted most of the bauxite and also in search of countries with lower royalties. Over its four decades in Haiti, Reynolds built one eight-mile road and employed about 300 people.
1955: The Société d'Exploitation et de Développement Economique et Naturel (SEDREN), owned by the Canadian company Consolidated Halliwell, obtained a concession to mine copper in the region of Mémé (Terre-Neuve/Gonaïves). Over 12 years (1960-1972), SEDREN exported 1.5 million tons of copper ore valued at about $83.5 million. The government got about US$3 million.
At its high point – 1971 – the mining industry (Reynolds and SEDREN together) employed only 889 people, who were paid only the minimum wage – less than 70 US cents a day at the time. All skilled labor came from overseas.
Haitian economist Fred Doura has called Haiti’s economy a dependent and “extraverted” characterized by enclaves. Speaking of mining, he wrote: “The extractive industry in Haiti is a typical example of an ‘enclave’ industry under foreign domination where two North American transnationals exploited the minerals bauxite and copper… [T]he impact was practically null on the economy.” [Économie d’Haïti – dépendence, crise et développement (2001)]
Sociologist and historian Alex Dupuy agrees with Doura’s assessment. “Historically, foreign investments have not had positive impacts on the Haitian population in general,” the Wesleyan professor explained to HGW in a telephone interview in February 2012. “Usually a few members of the Haitian elite benefit, the state takes its part, and then the profits all go to the company.”
“Peasants have good reason to be distrustful of any and all proposals of foreign investment in Haiti, because they know very well how these projects have gone in the past,” Dupuy added. “They are here to invest for themselves, not for the country, not for the peasants. They appropriate peasants’ lands, taking away their only means of livelihood. So why should peasants trust them, or the central government in Port-au-Prince, or anyone else?”
(Haiti Liberte) - By Haiti Grassroots Watch)
The gold mines planned for Haiti’s north come on the heels of centuries of foreign investment in – and extraction of – the country’s minerals as well as other natural and agricultural resources.
1492: Writing in his journal during his first voyage, Christopher Columbus said the people of what would later be called “Hispaniola” – today comprised of Haiti and the Dominican Republic – gave the sailors gold with “such generosity of heart and such joy that it was wonderful.” Every other entry has references like “great pieces of gold,” and “pieces of gold as large as the hand.” In the years that followed, hundreds of thousands, some say millions, of indigenous people died in gold mines and due to Spanish-borne diseases.
A decade after Columbus’ first trip, the Spanish crown was already getting its “royal fifth” (20% of all gold found) from the Caribbean, collecting 8,000 ducats (about 884 ounces) in 1503, and about 120,000 ducats (13,272 ounces) in 1518.
1697-1804: The labor of an estimated 800,000 African slaves earned the French colony the nickname “Pearl of the Antilles” because of the massive wealth produced for the French crown and French investors exporting sugar, coffee and indigo. According to some researchers, by 1789 the colony exported one-half the world’s coffee and accounted for about 40% of France’s foreign trade.
1857: U.S. sea captain Peter Duncan proclaimed La Navasse Island, off Haiti’s lower “arm,” a “U.S. territory” under the 1856 U.S. Guano Island Act, which proclaimed that any U.S. citizen could take “peaceable possession” of any guano-rich “island, rock or key” that is “not within the lawful jurisdiction of any other Government.” Guano – bird dung – was in high demand as a fertilizer.
La Navasse was part of Haiti, but no matter. The U.S. claimed the island and a company town was built to “mine” the dung. Today, the company is long gone, but La Navasse is still considered a U.S. territory by Washington. But Haiti still claims La Navasse and lists the island as national territory in its 1987 Constitution.
1910: Hayti Mines Company, based in New York, bought Compagnie Minière de Terre-Neuve. Over 10 years, the company exported 436 tons of copper ore. No more information is available.
1911: W.R. Grace backed U.S. entrepreneur James MacDonald, allowing him to take over Haiti’s National Railroad Company. In exchange for promising to build a railway from Port-au-Prince to the northern city of Cap-Haïtien, MacDonald was given 50-year concessions for all the land alongside the eventual 320-kilometer railway line for banana plantations – two kilometers in each direction – as well as a 50-year monopoly on banana exports. The MacDonald Company issued US$35 million worth of bonds which were 60% guaranteed by the Haitian government. MacDonald failed and fled. During the 1915-1934 U.S. occupation, the Haitian government was forced to pay out over $4 million to investors.
1915-1934: U.S. occupation of Haiti. Explained President Woodrow Wilson in 1913: “Our responsibility to the American people demands that we assist American investors in Haiti.” In 1914, U.S. Marines seized Haiti’s gold reserves, and within months U.S. Marines invaded again to begin the longest of all U.S. military occupations.
After a puppet parliament passed a law allowing foreigners to own land, over 1,000 square kilometers of land were granted to U.S. companies between 1917 and 1927, and another 1,000 square kilometers were sold to U.S. companies after 1928. U.S. pineapple, sugar, banana, and sisal companies expelled tens of thousands of farming families from their plots. Firms included familiar names like United Fruit and Standard Fruit, but also Haitian Products Co., Haitian American Sugar Co., etc. Most U.S. plantations ended in failure.
This period also saw massive migration of Haitian laborers, illegally and legally, to Cuba and the Dominican Republic in search of work. Total numbers are not known but from 1915 to 1930, between 5,000 and 20,000 mostly male labors legally went to Cuba each year.
1935: Standard Fruit and Steamship Company signed a 10-year contract, which was renewed for another five years. The New Orleans-based firm was given a monopoly over all banana exports for the first 10 years, and over most exports for the period 1945-1950. By 1945, in the Artibonite Valley alone, the company controlled 3,900 hectares directly and bought bananas from farmers on another 5,000 hectares. Growers who refused to plant bananas often faced repression and torched fields. Bananas became one of the country’s major exports by 1945, but the corruption of government authorities and other factors contributed to a gradual decline.
1941: The Haitian American Agricultural Development Company (SHADA in French) was formed in order to supply the U.S. government with rubber and sisal (for rope) for World War II. The firm got a US$5 million loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank and a concession of some 60,000 hectares of farmland and pine forest for the dual purpose of logging and planting rubber and cryptostegia, a rubber bush. In addition, SHADA got over 130,000 hectares of land in the north and northeast, which it logged completely, in order to set up sisal plantations. Farmers thrown off their land received a pittance in compensation – between $5 and $25 per carreau (1.29 hectares). A million fruit trees in Haiti’s southwest alone (Grande Anse) were cut down. In just one year, 1943, over 30,000 families were expelled from their lands. The rubber project closed down in 1945, with a $6.8 million loss. Other SHADA projects lost over $2 million that year, too. SHADA is considered the worst fiasco “development” project in Haitian history.
1944: Reynolds Haitian Mines, Inc., obtained an exclusive monopoly on bauxite and a concession to mine near Miragoâne. Over about 40 years,13.3 million tons of bauxite was sent up to Corpus Christi, Texas. Haitian bauxite accounted for almost one-fifth of Reynolds’ bauxite acquisition in the years between 1959 and 1982. Reynolds was given access to 150,000 hectares. Thousands of families were expelled.
The Haitian government got royalties of 90 US cents on the metric ton at first, then US$1.29. When Haiti and other countries formed the International Bauxite Association (IBA) in 1974, royalties went up again, but within six years, Reynolds had pulled out, having extracted most of the bauxite and also in search of countries with lower royalties. Over its four decades in Haiti, Reynolds built one eight-mile road and employed about 300 people.
1955: The Société d'Exploitation et de Développement Economique et Naturel (SEDREN), owned by the Canadian company Consolidated Halliwell, obtained a concession to mine copper in the region of Mémé (Terre-Neuve/Gonaïves). Over 12 years (1960-1972), SEDREN exported 1.5 million tons of copper ore valued at about $83.5 million. The government got about US$3 million.
At its high point – 1971 – the mining industry (Reynolds and SEDREN together) employed only 889 people, who were paid only the minimum wage – less than 70 US cents a day at the time. All skilled labor came from overseas.
Haitian economist Fred Doura has called Haiti’s economy a dependent and “extraverted” characterized by enclaves. Speaking of mining, he wrote: “The extractive industry in Haiti is a typical example of an ‘enclave’ industry under foreign domination where two North American transnationals exploited the minerals bauxite and copper… [T]he impact was practically null on the economy.” [Économie d’Haïti – dépendence, crise et développement (2001)]
Sociologist and historian Alex Dupuy agrees with Doura’s assessment. “Historically, foreign investments have not had positive impacts on the Haitian population in general,” the Wesleyan professor explained to HGW in a telephone interview in February 2012. “Usually a few members of the Haitian elite benefit, the state takes its part, and then the profits all go to the company.”
“Peasants have good reason to be distrustful of any and all proposals of foreign investment in Haiti, because they know very well how these projects have gone in the past,” Dupuy added. “They are here to invest for themselves, not for the country, not for the peasants. They appropriate peasants’ lands, taking away their only means of livelihood. So why should peasants trust them, or the central government in Port-au-Prince, or anyone else?”
