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Haiti: How do I start a Business in Haiti:
Hello,
I can help you with this. Haiti in 2007/2008 insitituted a new office for foriegn investment and new business. There are good tax incentives, import, etc.
Allow me a couple days to dredge info from past files and I shall forward to you.
Respectfully,
WH Vastine
Haiti: CDB announces aid package for Haiti:
Posted: 2009-07-23 15:23:50 (0 Comments)
The Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) yesterday said it had approved a programme that outlines its assistance strategy for Haiti for the period 2009-2012, according to a report at www.cananews.net.
The CDB said that the four-year "Country Strategy" programme involved an assessment of the development challenges confronting Haiti, as well as the government's development agenda in response to those challenges.
"It was arrived at after extensive discussions with the Government, the private sector, several non-governmental organisations. CDB also engaged in broad consultations with other development partners operating in Haiti to avoid duplication and to enhance donor coordination."
The CDB said that the major objectives of the strategy are to provide support to the government's macroeconomic stabilisation initiatives; strengthen Haiti's economic growth and poverty reduction prospects and provide support to industries with significant growth and job creation potential within a short time frame.
The strategy is also aimed at accelerating support to human resource development "by greater attention to the use of new technologies and to provide support to food security and re-forestation initiatives".
The CDB also said that it is providing a US$10 million grant to Haiti as part of a broader programme of support by other multilateral financing institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), that seeks to enhance fiscal and debt management in the country through a series of technical assistance projects.
"The technical assistance projects being assisted by the donor institutions are aimed at enhancing revenue through institutional strengthening of the key revenue collection agencies; better expenditure targeting to ensure greater poverty reduction effectiveness; better budgeting management controls and oversight; improved debt management; and greater transparency to reduce corruption.
"CDB's role is to provide budgetary assistance in support of the need to maintain short-run budgetary macroeconomic stability, contributing to the efforts of the other donors to assist the Haitian government in attaining its longer term fiscal and debt objectives.
"This support will enable the Government to continue providing basic services, implement critical infrastructure agreed to with international development partners and post-hurricane infrastructure rehabilitation and recovery," the CDB added.
Haiti: Haiti Report for July 29, 2009:
IN THIS REPORT:
- Haitian Refugees Come Ashore in the Bahamas
- Bus Accident Near Petit Goave
- Obama Six Months in and Still No TPS for Haitians
- Coast Guard Searches for Survivors
- Improvements in Haiti
- Troop Reinforcement at the Border
- Debt Cancellation for Haiti Finally Comes Through!
- Six People Dead From Southeastern Ferry Capsizing
- Haitian Police Say Demonstrator Was Killed by Bullet During Clash with UN
- Haiti has found success in its fight against AIDS
- Clinton Points to Lack of Cooperation as Hindering Help for Haiti
- UN appeal for Haiti has failed to raise sufficient funds to rehabilitate the hurricane-hit agriculture sector
- Haiti Support Group on Haiti Debt Cancellation
Haitian Refugees Come Ashore in the Bahamas:
More than two hundred Haitian economic refugees who came ashore [in the Bahamas] in three separate groups last week are believed to be a part of a smuggling ring. According to a source in the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, officials believe that a Bahamian may have assisted the migrants to enter The Bahamas. Officials believe that migrants are coming to The Bahamas because the economic situation is worsening in the region, particularly in northern Haiti. Despite the government?s best efforts to reduce the number of migrants coming to The Bahamas, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) confirmed that they apprehended 172 Haitian migrants on Saturday ? the third apprehension exercise in a week. Officials apprehended 172 Haitians ? 130 men and 42 women ? in Central Bahamas. Officials did not reveal whether any children were found on board at the time of discovery. According to the Defence Force, officials received reports that a Haitian sloop had been spotted a half mile east of Hawksbill Rock in the Exuma Cays. The department also reported Friday that 162 Haitian nationals ? 130 men and 32 women ? were apprehended on Green Cay off Andros on July 15.
The immigrants were spotted by the Defence Force. Meanwhile, the Department of Immigration said a recent repatriation exercise was conducted on July 16th and 110 Haitians ? one Dominican and one American were repatriated. (JonesBahamas.com, 7/20)
Bus Accident Near Petit Goave:
At least eleven people have been killed and dozens more injured, many seriously, in a bus accident in southern Haiti, a police source said on Monday. The accident occurred after midday on the country's Highway Two while the bus was traveling down a hill towards the town of Petit- Goave, according to police commissioner Pierre-Nonchamp Beauzile. The vehicle had been experiencing mechanical difficulties and it appears that part of it broke off, causing it to crash in the middle of the highway, Mr Beauzile said. Rescue teams and ambulances rushed to the scene to help the injured, some of whom were transferred to regional hospitals and others to facilities in the capital Port-au-Prince.