ARTICLE - STRUGGLE OF FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS
FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS CONTINUE TO STRUGGLE FOR ECONOMIC RESOURCES AFTER EARTHQUAKE
(Global Press Institute) - By Lynda Michel
It’s been more than two years since the 7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti in January 2010. Women who lost their businesses in the natural disaster say they have not been able to recover their livelihoods. Some have started makeshift jobs, while others remain unemployed or admit to resorting to sex work.
Part I in a Series: Employment in Haiti
JÉRÉMIE – Elda Vilmeney had a business selling Coca-Cola in bulk on Third Avenue in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. But the 7.0 earthquake destroyed much of Haiti in January 2010, and she hasn’t been able to economically recover in the more than two years since the disaster.
“While I was inside my business, everything began to shake, and I had no idea what was happening,” Vilmeney says. “When I hurried to get outside, my foot turned and broke in several places. The American Marines operated on my foot and inserted metal pins, which will remain there until I die.”
With her business destroyed, she says her family suffered.
“For over a month, my children and I slept on the street,” she says. “We had great difficulty finding anything to eat.”
Today, she cooks and sells food on the roadside. She says that although it’s been more than two years, she hasn’t been able to re-establish her business. Instead, she and her husband are still seeking work in the informal sector.
“The earthquake destroyed my business with everything I had in it,” she says. “My husband gets little jobs from time to time, but what he brings in every month is hardly anything.”
She has four children – three boys and a girl.
“It is difficult for us to feed them, dress them and send them to school,” she says. “Jan. 12 really hurt us and left us a lot poorer than we already were. In Haiti, even when a person is able-bodied and not handicapped, it is still very hard to make a living to take care of my kids.”
Many women in Haiti say they lost their livelihoods in the 2010 earthquake. Two years later, these earthquake victims say they are still struggling to find employment in order to support themselves and their families. Nongovernmental organizations have offered special assistance to women, including microcredit schemes. The government has also prioritized women and offered them employment opportunities. Still, many women say they haven’t been able to recover from losing their sources of income.
Each year, 250 million people worldwide become victims of natural disasters, according to a 2009 report by Oxfam International, an international confederation working to end poverty and injustice. By 2015, that estimate climbs to 375 million. Women are among the most vulnerable groups, according to the report.
Many women in Haiti face special challenges as the economic lungs of their families. Sixty percent of Haitian households are headed by women, according to a recent U.N. conference for university students in Haiti about responsible government.
In rural areas of Haiti, female-headed households are more likely to live in poverty than male-headed households, according to a World Bank report.
Marcelin Rose Danie and her family were also victims of the earthquake. They lived in the center of Port-au-Prince.
“The house that I lived in had four floors,” she says. “I lived on the second floor, and while I rushed to get out, I did not have time to get down the stairs because the stairs collapsed and the building came crashing down around me. I was left with nothing.”
She talks by candlelight, as she doesn’t have electricity. A small child sleeps on her lap. Danie says that in addition to property, she also lost family members.
“My mother was killed because three floors of the house fell on her,” she says. “That is how she died. At first I was still able to talk to her, but there was so much debris she could not get out. Then she told me that the pain was getting to be too much, and after that she stopped talking.”
She says they recovered her mother’s body a few days later.
“Once they had removed all the rubble, we found the body of my mother,” she says. “It was Jan. 19 when we found her, and her body had not yet begun to decompose. We had a chance to bury her. Many families did not have that chance.”
She says her mother, a widow, was the economic backbone of her family.
“When my mother died, she left six children,” she says. “My father had died much earlier, and it was my mother who raised us. Now everything is much more difficult for us.”
She says her mother’s business supported their family. Her mother sold rice, sugar and flour.
“While we are all adults, my mother used to help us out a lot with the small business she used to run,” she says. “I wish we had enough to live on.”
Danie says she and her family members must now find a new way to support themselves.
For some women, the only ways they can find to support themselves since the earthquake are less than ideal.
Before the earthquake, Christine was involved in small commerce, selling items in the market. But she lost this business in the earthquake. Her husband also died in the earthquake, leaving her on her own.
Today she admits she turned to sex work, saying it was the only way she could make ends meet after the earthquake. Christine declined to give her last name because of the social stigma attached to sex work here.
But despite this social stigma, she says many other women have resorted to sex work since the earthquake in order to support themselves and their families. “Because it is women who keep the family together,” she says. “Even though they subsist on very little, they often have to prostitute themselves. They do so reluctantly, but they need money to pay the school fees for their children.
They need to put food on the table. They need money for rent and also to take care of themselves and their children.”
A natural disaster has many victims.
“But women are hit the hardest,” says Altagras Benoit, another victim of the 2010 earthquake. “And until now, there is no plan in place that would protect women who are most vulnerable from the consequences of a natural disaster.”
As women continue to struggle more than two years after their livelihoods crumbled in the earthquake, local nongovernmental organizations have been doing their best to help.
Gregory Dussema, the administrator of the CARE office in Jérémie, a small town in southwestern Haiti, says that the international humanitarian organization has placed special emphasis on assisting women since the earthquake.
“CARE’s mission is to help people who are marginalized, especially people who have become homeless due to a natural disaster,” he says. “After the January 2010 earthquake, CARE put a lot of emphasis on helping women.”
He says that CARE treats both women and men equally.
“Nonetheless, we give women special attention,” he says.
He attributes this to the special needs that women have after natural disasters.
“Their needs are different,” he says. “We distributed hygiene kits with Kotex, soap, toothpaste and all other items women need and use.”
CARE focuses on women in rural areas here.
“Most of our work here in Jérémie is done in the countryside,” he says. “We go by motorcycle and often spend the night because it is difficult to get to those faraway areas. But we talk to the women a lot and encourage them. We do this, despite the fact that the work is not easy.”
In addition to attending to women’s basic needs, CARE has also implemented special programs to help female entrepreneurs.
“We also put a microcredit program together, and we see that 90 percent of the participants are women,” Dussema says. “And it is the women who administer the program themselves.”
Pierre Ronald Etienne, mayor of Jérémie, says that CARE and the government have both aimed to help families since the 2010 earthquake.
“After the earthquake, the mayor’s office and CARE gave aid to 3,000 families for six months,” he says, smoking a cigarette. “We gave preference to women who had no husband.”
Smoke from his cigarette curls up into the air as he talks.
“At the level of the mayor’s office, we gave a lot of aid, especially to women who lost their husbands in the earthquake,” he says. “We paid the school fees for a lot of children, which gave the mothers peace of mind. I cannot give you exact figures, but we paid for many.”
He says the government also offered employment opportunities to women who lost their businesses in the earthquake.
“In addition, we also gave a number of women work,” he says. “We employed three women in the mayor’s office and employed 15 women as street sweepers. Other[s] we helped out with some stipends.”
He says that women thrive in the working world when given the opportunity.
“We like employing women because they take work seriously and work well,” he says.
(Global Press Institute) - By Lynda Michel
It’s been more than two years since the 7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti in January 2010. Women who lost their businesses in the natural disaster say they have not been able to recover their livelihoods. Some have started makeshift jobs, while others remain unemployed or admit to resorting to sex work.
Part I in a Series: Employment in Haiti
JÉRÉMIE – Elda Vilmeney had a business selling Coca-Cola in bulk on Third Avenue in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. But the 7.0 earthquake destroyed much of Haiti in January 2010, and she hasn’t been able to economically recover in the more than two years since the disaster.
“While I was inside my business, everything began to shake, and I had no idea what was happening,” Vilmeney says. “When I hurried to get outside, my foot turned and broke in several places. The American Marines operated on my foot and inserted metal pins, which will remain there until I die.”
With her business destroyed, she says her family suffered.
“For over a month, my children and I slept on the street,” she says. “We had great difficulty finding anything to eat.”
Today, she cooks and sells food on the roadside. She says that although it’s been more than two years, she hasn’t been able to re-establish her business. Instead, she and her husband are still seeking work in the informal sector.
“The earthquake destroyed my business with everything I had in it,” she says. “My husband gets little jobs from time to time, but what he brings in every month is hardly anything.”
She has four children – three boys and a girl.
“It is difficult for us to feed them, dress them and send them to school,” she says. “Jan. 12 really hurt us and left us a lot poorer than we already were. In Haiti, even when a person is able-bodied and not handicapped, it is still very hard to make a living to take care of my kids.”
Many women in Haiti say they lost their livelihoods in the 2010 earthquake. Two years later, these earthquake victims say they are still struggling to find employment in order to support themselves and their families. Nongovernmental organizations have offered special assistance to women, including microcredit schemes. The government has also prioritized women and offered them employment opportunities. Still, many women say they haven’t been able to recover from losing their sources of income.
Each year, 250 million people worldwide become victims of natural disasters, according to a 2009 report by Oxfam International, an international confederation working to end poverty and injustice. By 2015, that estimate climbs to 375 million. Women are among the most vulnerable groups, according to the report.
Many women in Haiti face special challenges as the economic lungs of their families. Sixty percent of Haitian households are headed by women, according to a recent U.N. conference for university students in Haiti about responsible government.
In rural areas of Haiti, female-headed households are more likely to live in poverty than male-headed households, according to a World Bank report.
Marcelin Rose Danie and her family were also victims of the earthquake. They lived in the center of Port-au-Prince.
“The house that I lived in had four floors,” she says. “I lived on the second floor, and while I rushed to get out, I did not have time to get down the stairs because the stairs collapsed and the building came crashing down around me. I was left with nothing.”
She talks by candlelight, as she doesn’t have electricity. A small child sleeps on her lap. Danie says that in addition to property, she also lost family members.
“My mother was killed because three floors of the house fell on her,” she says. “That is how she died. At first I was still able to talk to her, but there was so much debris she could not get out. Then she told me that the pain was getting to be too much, and after that she stopped talking.”
She says they recovered her mother’s body a few days later.
“Once they had removed all the rubble, we found the body of my mother,” she says. “It was Jan. 19 when we found her, and her body had not yet begun to decompose. We had a chance to bury her. Many families did not have that chance.”
She says her mother, a widow, was the economic backbone of her family.
“When my mother died, she left six children,” she says. “My father had died much earlier, and it was my mother who raised us. Now everything is much more difficult for us.”
She says her mother’s business supported their family. Her mother sold rice, sugar and flour.
“While we are all adults, my mother used to help us out a lot with the small business she used to run,” she says. “I wish we had enough to live on.”
Danie says she and her family members must now find a new way to support themselves.
For some women, the only ways they can find to support themselves since the earthquake are less than ideal.
Before the earthquake, Christine was involved in small commerce, selling items in the market. But she lost this business in the earthquake. Her husband also died in the earthquake, leaving her on her own.
Today she admits she turned to sex work, saying it was the only way she could make ends meet after the earthquake. Christine declined to give her last name because of the social stigma attached to sex work here.
But despite this social stigma, she says many other women have resorted to sex work since the earthquake in order to support themselves and their families. “Because it is women who keep the family together,” she says. “Even though they subsist on very little, they often have to prostitute themselves. They do so reluctantly, but they need money to pay the school fees for their children.
They need to put food on the table. They need money for rent and also to take care of themselves and their children.”
A natural disaster has many victims.
“But women are hit the hardest,” says Altagras Benoit, another victim of the 2010 earthquake. “And until now, there is no plan in place that would protect women who are most vulnerable from the consequences of a natural disaster.”
As women continue to struggle more than two years after their livelihoods crumbled in the earthquake, local nongovernmental organizations have been doing their best to help.
Gregory Dussema, the administrator of the CARE office in Jérémie, a small town in southwestern Haiti, says that the international humanitarian organization has placed special emphasis on assisting women since the earthquake.
“CARE’s mission is to help people who are marginalized, especially people who have become homeless due to a natural disaster,” he says. “After the January 2010 earthquake, CARE put a lot of emphasis on helping women.”
He says that CARE treats both women and men equally.
“Nonetheless, we give women special attention,” he says.
He attributes this to the special needs that women have after natural disasters.
“Their needs are different,” he says. “We distributed hygiene kits with Kotex, soap, toothpaste and all other items women need and use.”
CARE focuses on women in rural areas here.
“Most of our work here in Jérémie is done in the countryside,” he says. “We go by motorcycle and often spend the night because it is difficult to get to those faraway areas. But we talk to the women a lot and encourage them. We do this, despite the fact that the work is not easy.”
In addition to attending to women’s basic needs, CARE has also implemented special programs to help female entrepreneurs.
“We also put a microcredit program together, and we see that 90 percent of the participants are women,” Dussema says. “And it is the women who administer the program themselves.”
Pierre Ronald Etienne, mayor of Jérémie, says that CARE and the government have both aimed to help families since the 2010 earthquake.
“After the earthquake, the mayor’s office and CARE gave aid to 3,000 families for six months,” he says, smoking a cigarette. “We gave preference to women who had no husband.”
Smoke from his cigarette curls up into the air as he talks.
“At the level of the mayor’s office, we gave a lot of aid, especially to women who lost their husbands in the earthquake,” he says. “We paid the school fees for a lot of children, which gave the mothers peace of mind. I cannot give you exact figures, but we paid for many.”
He says the government also offered employment opportunities to women who lost their businesses in the earthquake.
“In addition, we also gave a number of women work,” he says. “We employed three women in the mayor’s office and employed 15 women as street sweepers. Other[s] we helped out with some stipends.”
He says that women thrive in the working world when given the opportunity.
“We like employing women because they take work seriously and work well,” he says.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
ARTICLE - D.R. FREE TRADE = DIVISION
THE IDEA OF A FREE TRADE AGREEMENT WITH THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC DIVIDES
(Haiti Libre) -
The statements this week, of the new President of the Dominican Republic, Danilo Medina, elected Sunday, May 20, 2012, according to which he would like to sign a free trade agreement with Haiti, provoke mixed reactions in the economic sectors in Haiti.
For Jean Robert Argand, former President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Haiti (CCIH), the signature of such an agreement "would be totally in favor of Dominican traders who would invade our market, because we don't have the ability to compete;" explaining that products from the Dominican Republic are everywhere in Haiti, while the Haitian merchants are not even able, mostly, to cross the border to sell their products. Citing as an example, Prestige beer or rum Barbancourt, which can only with great difficulty penetrate the neighboring market, while the beer and rum from Dominican Republic, are found in almost all supermarkets in Haiti. He believes that before thinking about signing such a treaty, the Haitian government should first be concerned to accompany Haitian producers and traders.
Eddy Labossière, the President of the Haitian Association of Economists (AHE), does not share this vision. He does not believe that such a Treaty of Free Trade between the two countries, will create more inequality than currently, while the trade balance of exports of Haiti, is already in a deficit of nearly $800 million annually for the benefit of the Dominicans.
He thinks the contrary, citing Prestige Beer and Rum Barbancourt as examples. These two products would find in such an agreement, an open door to market their products in the DR market. Nevertheless, he recognizes that such a treaty would be profitable at first, for merchants and companies that already have competitive advantages with the neighboring country, but also that the agreement would penalize other sectors of the Haitian economy with no such advantages. The Haitian economist, believes that the Government should address this issue within the framework of the Joint Bilateral Commission to analyze all aspects, and to identify the sectors of the Haitian economy that should be protected and enhanced.
One thing is certain; that any good free trade agreement between the two countries will have to find the right balance between the mutual opening of markets, and the inclusion of protectionist measures for sectors that may be threatened; the time they reach sufficient maturity, and to face the competitiveness of the neighboring country.
(Haiti Libre) -
The statements this week, of the new President of the Dominican Republic, Danilo Medina, elected Sunday, May 20, 2012, according to which he would like to sign a free trade agreement with Haiti, provoke mixed reactions in the economic sectors in Haiti.
For Jean Robert Argand, former President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Haiti (CCIH), the signature of such an agreement "would be totally in favor of Dominican traders who would invade our market, because we don't have the ability to compete;" explaining that products from the Dominican Republic are everywhere in Haiti, while the Haitian merchants are not even able, mostly, to cross the border to sell their products. Citing as an example, Prestige beer or rum Barbancourt, which can only with great difficulty penetrate the neighboring market, while the beer and rum from Dominican Republic, are found in almost all supermarkets in Haiti. He believes that before thinking about signing such a treaty, the Haitian government should first be concerned to accompany Haitian producers and traders.
Eddy Labossière, the President of the Haitian Association of Economists (AHE), does not share this vision. He does not believe that such a Treaty of Free Trade between the two countries, will create more inequality than currently, while the trade balance of exports of Haiti, is already in a deficit of nearly $800 million annually for the benefit of the Dominicans.
He thinks the contrary, citing Prestige Beer and Rum Barbancourt as examples. These two products would find in such an agreement, an open door to market their products in the DR market. Nevertheless, he recognizes that such a treaty would be profitable at first, for merchants and companies that already have competitive advantages with the neighboring country, but also that the agreement would penalize other sectors of the Haitian economy with no such advantages. The Haitian economist, believes that the Government should address this issue within the framework of the Joint Bilateral Commission to analyze all aspects, and to identify the sectors of the Haitian economy that should be protected and enhanced.
One thing is certain; that any good free trade agreement between the two countries will have to find the right balance between the mutual opening of markets, and the inclusion of protectionist measures for sectors that may be threatened; the time they reach sufficient maturity, and to face the competitiveness of the neighboring country.
ARTICLE - SHIFT IN HAITIAN DESIGN
AN HISTORIC SHIFT FOR HAITIAN DESIGN
(Haiti Libre) -
The Trade Facilitation Office of Canada and BRAIDAID Project are pleased to announce the debut of a new product collection from Haiti at SIDIM in Montreal from May 24 to 26, 2012.