(AFP, 7/21)
Obama Six Months in and Still No TPS for Haitians:
President Barack Obama is six months into his presidency and a Haitian advocacy organization cannot help but wonder where is the Temporary Protected Status for desperate Haitians? Steven Forester, of Stop Deportations Now and the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, says 28,000 Haitians with final orders of removal urgently need TPS, which is granted to eligible nationals of designated countries who are temporarily unable to safely return to their home country because of ongoing armed conflict, an environmental disaster, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions. Forester argues that when Hurricane Mitch struck Nicaragua and Honduras and earthquakes hit El Salvador, their nationals got TPS, so why not Haitians. Haiti had to cope with four storms or hurricanes in one month last year that wiped out 15 percent of Haiti`s GDP, said Forester and caused widespread
flooding of major cities and death and $1 billion in damages.
Haitians need work permits now, added the head of the Institute in Haiti. "TPS would enable them to work and send remittances to an estimated 150,000 to 300,000 people in Haiti," he said.
So far several lawmakers, including NY Senators Chuck Schumer and Kristin Gilliibrand; House Ways and Means Chair Charles Rangel and House Western Hemisphere subcommittee Chair, Eliot Engel, have all written President Obama urging him to grant Haitians TPS.
While the editorial boards of the New York Times, twice in the last year, the Washington Post, The Sun Sentinel, the Miami Herald and Newsday among others have recently editorialized for TPS. The South Florida congressional delegation also supports TPS with Republican Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart as well as Reps. Alcee Hastings and Kendrick Meek urging for TPS through a bi- partisan supported bill. But while the White House has heard from several sides on the issue, it has yet to budge, even though it`s so far halted deportation for those affected. For now, the Haitian nationals in desperate need of some form of immigration relief remain in limbo. (CaribWorldNews, 7/22)
Coast Guard Searches for Survivors:
Helicopter rescue teams from the United States Coast Guard continued to search Tuesday for possible survivors from a boat that capsized in the Atlantic with as many as 200 Haitian migrants aboard. Coast Guard officials in Miami said about 70 of the migrants were stranded on a reef after their boat sank Monday off the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British territory about 70 miles north of Haiti and 700 miles southeast of Miami. Most of the others on the vessel were missing and feared drowned. Two American helicopters and small boats deployed by island authorities ferried the survivors from the reef to Providenciales, the easternmost island in the chain. A Coast Guard cutter, the Valiant, also was en route, the guard said.
A survivor told The Associated Press that the boat had been at sea for three days when it spotted a police boat and tried to hide behind a reef. The migrants? vessel apparently foundered when it struck the reef. Desperate Haitians seeking work in the Bahamas or the United States often set forth in unsafe boats, sometimes paying smugglers thousands of dollars for their passage. The Coast Guard says it has stopped more than 1,500 migrants since October, an increase of about 20 percent over the same period in the previous year. In the waters north of Cuba last week, the Valiant picked up 124 Haitians aboard what it said was a ?grossly overloaded? 60-foot sailboat. The migrants, presumably bound for Florida, were returned to Cap-Haitien, Haiti, on Monday. In May, at least nine Haitians died when their boat sank about 15 miles off the Florida coast. (NYT, 7/29)
Improvements in Haiti:
Having traded his designer suits for jeans and a T-shirt, the Washington-based international lender surveyed the fruits of a $50 million loan, peppering his Haitian hosts with questions in his quick- study French. Luis Alberto Moreno, Colombian diplomat turned Inter- American Development Bank head, looked out of place to the Haitians tracking his every move as he toured the new yellow and mint-green market complex. He passed bathrooms with gleaming flush toilets, a rest area for workers, clinic, a kids playground -- and a slaughterhouse to prepare fresh meat for the market.
In a country where promises are broken and donor contracts take years to execute, the $1.2 million Mariani Market on the outskirts of Port- au-Prince illustrates the steady pockets of progress being made in this fragile Caribbean nation. "There is some momentum,' Moreno mused. "It still has a long way to go. But at least there is a sense that the security situation is better, which means a lot of things can start to happen.' Tentatively, cautiously, a mood of optimism is replacing a sense of endless chaos and uncertainty in places like Carrefour, a city buffeted by natural disaster, hunger riots and decades of political turmoil. Its streets are still clogged with mind- numbing, horn-honking traffic. But, look around Haiti and you can see new schools being built in once-gang-ridden slums, paved streets replacing rutted roads and crops growing in once storm-wrecked fields.