The developing world is one of the next design frontiers, producing goods that fuse quality with creativity beyond just low cost. This year long development project produced unique regional hybrids that combine a craft tradition and contemporary design process. Through the push and pull of cross cultural collaboration, a new vernacular emerged - one that respects and elevates local traditions. In contrast with the familiar presentations of Haitian culture, this collection presents something much more dynamic: a living breathing culture with a critical role in the global design marketplace.
The work of nine Haitian companies and communities is showcased in the Carrefour International Section at SIDIM in Montreal. Canadian designer, Patty Johnson, worked collaboratively with Ashley Design, Axelle, Caribbean Craft, Carnival Jacmel, Croix des Bouquets, Les Dix Doigts, Indepco, Intext, and, Peace Quilts to create over 50 new products ranging from home textiles through furniture and home décor products to artifacts and lighting.
The project is supported by the Trade Facilitation Office of Canada and BRANDAID Project through funding by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
Cameron Brohman, Founder of BRANDAID Project, says, "The debut of this collection at SIDIM marks an historic shift in the world's perception of Haitian culture. The old and misunderstood Haiti is now recognised as the brilliant and wise genius of a design tradition with thousands of years of aesthetic experience. Haiti can finally take its place in the global pantheon of design."
For Canadian designer Patty Johnson, "My experience designing with these manufacturers and communities is one of the most enriching of my life. I learned, once again, that people-centred design has a middle component, living between ethnography and interface. Hand manufacturing is the reality in much of the world, and designers, sitting at their desks sending off PDFs to unknown destinations, may be a modern paradigm, but ultimately a hollow one. I would encourage designers to go and visit where their products are made, and, especially, with the people who make them."
May 24 to 26, 2012 SIDIM, Carrefour International, Place Bonaventure, Montreal, Quebec
Learn more about BRANDAID Project Inc:
BRANDAID believes that reducing poverty is a business opportunity. Based in Canada, BRANDAID's hybrid business model includes both for-profit and non-profit streams and is designed to brand the exceptional product lines of microenterprises in the developing world and launch them in the global marketplace. BRANDAID's simple, successful model mobilizes the powerful energy of big brand marketing and applies it to small handmade economies and their products.
(Haiti Libre) -
The Trade Facilitation Office of Canada and BRAIDAID Project are pleased to announce the debut of a new product collection from Haiti at SIDIM in Montreal from May 24 to 26, 2012.
The developing world is one of the next design frontiers, producing goods that fuse quality with creativity beyond just low cost. This year long development project produced unique regional hybrids that combine a craft tradition and contemporary design process. Through the push and pull of cross cultural collaboration, a new vernacular emerged - one that respects and elevates local traditions. In contrast with the familiar presentations of Haitian culture, this collection presents something much more dynamic: a living breathing culture with a critical role in the global design marketplace.
The work of nine Haitian companies and communities is showcased in the Carrefour International Section at SIDIM in Montreal. Canadian designer, Patty Johnson, worked collaboratively with Ashley Design, Axelle, Caribbean Craft, Carnival Jacmel, Croix des Bouquets, Les Dix Doigts, Indepco, Intext, and, Peace Quilts to create over 50 new products ranging from home textiles through furniture and home décor products to artifacts and lighting.
The project is supported by the Trade Facilitation Office of Canada and BRANDAID Project through funding by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
Cameron Brohman, Founder of BRANDAID Project, says, "The debut of this collection at SIDIM marks an historic shift in the world's perception of Haitian culture. The old and misunderstood Haiti is now recognised as the brilliant and wise genius of a design tradition with thousands of years of aesthetic experience. Haiti can finally take its place in the global pantheon of design."
For Canadian designer Patty Johnson, "My experience designing with these manufacturers and communities is one of the most enriching of my life. I learned, once again, that people-centred design has a middle component, living between ethnography and interface. Hand manufacturing is the reality in much of the world, and designers, sitting at their desks sending off PDFs to unknown destinations, may be a modern paradigm, but ultimately a hollow one. I would encourage designers to go and visit where their products are made, and, especially, with the people who make them."
May 24 to 26, 2012 SIDIM, Carrefour International, Place Bonaventure, Montreal, Quebec
Learn more about BRANDAID Project Inc:
BRANDAID believes that reducing poverty is a business opportunity. Based in Canada, BRANDAID's hybrid business model includes both for-profit and non-profit streams and is designed to brand the exceptional product lines of microenterprises in the developing world and launch them in the global marketplace. BRANDAID's simple, successful model mobilizes the powerful energy of big brand marketing and applies it to small handmade economies and their products.
ARTICLE - COCA-COLA AND HAITI-HOPE
COCA-COLA AND HAITI-HOPE, RECOGNIZED IN THE CATEGORY OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES
(Haiti Libre) -
The Haiti Hope Project, a partnership that aims to create opportunities for Haitian mango farmers and their families, has been honored for developing innovative solutions to overcome poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Haiti Hope Project is a coalition comprised of The Coca-Cola Company; the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF); the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID); and TechnoServe. Additional support comes from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, the Soros Economic Development Fund and other international and local organizations.
The Coca-Cola Company’s Latin Center Business Unit received the Corporate Citizen of the Americas Award on Wednesday in Quito, Ecuador. Representatives from Coca-Cola and two other honorees were presented with awards during CSRAmericas, a conference on corporate social responsibility organized by the Multilateral Investment Fund, a member of the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB).
The award, given by the Trust for the Americas in partnership with the Organization of American States, honors innovative companies and programs that benefit the communities in which they operate and serve as a model for socially responsible practices by other corporations.
Coca-Cola and Haiti Hope were recognized in the category of economic opportunities.
The goal of Haiti Hope is to double the incomes of 25,000 Haitian mango farmers over five years. Achieving this goal will help raise their standard of living and contribute to the long-term development and revitalization of the agricultural sector. To support this goal, Haiti Hope brings together exporters and smallholder farmers, and promotes training opportunities for local producers to help improve Haiti’s mango industry.
Nearly 13,000 farmers – more than 40 percent of whom are women – have enrolled in Haiti Hope. Trainers have conducted more than 900 sessions to help farmers improve their production. The project is partnering with Sogesol, a local microfinance institution, to offer loans to farmers. So far, more than 1,400 farmers have taken out loans totaling more than $118,000.
Haiti Hope also makes it possible for consumers to support the development of the Haitian mango industry. Ten cents from every bottle of Odwalla Haiti Hope Mango Tango purchased is donated to Haiti Hope, up to $500,000 per year for the project’s duration.
(Haiti Libre) -
The Haiti Hope Project, a partnership that aims to create opportunities for Haitian mango farmers and their families, has been honored for developing innovative solutions to overcome poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Haiti Hope Project is a coalition comprised of The Coca-Cola Company; the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF); the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID); and TechnoServe. Additional support comes from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, the Soros Economic Development Fund and other international and local organizations.
The Coca-Cola Company’s Latin Center Business Unit received the Corporate Citizen of the Americas Award on Wednesday in Quito, Ecuador. Representatives from Coca-Cola and two other honorees were presented with awards during CSRAmericas, a conference on corporate social responsibility organized by the Multilateral Investment Fund, a member of the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB).
The award, given by the Trust for the Americas in partnership with the Organization of American States, honors innovative companies and programs that benefit the communities in which they operate and serve as a model for socially responsible practices by other corporations.
Coca-Cola and Haiti Hope were recognized in the category of economic opportunities.
The goal of Haiti Hope is to double the incomes of 25,000 Haitian mango farmers over five years. Achieving this goal will help raise their standard of living and contribute to the long-term development and revitalization of the agricultural sector. To support this goal, Haiti Hope brings together exporters and smallholder farmers, and promotes training opportunities for local producers to help improve Haiti’s mango industry.
Nearly 13,000 farmers – more than 40 percent of whom are women – have enrolled in Haiti Hope. Trainers have conducted more than 900 sessions to help farmers improve their production. The project is partnering with Sogesol, a local microfinance institution, to offer loans to farmers. So far, more than 1,400 farmers have taken out loans totaling more than $118,000.
Haiti Hope also makes it possible for consumers to support the development of the Haitian mango industry. Ten cents from every bottle of Odwalla Haiti Hope Mango Tango purchased is donated to Haiti Hope, up to $500,000 per year for the project’s duration.
ARTICLE - JEWELRY MADE FROM TRASH
JEWELRY MADE FROM TRASH GIVES HAITIAN PARENTS HOPE
(KSC) - By Jesse Hyde
PORT AU PRINCE — Not far from the bustling downtown of Port Au Prince, tucked away on a quiet hillside strewn with trash, Makaline Theodor is doing what single mothers do everywhere: trying to find a way to make ends meet.
Two years ago, she was out of work and out of luck, and so she sat down here, at what she thought was an orphanage, planning to give up the nursing child she could no longer feed.
But as luck would have it, it wasn't an orphanage. It was the home of an American woman named Shelley Clay.