As Moreno and countless Haitians know, nothing is irreversible here.
The country is a modern-day Sisphyus, a Greek tragedy plagued by ups and downs as it struggles with grinding poverty and volatile politics.
Even now there are concerns that upcoming elections, political disagreements within the government and debates over revising the constitution and increasing the minimum wage could derail the momentum. But if there is cause for optimism these days in Haiti, it is because of the arrival of some good news.
? In the last three weeks alone, $1.2 billion in foreign debt, including $511 million from the IDB, have been forgiven, saving the country $50 million a year in repayments.
? Canada and the United States both revised their travel advisories and no longer warn citizens to avoid ``nonessential travel' to Haiti.
? And within a span of 10 days, the country that couldn't raise $100 million in foreign aid after last summer's back-to-back storms, hosted three of the world's most highly sought-after development pitchmen:
former President Bill Clinton, now U.N. special envoy to Haiti; renowned Columbia University anti-poverty economist Jeffrey Sachs; and the IDB's Moreno.
"We all want to be here and help,' Sachs told Haitian Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis during a dinner toast, calling this a "singular moment' for her nation. The IDB, which is celebrating 50 years since its founding, chose Haiti as one of four countries to mark its anniversary, bringing its highly influential board of directors here this month along with the prime ministers of the Bahamas and Barbados, and the assistant secretary general of the Organization of American States.
Two days of meetings ended with a tour of several long-delayed IDB- financed projects including the market, a $46 million rehabilitation of an irrigation canal to put an additional 19,768 acres of agricultural land back in production in the Artibonite Valley and National Route 1, the 155-mile stretch linking the capital in the south with Cap-Haitien in the north. At a cost of almost $2 million per mile, only 31 miles of the originally envisioned 49 miles, from Port-au-Prince to St. Marc, have been able to get a makeover. The Haitian government and the IDB are still searching for financing for the last 18 miles, which Moreno's 12-car convoy experienced as they bounced and zig-zagged their way around potholes en route from the city of St. Marc to the western Arcadins Coast.
"When you look at things from a distance, you think you're doing a lot,' Moreno says, noting that the IDB will triple its grants to Haiti next year to $128 million. "But when you come here and see on the ground the huge amount of need, you think you are putting only a little drop in the bucket. That's the contrast you feel.' Last week, a Washington-based team of the U.S. Agency for International Development visited Port-au-Prince -- making good on a promise by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who visited in April, to evaluate how U.S. taxpayers' money and other foreign aid is being spent in Haiti. Last Wednesday, Haitian businessmen finally broke ground on a
$56 million, 30-megawatt heavy fuel power plant. The project, conceived in 2005, is expected to save the Haitian treasury at least
$2.5 million a month, but will still only meet a fraction of the country's energy needs.
But the fact that a group of Korean investors has agreed to pump $3 million into the project -- Haitian investors and banks are already putting in $20 million -- is a sign of progress, Haitians say. "It says Haiti is open for business. Foreigners are starting to believe in the country again,' said Haitian investor Daniel Rouzier. "The limelight being put on Haiti right now means we have a strategic window of opportunity to get this country moving again.' The new power plant is not the only investment taking shape around a calmer Cit? Soleil, where a new U.S.-government-financed police station recently opened. In addition, newly constructed streets and parks, financed by $6 million in U.S. assistance and built by the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration, offer children and residents respite from their slum.
Recently, the Haitian-owned West Indies Group began clearing a nearby lot for the construction of a new $40 million, 1-million-square-foot industrial park. With its 40 buildings, the park will be able to employ 25,000 textile workers as part of the duty-free HOPE II legislation approved by the U.S. Congress. Among those interested in possibly investing in the project is billionaire George Soros'
foundation. "It's time for Haitians to take responsibility for their future,' Rouzier, the Haitian businessman, said. ``We have to come up with internationally competitive projects. We have to be willing to compete with the outside world. We can't just rely on U.S. trade advantages to make Haiti competitive. It has to come from the inside. Rebuild infrastructure and make it available at rates available in other countries.' (Miami Herald, 7/29)
Troop Reinforcement at the Border:
Haiti and the Dominican Republic reinforced troops at their shared border after violence broke out at a protest in the Dominican Republic demanding extradition of a Haitian man accused of murder in both countries, Haiti's foreign minister said on Monday. Foreign Minister Alrich Nicolas said the two governments met to try to resolve the problem on Saturday, a day after the violence in the border town of Dajabon. "We have sent more troops on the border and the Dominican government has done the same," Nicolas told Reuters. The Haitian consul in the Dominican province of Dajabon, Jean-Baptiste Bien-Aime, said Wilson Destine had killed a young woman in Haiti then fled to the Dominican Republic. Destine, whom the diplomat called a notorious bandit, then gunned down a Dominican man on July 17 and fled back across the border to Haiti, Bien-Aime said.
"The Haitian bandit shot (the Dominican) in the neck, took away his motorcycle and crossed the border to the Haitian city of Ouanaminthe,"
Bien-Aime told Reuters. Destine is jailed in Haiti, police said.
Violence broke out on Friday in a marketplace in Dajabon, where vendors from both nations sell their goods. Dominican protesters demanded Destine's immediate extradition and used machetes, batons and rocks to chase out the Haitian vendors, forcing them to leave behind their wares, Bien-Aime said. Dominican authorities used tear gas to break up the protest and later blocked Haitian vendors from entering the country.
The Haitian police chief in Ouanaminthe, Jean-Claude Jean, said Destine was being held at police headquarters in Fort-Liberte, but that police lacked authority to extradite anyone and the issue had to be negotiated at top levels of both governments. "We had been looking for Wilson Destine for a while because he was involved in other criminal activities here in Ouanaminthe," Jean said. "I understand that he committed a crime other there, but he also committed crimes here too. So we have to keep him and hand him over to Haitian judicial authorities for prosecution." (Reuters, 7/28)
Debt Cancellation for Haiti Finally Comes Through!
The representatives of the Paris Club creditor countries and of the Republic of Haiti agreed on 8 July 2009 on a debt cancellation following Haiti's having reached its Completion Point under the enhanced initiative for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (enhanced HIPC Initiative) on 30 June 2009. As a contribution to restoring the Republic of Haiti's debt sustainability, Paris Club creditors decided to cancel USD 62.73 million, which represents the Paris Club's share of the effort in the framework of the enhanced HIPC Initiative.
Creditors welcome and support the Republic of Haiti's commitment to seek comparable treatment from all their other external creditors (including other creditor countries). Paris Club creditors also committed on a bilateral and voluntary basis to cancel an additional USD 152 million. As a result of this agreement and additional bilateral efforts, the Republic of Haiti's debt to Paris Club creditors will be entirely cancelled. Paris Club creditors welcomed the Republic of Haiti's determination to implement a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy and an ambitious economic programme providing the basis for sustainable economic growth in the context of a difficult global economic environment. The Republic of Haiti committed to allocate the resources freed by the present debt cancellation to priority areas identified in the country's poverty reduction strategy.
Background notes
1. The Paris Club was formed in 1956. It is an informal group of creditor governments from major industrialized countries. It meets on a monthly basis in Paris with debtor countries in order to agree with them on restructuring their debts.
2. The members of the Paris Club which participated in the restructuring of the Republic of Haiti's debt were representatives of the Governments of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
Observers at the meeting were representatives of the Governments of Japan and the Russian Federation as well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the International Development Association (IDA) and the Inter-American Development Bank. The delegation of the Republic of Haiti was headed by Mr Daniel DORSAINVIL, Minister of Economy and Finance. The meeting was chaired by Mr Julien RENCKI, Vice Chairman of the Paris Club, Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Treasury and Economic Policy Department of the French Ministry of Economy, Industry and Employment.
Technical notes
1. The Republic of Haiti's economic program is supported by an arrangement under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) approved in November 2006.
2. The Republic of Haiti's public external debt was estimated to be USD 1885 million in nominal value at end September 2008 (source: IMF and IDA documents). At the same date, the Republic of Haiti's public external debt due to Paris Club creditors was estimated to be USD
214.8 million (source : Paris Club).
3. IDA-administered EU loans are included in this treatment. (Paris Club, 7/8)
Canceling Haiti's debts will free up about $50 million a year for spending over the next 10 to 15 years to reduce poverty in the Caribbean nation, an IMF official said on Wednesday. The country won $1.2. billion in debt relief from the World Bank, IMF and other creditors earlier on Wednesday under a program by rich nations to ease the debt burdens of the world's poorest countries. "It is a very important milestone for Haiti," Corinne Delechat, IMF mission chief for Haiti, told Reuters. "It is a recognition of the reform efforts the government has made since 2004 and 2005 when there was some return to political stability and democracy," she said. Delechat said the government's program to stabilize the fragile economy has reduced inflation, brought the budget deficit under control, improved management of public finances and increased reserves in Haiti. Finance Minister Daniel Dorsainvil hailed the debt relief as "good news" for the Caribbean nation, where most people live on less than $2 a day.