"It was Christmas before the earthquake," Apparent Project Director Clay said. "With a baby in her arms, she was covered head to toe in scabies, hunched over, carrying her baby, baby covered in scabies and she thought I was an orphanage."
Clay had come to Haiti three years before to adopt a child and had never left the country.
"I thought, man there's just a big ethical dilemma all the sudden of me spending $20,000 on this adoption when this mom would really like to keep her kid," Clay said.
So Clay came up with an idea: what if she could create jobs for mothers and keep families together? The result is the Apparent Project, a business that gathers trash from the streets of Port Au Prince and turns it into jewelry.
Trash like cereal boxes, which would otherwise end up in landfills, is being chopped up and turned into jewelry at the Apparent Project. Over the last two years, 220 artisans have been able to keep their children out of orphanages, build homes and keep their families together, thanks to the jobs the project provides.
Each piece of jewelry tells the story of the artisan who made it. Those who work with the Apparent Project earn three times the minimum wage in Haiti, and also get a cut of the sale once the jewelry they make sells through partnerships with stores like The Gap and designers like Donna Karan, who make bulk orders.
"As you can see, they're allowed to bring their kids with them to work, they get fed while they're here," Clay said. "If they bring their kids to work with them their kids get fed too, so it really makes it so there's no reason they would have to go to an orphanage.
It's hard to measure the difference Shelley has made in Haiti, but you can see the beginnings of change in tent cities, where artisans see Theodor as an example. She used to live in a tent, with all five of her kids huddled under her bed to stay warm, but now she has a house of her own.
"Makeline will tell me, 'It's all because of you that I have this' and I'm like, 'No, I didn't sit down and work that hard," She's the one that did it," Clay said.
The transformation of trash into jewelry, of something forgotten into something worth a lot, isn't that much different from the transformation Shelley says she has seen in the situation of the 220 people who work for her.
"My motivations come from a faith perspective, that we were all created to be creative people, made in the image of a creator," Clay said. "When we are productive and creative and taking care of ourselves, I think we're being who we're supposed to be.
Perhaps the best way to measure the difference Clay has made is in the face of Stefanie, the baby Theodore once considered giving up to an orphanage.
"When you give people the opportunity to rise up and be who they're supposed to be, and it's you know, something you can never give. It's something that has to come from themselves," Clay said.
Theodore plans to marry soon to an artisan who also works at the Apperent Project. She dreams that her children will become doctors and lawyers, someone big, she says, so that one day, when she's old, they will be able to take care of her.
(KSC) - By Jesse Hyde
PORT AU PRINCE — Not far from the bustling downtown of Port Au Prince, tucked away on a quiet hillside strewn with trash, Makaline Theodor is doing what single mothers do everywhere: trying to find a way to make ends meet.
Two years ago, she was out of work and out of luck, and so she sat down here, at what she thought was an orphanage, planning to give up the nursing child she could no longer feed.
But as luck would have it, it wasn't an orphanage. It was the home of an American woman named Shelley Clay.
"It was Christmas before the earthquake," Apparent Project Director Clay said. "With a baby in her arms, she was covered head to toe in scabies, hunched over, carrying her baby, baby covered in scabies and she thought I was an orphanage."
Clay had come to Haiti three years before to adopt a child and had never left the country.
"I thought, man there's just a big ethical dilemma all the sudden of me spending $20,000 on this adoption when this mom would really like to keep her kid," Clay said.
So Clay came up with an idea: what if she could create jobs for mothers and keep families together? The result is the Apparent Project, a business that gathers trash from the streets of Port Au Prince and turns it into jewelry.
Trash like cereal boxes, which would otherwise end up in landfills, is being chopped up and turned into jewelry at the Apparent Project. Over the last two years, 220 artisans have been able to keep their children out of orphanages, build homes and keep their families together, thanks to the jobs the project provides.
Each piece of jewelry tells the story of the artisan who made it. Those who work with the Apparent Project earn three times the minimum wage in Haiti, and also get a cut of the sale once the jewelry they make sells through partnerships with stores like The Gap and designers like Donna Karan, who make bulk orders.
"As you can see, they're allowed to bring their kids with them to work, they get fed while they're here," Clay said. "If they bring their kids to work with them their kids get fed too, so it really makes it so there's no reason they would have to go to an orphanage.
It's hard to measure the difference Shelley has made in Haiti, but you can see the beginnings of change in tent cities, where artisans see Theodor as an example. She used to live in a tent, with all five of her kids huddled under her bed to stay warm, but now she has a house of her own.
"Makeline will tell me, 'It's all because of you that I have this' and I'm like, 'No, I didn't sit down and work that hard," She's the one that did it," Clay said.
The transformation of trash into jewelry, of something forgotten into something worth a lot, isn't that much different from the transformation Shelley says she has seen in the situation of the 220 people who work for her.
"My motivations come from a faith perspective, that we were all created to be creative people, made in the image of a creator," Clay said. "When we are productive and creative and taking care of ourselves, I think we're being who we're supposed to be.
Perhaps the best way to measure the difference Clay has made is in the face of Stefanie, the baby Theodore once considered giving up to an orphanage.
"When you give people the opportunity to rise up and be who they're supposed to be, and it's you know, something you can never give. It's something that has to come from themselves," Clay said.
Theodore plans to marry soon to an artisan who also works at the Apperent Project. She dreams that her children will become doctors and lawyers, someone big, she says, so that one day, when she's old, they will be able to take care of her.
Monday, June 4, 2012
ARTICLE - TCHO TCHO MOBILE - T-CASH
TCHO TCHO MOBILE AND T-CASH HAVE PASSED THE ONE MILLION TRANSACTION MILESTONE
(Haiti Libre) -
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced that two of Haiti’s mobile network operators — Digicel and Voila — will share a $1.8 million award from the Haiti Mobile Money Initiative (HMMI) for reaching the one million transaction milestone while meeting the award program’s stringent requirements.
Since their launch in Haiti in 2010, TchoTcho Mobile of Digicel and T-Cash of Voila have grown rapidly. Now, after passing the one million qualifying transaction milestone, these services are finding acceptance by Haitians who use them to solve a variety of problems they face daily. TchoTcho Mobile and T-Cash have spread throughout the country, with a network of agents that increased from 200 in December 2010 to 2,270 in December 2011.
This award, presented to Digicel and its partner Scotia Bank and to Voila and its partner Unibank, will be shared based on the operators’ proportional transaction contribution in reaching the one million benchmark. Prizes are awarded only after a detailed process which includes extensive verification of transactions and field verification of the agent networks.
"Digicel is proud to have participated with Voila in the competition to deploy mobile money services in Haiti," said Damian Blackburn, the CEO of Digicel. "We are committed to further expanding our mobile money services in Haiti, where currently over 90 percent of people do not have access to any financial services at all. Our TchoTcho Mobile Money service is being deployed in an ever-growing number of areas throughout Haiti, and we are also partnering with the Government on its plans to alleviate poverty through the Ti Manman Cheri program. In addition, TchoTcho is being used across a wide variety of other sectors like agriculture and health. Looking forward, our ongoing focus is developing TchoTcho to create a cashless society in Haiti that will help this country seize opportunities and tackle some of the challenges it faces."
Noel Herrity, CEO of Voila, said the initiative is helping mobile money become an incredible solution to millions in Haiti. "It was the fuel we needed to help drive its success," he said. "T-cash is extremely proud to have played a key role in a historical movement of Haiti, being the first country to officially launch mobile money in the Caribbean. Within one year, T-Cash had provided financial independence to over 21,000 people in several rehabilitative programs such as reconstruction, emergency programs, cash for work, food distribution, and helping the homeless find new places to live. T-Cash continues to be in demand by several entities, and we are currently working with World Bank, Capital Bank, Ramase Lajan, Entrepreneur Du Monde, International Federation of Red Cross, World Vision, Catholic Relief Services and many more. We believe that mobile money in Haiti is the financial solution to empowering economic growth and has the potential within a few more years to act as a springboard for the economic development of the country."
HMMI, a partnership between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID, was created following the devastating January 2010 earthquake that killed tens of thousands and caused widespread social and economic devastation. It offers incentives to mobile money service providers to encourage a rapid deployment of these services with ubiquitous availability throughout the country, and it provides technical assistance to support solutions that will encourage the scaling up of mobile money in Haiti. A final prize will be awarded if the five million qualifying transaction milestone is reached.
Rodger Voorhies, Director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Financial Services for the Poor Program said: "After the tragic earthquake in Haiti, we believed that making mobile money services widely available in Haiti could help speed recovery efforts and unlock the country's economic potential. Post-earthquake, the rapid launch and promising early uptake of mobile money services have the potential to make a difference in the lives of many Haitians. Recovery efforts have also been accelerated, as NGOs and government agencies are adapting the services to deliver benefits to a variety of Haitians. The continuing expansion of mobile money services in Haiti should contribute to the sustainability of these services while providing access to convenient and proximate access to financial services that will help people build financial security and productive lives."