Writing off the debts will allow the government to increase spending on anti-poverty programs that focus on job creation and projects that limit damage from natural disasters, such as hurricanes, which pummeled the country last year and killed 800 people. Delechat said Haiti was expected to request a new IMF financing program when the current one expires at the end of the year, which will encourage budget support from donors. "The IMF program is the anchor for other donors to come and also commit to multi-year budget support," she added. "With that anchor, the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank and the European Commission will start budget support operations." The largest share of Haiti's foreign debt is owed to the Inter-American Development Bank (41 percent of total external debt), the World Bank (27 percent), and bilateral creditors (24 percent).
Helped by 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers, Haiti appears to be on a slow recovery from its troubled past of dictatorship and political violence. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who has been appointed special U.N. envoy to the country, has declared this is Haiti's turning point. Delechat said debt relief offered the government an opportunity to rebuild. "We are cautiously optimistic," Delechat said.
"It is a turning point for Haiti and it is up to the government to use the opportunity well. "The security situation is much improved and it is a land of opportunity if you're an entrepreneur and an investor,"
she added. "It is a golden moment for Haiti to start investing in export capacity, particularly in textiles," Delechat said. (Reuters,
7/1)
Six People Dead From Southeastern Ferry Capsizing:
Six people died when a boat capsized off the coast of Haiti yesterday
- and dozens more were missing, authorities said. Sixteen passengers were rescued from the vessel, which had as many as 60 people onboard when it overturned en route from Anse a Pitre, near the Dominican border, to the southern peninsula city of Jacmel. "Six bodies have been recovered," said Alta Jean-Baptiste, director of Haiti's civil protection agency. Rescuers were frantically searching for more survivors and had requested local fishermen help them scan the seas.
The cause of the accident was unknown and it's unclear what kind of boat was involved. (AP, 7/11)
Haitian Police Say Demonstrator Was Killed by Bullet During Clash with
UN:
Haitian police say a demonstrator found slain after a clash with U.N.
peacekeepers during a funeral procession was killed by a bullet, and not by a rock as peacekeepers initially reported. But the police inspector who shared details of the autopsy report on Monday said ballistics tests are needed to determine who fired the fatal shot. The inspector who viewed the autopsy report spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the autopsy. He did not offer any additional details. Opponents of the 9,000-member U.N.
force are using the death to inflame passions against international troops stationed in Haiti since 2004.
The demonstrator, who remains unidentified, was killed June 18 as about 2,000 people marched with the casket of the Rev. Gerard Jean- Juste, an advocate for the poor who died in May after years of health problems. He was closely allied with ousted former President Jean- Bertrand Aristide. At least five Brazilian soldiers with the 9,000- member U.N. peacekeeping mission entered the back of the procession near Port-au-Prince's Notre Dame cathedral on foot to arrest a marcher, who was later released. Other demonstrators threw rocks at the soldiers, who responded by firing at least eight shots into the air before leaving in a jeep.
U.N. peacekeeping spokeswoman Sophie Boutaud de la Combe said Monday that the Brazilian soldiers had some weapons loaded with rubber bullets and others with 7.62-milimeter caliber live ammunition. In television footage of the clash at least eight shots can be heard. It is not clear if all were fired by the soldiers. No one else is seen holding a firearm. "We are confident that the autopsy reconfirmed that our troops were not responsible for this death," Boutaud de la Combe said. She noted that preliminary information that the protester had been killed by a rock or other blunt instrument were incorrect. Both the death and the clash that preceded it have only added to growing tension surrounding the U.N. troops. The day before the funeral other protesters also calling for their departure burned a U.N. police vehicle, one of a series of anti-U.N. demonstrations this year. The U.N. and other diplomats have defended the soldiers' decision to enter the funeral procession on the belief that they were arresting a wanted criminal. (AP, 6/29)
Haiti has found success in its fight against AIDS:
When Micheline Leon was diagnosed with HIV, her parents told her they would fit her for a coffin. Fifteen years later, she walks around her two-room concrete house on Haiti's central plateau, watching her four children play under the plantain trees. She looks healthy, her belly amply filling a gray, secondhand T-shirt. Her three sons and one daughter were born after she was diagnosed. None has the virus. "I'm not sick," she explained patiently on a recent afternoon. "People call me sick but I'm not. I'm infected."In many ways the 35-year-old mother's story is Haiti's too. In the early 1980s, when the strange and terrifying disease showed up in the U.S. among migrants who had escaped Haiti's dictatorship, experts thought it could wipe out a third of the country's population.
Instead, Haiti's HIV infection rate stayed in the single digits, then plummeted. In a wide range of interviews with doctors, patients, public health experts and others, The Associated Press found that Haiti's success in the face of chronic political and social turmoil came because organizations cooperated and tailored programs to the country's specific challenges. Much of the credit went to two pioneering nonprofit groups, Boston-based Partners in Health and Port- au-Prince's GHESKIO, widely considered to be the world's oldest AIDS clinic. "The Haitian AIDS community feels like they're out in front of everyone else on this, and pretty much they are," said Judith Timyan, senior HIV/AIDS adviser for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Haiti. "They really do some of the best work in the world." Researchers say the number of suffers was initially lessened by closing private blood banks, and statistically by high mortality rates ? an untreated AIDS sufferer in Haiti lives eight fewer years than an untreated American.
Well-coordinated use of AIDS drugs, education and behavioral changes such as increased condom use have kept the disease from surging back, at least for now. Statistics are notoriously unreliable in this country of poverty and lack of infrastructure. The most telling data would be the number of new infections in a given year, but researchers say such a precise count is impossible. Next best is to estimate the infected as a percentage of the population. From 1993 to 2003, only pregnant women were tested, and their rate of infection dropped from
6.2 percent to 3.1 percent, according to GHESKIO and national health surveys. Researchers now test men and women aged 15 to 49, and the official rate is 2.2 percent, according to UNAIDS. That's still far higher than in the developed world, but it's lower than the Bahamas, Guyana and Suriname, and much lower than sub-Saharan Africa, where the rate averages about 5 percent but spikes to 24 percent in Botswana and
33 percent in Swaziland.
But the crisis is far from over. In the Artibonite Valley, where Boston-based Partners in Health is just now setting up two clinics, the estimated infection rate is 4.5 percent. Some in these remote regions still look for care from Voodoo priests, who ask for large sums of money or goods and use treatments doctors say can be poisonous. Thanks in large part to UNAIDS, which awarded Haiti its first grant in 2002, and $420 million from the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, an estimated 18,000 people are on AIDS drugs, most of them administered free through GHESKIO and PIH. That population represents 40 percent of those whose white blood cell count is low enough for them to need the drugs. It is a high percentage for the developing world, but still fails to help many too remote to reach medical care or those at for-pay public clinics.
Still, Haiti has been sufficiently ahead in prevention, diagnosis and treatment for some of its programs to serve as models for PEPFAR, the program launched by President George W. Bush in 2003 and praised for its work in Africa. GHESKIO co-founder Dr. Jean W. Pape was awarded the French Legion of Honor for his work, and PIH's Paul Farmer was recently named chairman of Harvard Medical School's global health department. In May, Haiti was honored as the host of the opening ceremony of the 2009 International AIDS Candlelight Memorial. In a country suffering from political upheaval and natural disasters, where three-quarters of the people can neither afford nor access private clinics or fee-based public hospitals, few could have imagined at the dawn of the AIDS crisis how far Haiti would come. (AP, 7/5)
Clinton Points to Lack of Cooperation as Hindering Help for Haiti:
Former US President Bill Clinton said on Wednesday a lack of cooperation between Haitian politicians, aid groups and business leaders was hurting efforts to help the impoverished Caribbean nation.
Clinton, on his first visit since being named UN special envoy to Haiti, said he was optimistic about its future but surprised by the continuing divide between the private and public sectors and the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating in Haiti. "The most surprising thing to me ... is how little the investor community, all the elements of the government, including the legislative branch and the NGO community seem to have taught and absorbed each others'
lessons," Clinton told reporters at the end of a two-day fact-finding mission. The poorest country in the Americas, Haiti has struggled to establish democratic institutions and a stable investment climate following decades of dictatorship and military rule. Most of its 9 million people live on less than $2 a day.
But the appointment of Clinton by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in May, hundreds of millions of dollars in recent donor pledges and the granting of $1.2 billion in debt relief by the World Bank, IMF and other creditors this month has raised hopes in Haiti. The Paris Club of sovereign creditors said on Wednesday it had decided to cancel
$62.73 million of Haiti's debt and committed to canceling an additional $152 million. Clinton met on Wednesday with business leaders, heads of the executive and legislative branches of the government and NGOs and civil society groups, after a tour on Tuesday of the mud-stained city of Gonaives, where floods last year killed hundreds of people. He promised to do all he can to collect the money Haiti needs to address some of its crucial infrastructure, education and healthcare problems but urged Haitians to solve their internal differences. "If it is a question of money that's my problem, but if it is not about money, that's something Haitians need to resolve among themselves," he said. "That's a little surprising to me. But everybody
is eager to do it." (Reuters, 7/9)
Bill Clinton on Tuesday took his Haiti relief effort to this battered seaside city that was nearly destroyed last year by tropical storms, finding a mud-caked maze of partially rebuilt homes and shops.