The launch of TchoTcho Mobile by Digicel and T-Cash by Voila in late 2010 dramatically changed the availability of financial services for Haiti’s poorer population and introduced important new channels for a variety of payments. With over 800,000 registered users, these services are enabling Haitians to send, receive and store money using their mobile phones, demonstrating their potential to dramatically improve the lives of Haitians. Introduction of this technology is allowing Haitians to leapfrog more conventional banking models to the safer, more affordable and more accessible alternatives provided by mobile money. It also can help connect people to difficult-to-access vital services like banking, insurance and utilities.
USAID funds the Haiti Integrated Finance for Value Chains and Enterprise (HIFIVE) project, which manages and implements HMMI. Carleene H. Dei, USAID/Haiti Mission Director, spoke of HMMI’s contributions: "Through this first mobile money campaign, Haitians can conduct person-to-person transactions with their cell phones and receive payments from a variety of institutions. We believe that mobile banking can help millions of Haitians join the formal sector and further transform the Haitian economy."
As one of the first countries in the Caribbean and Latin America to introduce mobile money services, Haiti’s experience is already characterized by fast growth and an early diversity of uses of the services. Non-governmental organizations in Haiti and other users have adapted the new platforms to their needs for safe, secure, quick and less expensive ways of paying "cash for work" salaries and distributing social benefits to earthquake victims. To-date, over 40 percent of the global deployments of mobile money by NGOs in relief and development work has occurred in Haiti. Businesses and governmental agencies are also developing their own programs for use of these platforms to make salary, merchant, social benefit, e-government and other payments.
This means that apart from these uses very large, about half of the transactions (± 500,000) were made for other uses. With 800,000 registered users, this makes an average of transaction/year per user very low, unless that in reality, many registered users are in fact inactive.
The potential of this technology can undoubtedly make life easier for Haitians, these financial transaction services by phone in Haiti, are only in their infancy and remain forward-thinking and promising. However, the making available to the entire population of this technology will not solve the essential point to the real success of these services: the lack of sufficient income or non-existent income for the majority of the population...
(Haiti Libre) -
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced that two of Haiti’s mobile network operators — Digicel and Voila — will share a $1.8 million award from the Haiti Mobile Money Initiative (HMMI) for reaching the one million transaction milestone while meeting the award program’s stringent requirements.
Since their launch in Haiti in 2010, TchoTcho Mobile of Digicel and T-Cash of Voila have grown rapidly. Now, after passing the one million qualifying transaction milestone, these services are finding acceptance by Haitians who use them to solve a variety of problems they face daily. TchoTcho Mobile and T-Cash have spread throughout the country, with a network of agents that increased from 200 in December 2010 to 2,270 in December 2011.
This award, presented to Digicel and its partner Scotia Bank and to Voila and its partner Unibank, will be shared based on the operators’ proportional transaction contribution in reaching the one million benchmark. Prizes are awarded only after a detailed process which includes extensive verification of transactions and field verification of the agent networks.
"Digicel is proud to have participated with Voila in the competition to deploy mobile money services in Haiti," said Damian Blackburn, the CEO of Digicel. "We are committed to further expanding our mobile money services in Haiti, where currently over 90 percent of people do not have access to any financial services at all. Our TchoTcho Mobile Money service is being deployed in an ever-growing number of areas throughout Haiti, and we are also partnering with the Government on its plans to alleviate poverty through the Ti Manman Cheri program. In addition, TchoTcho is being used across a wide variety of other sectors like agriculture and health. Looking forward, our ongoing focus is developing TchoTcho to create a cashless society in Haiti that will help this country seize opportunities and tackle some of the challenges it faces."
Noel Herrity, CEO of Voila, said the initiative is helping mobile money become an incredible solution to millions in Haiti. "It was the fuel we needed to help drive its success," he said. "T-cash is extremely proud to have played a key role in a historical movement of Haiti, being the first country to officially launch mobile money in the Caribbean. Within one year, T-Cash had provided financial independence to over 21,000 people in several rehabilitative programs such as reconstruction, emergency programs, cash for work, food distribution, and helping the homeless find new places to live. T-Cash continues to be in demand by several entities, and we are currently working with World Bank, Capital Bank, Ramase Lajan, Entrepreneur Du Monde, International Federation of Red Cross, World Vision, Catholic Relief Services and many more. We believe that mobile money in Haiti is the financial solution to empowering economic growth and has the potential within a few more years to act as a springboard for the economic development of the country."
HMMI, a partnership between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID, was created following the devastating January 2010 earthquake that killed tens of thousands and caused widespread social and economic devastation. It offers incentives to mobile money service providers to encourage a rapid deployment of these services with ubiquitous availability throughout the country, and it provides technical assistance to support solutions that will encourage the scaling up of mobile money in Haiti. A final prize will be awarded if the five million qualifying transaction milestone is reached.
Rodger Voorhies, Director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Financial Services for the Poor Program said: "After the tragic earthquake in Haiti, we believed that making mobile money services widely available in Haiti could help speed recovery efforts and unlock the country's economic potential. Post-earthquake, the rapid launch and promising early uptake of mobile money services have the potential to make a difference in the lives of many Haitians. Recovery efforts have also been accelerated, as NGOs and government agencies are adapting the services to deliver benefits to a variety of Haitians. The continuing expansion of mobile money services in Haiti should contribute to the sustainability of these services while providing access to convenient and proximate access to financial services that will help people build financial security and productive lives."
The launch of TchoTcho Mobile by Digicel and T-Cash by Voila in late 2010 dramatically changed the availability of financial services for Haiti’s poorer population and introduced important new channels for a variety of payments. With over 800,000 registered users, these services are enabling Haitians to send, receive and store money using their mobile phones, demonstrating their potential to dramatically improve the lives of Haitians. Introduction of this technology is allowing Haitians to leapfrog more conventional banking models to the safer, more affordable and more accessible alternatives provided by mobile money. It also can help connect people to difficult-to-access vital services like banking, insurance and utilities.
USAID funds the Haiti Integrated Finance for Value Chains and Enterprise (HIFIVE) project, which manages and implements HMMI. Carleene H. Dei, USAID/Haiti Mission Director, spoke of HMMI’s contributions: "Through this first mobile money campaign, Haitians can conduct person-to-person transactions with their cell phones and receive payments from a variety of institutions. We believe that mobile banking can help millions of Haitians join the formal sector and further transform the Haitian economy."
As one of the first countries in the Caribbean and Latin America to introduce mobile money services, Haiti’s experience is already characterized by fast growth and an early diversity of uses of the services. Non-governmental organizations in Haiti and other users have adapted the new platforms to their needs for safe, secure, quick and less expensive ways of paying "cash for work" salaries and distributing social benefits to earthquake victims. To-date, over 40 percent of the global deployments of mobile money by NGOs in relief and development work has occurred in Haiti. Businesses and governmental agencies are also developing their own programs for use of these platforms to make salary, merchant, social benefit, e-government and other payments.
This means that apart from these uses very large, about half of the transactions (± 500,000) were made for other uses. With 800,000 registered users, this makes an average of transaction/year per user very low, unless that in reality, many registered users are in fact inactive.
The potential of this technology can undoubtedly make life easier for Haitians, these financial transaction services by phone in Haiti, are only in their infancy and remain forward-thinking and promising. However, the making available to the entire population of this technology will not solve the essential point to the real success of these services: the lack of sufficient income or non-existent income for the majority of the population...
ARTICLE 1ST QUARTER ECONOMIC STATS
ECONOMIC STATISTICS FOR THE FIRST QUARTER 2011-2012
(Haiti Libre) -
The Haitian Institute of Statistics and Information (IHSI) released the latest economic figures for the first quarter 2011 - 2012 (October to December). We publish in a summarized manner, the sectoral indicators to follow the sectoral evolution.
Industry:
Increase of 6.6% in the index of industrial production year on year and decrease of 2.2% over the previous quarter. This quarterly negativechange is the result of the contrasting trends of different branches of activities in this sector. Indeed, the textile industry declined by 15.4%, while the other branches, including: food (2.3%), chemicals (5.0%), and metallurgical works (5.1%) showed an upward trend.
Energy:
Strong growth of 38.3% in the production index of electricity year on year and of 13.1% compared to the previous quarter. This quarterly increase comes particularly from the improvement of thermal production of 15.8%, against a decline in hydroelectric production of 3.0%. Billed consumption, meanwhile, recorded a downward trend of 8.2% year on year and 11.6% compared to the previous quarter, which contributes to an increase in the ratio of loss of unrecorded consumption (77.8%).
Construction:
Increase of 4.7% in the index of construction activity year on year and of 2.6% from last quarter. These positive developments for this quarter are consistent with the increase in the quantity of imported cement and to a decrease in the prices of some building materials, including iron (-13.5%) and wood (-2.2%)
Internal trade:
Increase of 17.9% in the index of business activity year on year and of 4.1% from the previous quarter. This positive quarterly growth in nominal value is supported by the Motor vehicle dealership (8.3%), parts and accessories for motor vehicles (14.0%), wholesale food products (2.3%), other consumer goods (12.7%) and appliances, articles and household equipment (4.5 %). The other sub-branches have trended downward.