Clinton, the new special U.N. envoy to Haiti, visited a hospital and school in Gonaives that served as emergency shelters during the four tropical storms, which killed nearly 800 people and caused $1 billion in damage to irrigation, bridges and roads. The former president praised reconstruction efforts but said much more needs to be done. He said Haiti needs more money and better coordination among aid groups and the government to rebuild and spur development. 'I'm just trying to organize this process and drive it faster,' Clinton said during a break in the tour along the city's craggy roads.
Aid has poured into the Gonaives region but many homes and shops remain damaged, and the area remains vulnerable to flooding because the surrounding hills have been stripped of trees to produce charcoal.
It was Clinton's first trip to Gonaives, but he was greeted like a returning hero. Shrieking girls clamored to have their photo taken with the former president; men pushed their elderly mothers through the crowd for a chance to shake his hand. Haitians stood on piles of rubble to catch a glimpse of Clinton's motorcade as it wove through the rocky streets of Gonaives, one of the poorest cities in a chronically troubled country considered the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. Clinton, who came to Gonaives with Haitian President Ren?
Pr?val, said the Haitian government and its international backers hope to create 150,000 to 200,000 jobs nationwide over the next two years.
Many of those jobs will come from projects to rebuild roads and shore up erosion-prone hillsides. 'It will be hard, but I think it's important,' Clinton said of his mission later after returning to the capital, Port-au-Prince. (AP, 7/8)
UN appeal for Haiti has failed to raise sufficient funds to rehabilitate the hurricane-hit agriculture sector:
Following the devastating series of hurricanes that hit Haiti in August and September 2008, the UN issued an emergency flash appeal. In November the advocacy platform composed of British development agencies and solidarity organizations wrote to the United Nations to express its concern about the poor international response to the appeal, and in particular to the very poor response to the part of the flash appeal concerning the rehabilitation of Haiti's vital agricultural sector. (http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/VDUX-7LLSQ8?OpenDocument
). At that time, only US$828,000 - just 8% of the allocation of US $10.5m requested to help the agricultural sector by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) had been raised.
By the end of January 2009 - by which time the appeal had been reissued and the amount requested for agriculture had been increased to U$11..5m - the amount donated to the agriculture section had increased US$1,450,610 (13% of the total requested). -http://www.haitisupport.gn.apc.org/FlashAppealUpdate.html
Now, according to the UN's OCHA, as of 8 July 2009 a total of US $4.42m had been donated for agriculture - 38% of the total requested.
While this amount is not insignificant, the Haiti Support Group is disturbed that two of the four programmes that the FAO wants to implement in response to the hurricane damage to the agricultural sector have hardly received any financial support.
As part of the flash appeal the FAO had requested US$2m to for a programme entitled, 'Rehabilitation of the irrigation network in the main areas affected by the natural disasters in 2008'. By July 2009, only US$201,393 or 10% of the total had been donated (by Canada). A second FAO programme entitled, 'Fertility restoration of arable lands and erosion control" requires US$1.5m but by July 2009 only US$255,775 or 17% of the total had been donated (by the European Commission). In light of such a pathetic response, and with presumably no further donations in the offing, the Haiti Support Group can only repeat this conclusion - The fact that the response to the agriculture section of the UN flash appeal has been so disappointing suggests that once again that the international aid machine remains wedded to the short-term and has scant regard for lasting solutions to Haiti's problems. (Haiti Support Group, 7/8)
Haiti Support Group on Haiti Debt Cancellation:
Like when a wrongly-convicted prisoner is released after years of incarceration, there can only be mixed feelings about yesterday's announcement of the cancellation of US$1.2 billion of Haiti's US$1.9 billion debt. Yes, it is good news that over 60% of Haiti's debt has been cancelled under the terms of the HIPC. But, on the other hand, it is a scandal that it took so long for the international finance institutions (IFIs) to take this step. Just think what could have been done with the money wasted on debt repayments over the last years?
Part of the debt that has now been cancelled was composed of loans made to the Duvalier regimes in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. These loans were never used to develop the country and much of the amount was stolen by the Duvaliers and their clique. It remains an outrage that the Haitian people had to continue paying interest on these amounts until June 2009!