Foreign trade:
Increase in the index of the average value of imports by 6.9% year on year and of 1.1% from last quarter. Meanwhile, the quantum index fell 3.9% year on year and 6.3% quarterly, which leads to an increase in the total value of imports by 2.7% year on year and to a quarterly decline of 5.3%.
Consumer price index:
Increase of 9.4% in the Consumer price index year on year and of 1.0% from the previous quarter. This quarterly increase is mainly due to increased consumption functions such as recreation, health services, and housing, which grew respectively by 5.3%, 2.5%, 2.3% and 1.1%. Moreover, the price index of agricultural products, meanwhile, rose by 13.1% year on year and 4.5% from the previous quarter.
(Haiti Libre) -
The Haitian Institute of Statistics and Information (IHSI) released the latest economic figures for the first quarter 2011 - 2012 (October to December). We publish in a summarized manner, the sectoral indicators to follow the sectoral evolution.
Industry:
Increase of 6.6% in the index of industrial production year on year and decrease of 2.2% over the previous quarter. This quarterly negativechange is the result of the contrasting trends of different branches of activities in this sector. Indeed, the textile industry declined by 15.4%, while the other branches, including: food (2.3%), chemicals (5.0%), and metallurgical works (5.1%) showed an upward trend.
Energy:
Strong growth of 38.3% in the production index of electricity year on year and of 13.1% compared to the previous quarter. This quarterly increase comes particularly from the improvement of thermal production of 15.8%, against a decline in hydroelectric production of 3.0%. Billed consumption, meanwhile, recorded a downward trend of 8.2% year on year and 11.6% compared to the previous quarter, which contributes to an increase in the ratio of loss of unrecorded consumption (77.8%).
Construction:
Increase of 4.7% in the index of construction activity year on year and of 2.6% from last quarter. These positive developments for this quarter are consistent with the increase in the quantity of imported cement and to a decrease in the prices of some building materials, including iron (-13.5%) and wood (-2.2%)
Internal trade:
Increase of 17.9% in the index of business activity year on year and of 4.1% from the previous quarter. This positive quarterly growth in nominal value is supported by the Motor vehicle dealership (8.3%), parts and accessories for motor vehicles (14.0%), wholesale food products (2.3%), other consumer goods (12.7%) and appliances, articles and household equipment (4.5 %). The other sub-branches have trended downward.
Foreign trade:
Increase in the index of the average value of imports by 6.9% year on year and of 1.1% from last quarter. Meanwhile, the quantum index fell 3.9% year on year and 6.3% quarterly, which leads to an increase in the total value of imports by 2.7% year on year and to a quarterly decline of 5.3%.
Consumer price index:
Increase of 9.4% in the Consumer price index year on year and of 1.0% from the previous quarter. This quarterly increase is mainly due to increased consumption functions such as recreation, health services, and housing, which grew respectively by 5.3%, 2.5%, 2.3% and 1.1%. Moreover, the price index of agricultural products, meanwhile, rose by 13.1% year on year and 4.5% from the previous quarter.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
ARTICLE - INCOME FROM SMUGGLING
INCOME FROM SMUGGLING AND TAXES TO FILL THE COFFERS
(Haiti Libre) -
The Prime Minister, Laurent Lamothe, intends to recover tax revenues from smuggling and wants to multiply by 3 the number of tax payers to replenish the almost empty coffers of the state. Laurent Lamothe explained that "...smuggling is the second plague in the country. The state loses each year, between 300 and 500 million [in loss of tax revenue] [...] instructions were passed to all authorities to take all measures; first, so they are able to take action against smugglers and people who steal from the state, because if you look, with $500 million [...] We could build roads, the National Palace, schools ... A national school costs about $300,000 and we lose $500 million per year... You see how many clinics we could do, how many professional schools, how many young people could be trained [...] We will not tolerate smuggling, we will fight against it, we will do everything we are able. We will put the state apparatus in motion and we will strengthen the customs, and all devices. Customs will strengthen, we will strengthen the DGI for Haiti to take off [...]
One of the biggest problems we have at the state level, is a lack of resources, and each time, we were obliged to seek international partners to come up with ways to help us; while at Customs, we lose millions of dollars... In the coming days, measures will be introduced to strengthen customs control. I also ask the police, on the border issue, to take steps to strengthen the checkpoints, for Haiti is a country that takes care of them.
[...] We will put in place a plan to cut smuggling and put pressure on those who smuggle and steal from the population. Now there's a new dynamic in Haiti, a new leadership, a new Martelly-Lamothe government taking it very seriously [...]
The second thing is a question of taxation. We collect $425 million, representing 3% of people who pay taxes. We would like to triple that number of people, broaden the base of people who pay taxes, so that more people can contribute also to the new Haiti that we want to create; because this will take resources and sustainable means. This is not a sudden thing, that we want to do, but a change in a comprehensive manner. If we can get for example triple the number of people who pay taxes, this does not mean that revenues are tripled, but it will be more than what we perceive today, and it will remove Haiti from its continued dependence [...]
We want to work, but at the same time, we must work with a vision, so that we can stand on our own feet in the coming years, and we think that it is with good customs control, and a good tax audit [...] For example, at the customs level, changes have been made at the Directorate General of Customs; there are changes that are also done at entry points, systems technology, of support so that two things be done: one, that there are more controls, two, to make it faster."
Even if the Dominican government does not give figures on the tax losses caused by smuggling, many analysts believe that $300 million a year is a realistic figure.
At the same time he announced the creation of a commission to fight against smuggling, composed of representatives of the Central Financial Intelligence Unit (UCREF), Unit for the Fight against Corruption (ULCC), the Brigade Financial Affairs (BAF), the Prosecutor of Port-au-Prince and the Police.
(Haiti Libre) -
The Prime Minister, Laurent Lamothe, intends to recover tax revenues from smuggling and wants to multiply by 3 the number of tax payers to replenish the almost empty coffers of the state. Laurent Lamothe explained that "...smuggling is the second plague in the country. The state loses each year, between 300 and 500 million [in loss of tax revenue] [...] instructions were passed to all authorities to take all measures; first, so they are able to take action against smugglers and people who steal from the state, because if you look, with $500 million [...] We could build roads, the National Palace, schools ... A national school costs about $300,000 and we lose $500 million per year... You see how many clinics we could do, how many professional schools, how many young people could be trained [...] We will not tolerate smuggling, we will fight against it, we will do everything we are able. We will put the state apparatus in motion and we will strengthen the customs, and all devices. Customs will strengthen, we will strengthen the DGI for Haiti to take off [...]
One of the biggest problems we have at the state level, is a lack of resources, and each time, we were obliged to seek international partners to come up with ways to help us; while at Customs, we lose millions of dollars... In the coming days, measures will be introduced to strengthen customs control. I also ask the police, on the border issue, to take steps to strengthen the checkpoints, for Haiti is a country that takes care of them.
[...] We will put in place a plan to cut smuggling and put pressure on those who smuggle and steal from the population. Now there's a new dynamic in Haiti, a new leadership, a new Martelly-Lamothe government taking it very seriously [...]
The second thing is a question of taxation. We collect $425 million, representing 3% of people who pay taxes. We would like to triple that number of people, broaden the base of people who pay taxes, so that more people can contribute also to the new Haiti that we want to create; because this will take resources and sustainable means. This is not a sudden thing, that we want to do, but a change in a comprehensive manner. If we can get for example triple the number of people who pay taxes, this does not mean that revenues are tripled, but it will be more than what we perceive today, and it will remove Haiti from its continued dependence [...]
We want to work, but at the same time, we must work with a vision, so that we can stand on our own feet in the coming years, and we think that it is with good customs control, and a good tax audit [...] For example, at the customs level, changes have been made at the Directorate General of Customs; there are changes that are also done at entry points, systems technology, of support so that two things be done: one, that there are more controls, two, to make it faster."
Even if the Dominican government does not give figures on the tax losses caused by smuggling, many analysts believe that $300 million a year is a realistic figure.
At the same time he announced the creation of a commission to fight against smuggling, composed of representatives of the Central Financial Intelligence Unit (UCREF), Unit for the Fight against Corruption (ULCC), the Brigade Financial Affairs (BAF), the Prosecutor of Port-au-Prince and the Police.
ARTICLE - END OF ECOSOC MISSION
END OF THE ECOSOC MISSION
(Haiti Libre) -
Arriving in Haiti on May 21 for a working visit of 4 days, the delegation of the Special Advisory Group on Haiti of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) concluded, on May 24, its 3rd mission [since June 2011].
At a press conference Thursday at the Police Academy, the delegation gave an update on its mission in Haiti, "Boosting the economy must go hand in hand with the rule of law, which involves the support for governance, to the judiciary, to the police and prison system [...] so that an enabling environment for investment is created," said Ambassador Gilles Rivard, Canada's Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Head of the Delegation.
Mr. Rivard, who emphasizes that he noted the willingness of leaders to relaunch the country economically, believes that "efforts" are needed to "strengthen the rule of law, as well as road infrastructure to facilitate agro-industry, one of the sectors, in addition to tourism, ikely to support the development of Haiti." According to him, in effect, "there is a potential, and the will is there [...], but the respect of commitments made, is the real challenge for the government."
Therefore, he stressed to the number of recommendations made to the Executive, that it is important that the President of the Republic and members of the Haitian Government, meet the leaders of friendly countries, and the leaders of international institutions, to "sell the government's strategy", and thus keep Haiti in the international "agendas".
The Group also hopes that steps will be taken to prevent brain drain to foreign countries, and, if possible, encourage the return home of Haitian professionals.
Of its field visits, the delegation said to have noted "major changes", including the decrease in the number of IDP camps, and advancement in the process of clearing and removal of rubble in Port-au-Prince, while welcoming to "being able to travel by road between Cap-Haitien (North) and the municipalities of Ouanaminthe and Caracol (Northeast)," where members of the Special Advisory Group visited a free zone, which employs thousands of Haitians in sub-contracting, and the industrial park under construction.
(Haiti Libre) -
Arriving in Haiti on May 21 for a working visit of 4 days, the delegation of the Special Advisory Group on Haiti of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) concluded, on May 24, its 3rd mission [since June 2011].
At a press conference Thursday at the Police Academy, the delegation gave an update on its mission in Haiti, "Boosting the economy must go hand in hand with the rule of law, which involves the support for governance, to the judiciary, to the police and prison system [...] so that an enabling environment for investment is created," said Ambassador Gilles Rivard, Canada's Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Head of the Delegation.
Mr. Rivard, who emphasizes that he noted the willingness of leaders to relaunch the country economically, believes that "efforts" are needed to "strengthen the rule of law, as well as road infrastructure to facilitate agro-industry, one of the sectors, in addition to tourism, ikely to support the development of Haiti." According to him, in effect, "there is a potential, and the will is there [...], but the respect of commitments made, is the real challenge for the government."
Therefore, he stressed to the number of recommendations made to the Executive, that it is important that the President of the Republic and members of the Haitian Government, meet the leaders of friendly countries, and the leaders of international institutions, to "sell the government's strategy", and thus keep Haiti in the international "agendas".
The Group also hopes that steps will be taken to prevent brain drain to foreign countries, and, if possible, encourage the return home of Haitian professionals.
Of its field visits, the delegation said to have noted "major changes", including the decrease in the number of IDP camps, and advancement in the process of clearing and removal of rubble in Port-au-Prince, while welcoming to "being able to travel by road between Cap-Haitien (North) and the municipalities of Ouanaminthe and Caracol (Northeast)," where members of the Special Advisory Group visited a free zone, which employs thousands of Haitians in sub-contracting, and the industrial park under construction.
ARTICLE - DGI - TAX COMPLIANCE CAMPAIGN
THE DGI LAUNCHES A CAMPAIGN OF "TAX COMPLIANCE"
(Haiti Libre) -
Mr. Jean Baptiste Clark Neptune, the Director General, of the DGI (Directorate General of Taxes), accompanied by Andral Joseph, Deputy Director-General, and François Sérant, Head of the Communication Service of the institution, proceeded Thursday, May 31 to the launch of the tax awareness campaign under the theme "Ayiti an avan" (Haiti forward).
The campaign aims to raise public awareness to fulfill their tax obligations regularly, voluntarily, and is part of the institutional reforms planned for the next five years [streamline the organization for more effective management, facilitate the voluntary fulfillment of tax obligations, simplify and harmonize the tax system, improve administrative performance, and strengthen the supervisory bodies...]. Reforms whose success is based on the full cooperation of taxpayers.
A set of media tools will be implemented in all major cities. 50 Billboards carrying messages of information and incentives, and also commercials inviting taxpayers to voluntarily adhere to the pact of tax compliance and to pay taxes will be widely disseminated on radio and television stations across the territory to reach the most remote areas.
"This campaign will help to bring the 'fiscal gospel' to the remotest corners of the country. Citizens will become familiar with taxes, and we want to reverse the trend that the province occupies a negligible and insignificant place in our revenue performance," declared Jean Baptiste Clark Neptune. Aware of the enormous challenges to be met by his institution, the Director General of the DGI, recognizes that this approach is not an end in itself, but one element contributing to the successful reform of the institution, and promised to make of the DGI, "a modern institution, applying with equity, the tax laws."
(Haiti Libre) -
Mr. Jean Baptiste Clark Neptune, the Director General, of the DGI (Directorate General of Taxes), accompanied by Andral Joseph, Deputy Director-General, and François Sérant, Head of the Communication Service of the institution, proceeded Thursday, May 31 to the launch of the tax awareness campaign under the theme "Ayiti an avan" (Haiti forward).
The campaign aims to raise public awareness to fulfill their tax obligations regularly, voluntarily, and is part of the institutional reforms planned for the next five years [streamline the organization for more effective management, facilitate the voluntary fulfillment of tax obligations, simplify and harmonize the tax system, improve administrative performance, and strengthen the supervisory bodies...]. Reforms whose success is based on the full cooperation of taxpayers.
A set of media tools will be implemented in all major cities. 50 Billboards carrying messages of information and incentives, and also commercials inviting taxpayers to voluntarily adhere to the pact of tax compliance and to pay taxes will be widely disseminated on radio and television stations across the territory to reach the most remote areas.
"This campaign will help to bring the 'fiscal gospel' to the remotest corners of the country. Citizens will become familiar with taxes, and we want to reverse the trend that the province occupies a negligible and insignificant place in our revenue performance," declared Jean Baptiste Clark Neptune. Aware of the enormous challenges to be met by his institution, the Director General of the DGI, recognizes that this approach is not an end in itself, but one element contributing to the successful reform of the institution, and promised to make of the DGI, "a modern institution, applying with equity, the tax laws."
Saturday, June 2, 2012
ARTICLE - THE CFI IS POSITIVE
THE CFI IS POSITIVE, ON THE INTEREST OF INVESTORS
(Haiti Libre) -
Mr. Karl Jean-Louis, Director General of the Investment Facilitation Center (CFI) is positive on the investments in Haiti, explaining that for the first 5 months of the year, the number of submitted projects is more important than last year. "We have $90 million confirmed and we have nearly $290 million dollars which are in study..."
"[...] If I look at the number of projects that we have received since January this year, it is more than last year. We have $90 million confirmed and we have nearly 290 million dollars which are in study in the Interministerial Commission, which will allow us to create nearly 50,000 jobs. For me it is an indicator that shows there is a trust that was created, there is interest locally and that people want to invest [...]
...it takes time when a investor has an interest. He must do explorations, understand the system, conduct studies... so we had many promises from the forum that we held last November, and I can confirm that this summer we will have Sherwin-Williams, Williams and Dickies... and two other firms who have already come to Caracol, and who said they were interested in investing in Haiti.
At CFI, we took a series of measures to support local investors. We have signed MoUs with the Chambers of Commerce [...] it is with them, that we must move forward, for they, mobilize local investors and pose systemic structural problems, that there is in the system, to accompany them.
At the level of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Haiti (CCIH) we launched a national dialogue on investment. We were in Hinche, very soon we will be in Cap Haitien, and we'll go around, to have the same reading of the situation. Currently, at the CFI level, we are organizing sectoral tables, where we listen to sectors to understand the problems they have at the investment level... [...]"
(Haiti Libre) -
Mr. Karl Jean-Louis, Director General of the Investment Facilitation Center (CFI) is positive on the investments in Haiti, explaining that for the first 5 months of the year, the number of submitted projects is more important than last year. "We have $90 million confirmed and we have nearly $290 million dollars which are in study..."
"[...] If I look at the number of projects that we have received since January this year, it is more than last year. We have $90 million confirmed and we have nearly 290 million dollars which are in study in the Interministerial Commission, which will allow us to create nearly 50,000 jobs. For me it is an indicator that shows there is a trust that was created, there is interest locally and that people want to invest [...]
...it takes time when a investor has an interest. He must do explorations, understand the system, conduct studies... so we had many promises from the forum that we held last November, and I can confirm that this summer we will have Sherwin-Williams, Williams and Dickies... and two other firms who have already come to Caracol, and who said they were interested in investing in Haiti.
At CFI, we took a series of measures to support local investors. We have signed MoUs with the Chambers of Commerce [...] it is with them, that we must move forward, for they, mobilize local investors and pose systemic structural problems, that there is in the system, to accompany them.
At the level of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Haiti (CCIH) we launched a national dialogue on investment. We were in Hinche, very soon we will be in Cap Haitien, and we'll go around, to have the same reading of the situation. Currently, at the CFI level, we are organizing sectoral tables, where we listen to sectors to understand the problems they have at the investment level... [...]"
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