The HIPC debt cancellation announced by the IMF and World Bank is good news indeed, but what about those wasted years when the debt was being repaid and Haiti's economy went from bad to worse?
The debt cancellation means that the US$1m per week that the Haitian people have until now been paying to service the debt can instead be used for other purposes. The HSG would hope that this would mean more state support for national production for national consumption.
However all the indications are that - under heavy pressure from the IFIs - the Haitian government will instead pursue a development strategy based on the deeply-flawed garment assembly export sector.
Without ever providing a convincing argument, the IFIs have been pushing for decades for this sector to be the motor of Haiti's economic development. Despite the fact that this sector exists in a virtual vacuum with only minimal impact on the wider Haitian economy, only a few months ago UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and British economist Paul Collier made yet another proposal for international aid to fund garment assembly production in new Free Trade Zones.
Indeed, Corinne Delechat, IMF mission chief for Haiti, commenting on the debt cancellation, told Reuters that Haiti is a 'land of opportunity if you're an entrepreneur and an investor," adding, "It is a golden moment for Haiti to start investing in export capacity, particularly in textiles." It looks like the IFIs' interventions will result in the HIPC debt cancellation being a matter of Haiti taking one step forward, while their focus on garment assembly for export will take the country two steps back. (Haiti Support Group press release - 2 July 2009)
Haiti: CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM AS INVESTMENT TRICKLES INTO HAITI:
In the article below, Jacqueline Charles of the Miami Herald writes how, despite Haiti's many challenges, roads are being built, power plants constructed, and business opportunities growing. Investments in Haiti - in the capacity of its government, in its infrastructure, and increasingly in its private sector, are starting to pay off. Haiti is a country under construction, with something that it has not had for years...momentum.
CARREFOUR, Haiti -- Having traded his designer suits for jeans and a T-shirt, the Washington-based international lender surveyed the fruits of a $50 million loan, peppering his Haitian hosts with questions in his quick-study French.
Luis Alberto Moreno, Colombian diplomat turned Inter-American Development Bank head, looked out of place to the Haitians tracking his every move as he toured the new yellow and mint-green market complex. He passed bathrooms with gleaming flush toilets, a rest area for workers, clinic, a kids playground -- and a slaughterhouse to prepare fresh meat for the market.
In a country where promises are broken and donor contracts take years to execute, the $1.2 million Mariani Market on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince illustrates the steady pockets of progress being made in this fragile Caribbean nation.
``There is some momentum,' Moreno mused. ``It still has a long way to go. But at least there is a sense that the security situation is better, which means a lot of things can start to happen.'
Tentatively, cautiously, a mood of optimism is replacing a sense of endless chaos and uncertainty in places like Carrefour, a city buffeted by natural disaster, hunger riots and decades of political turmoil. Its streets are still clogged with mind-numbing, horn-honking traffic. But, look around Haiti and you can see new schools being built in once-gang-ridden slums, paved streets replacing rutted roads and crops growing in once storm-wrecked fields.
As Moreno and countless Haitians know, nothing is irreversible here. The country is a modern-day Sisphyus, a Greek tragedy plagued by ups and downs as it struggles with grinding poverty and volatile politics. Even now there are concerns that upcoming elections, political disagreements within the government and debates over revising the constitution and increasing the minimum wage could derail the momentum.
But if there is cause for optimism these days in Haiti, it is because of the arrival of some good news.
In the last three weeks alone, $1.2 billion in foreign debt, including $511 million from the IDB, have been forgiven, saving the country $50 million a year in repayments.
Canada and the United States both revised their travel advisories and no longer warn citizens to avoid ``nonessential travel' to Haiti.
And within a span of 10 days, the country that couldn't raise $100 million in foreign aid after last summer's back-to-back storms, hosted three of the world's most highly sought-after development pitchmen: former President Bill Clinton, now U.N. special envoy to Haiti; renowned Columbia University anti-poverty economist Jeffrey Sachs; and the IDB's Moreno.
``We all want to be here and help,' Sachs told Haitian Prime Minister Michelle Pierre-Louis during a dinner toast, calling this a ``singular moment' for her nation.
The IDB, which is celebrating 50 years since its founding, chose Haiti as one of four countries to mark its anniversary, bringing its highly influential board of directors here this month along with the prime ministers of the Bahamas and Barbados, and the assistant secretary general of the Organization of American States.
Two days of meetings ended with a tour of several long-delayed IDB-financed projects including the market, a $46 million rehabilitation of an irrigation canal to put an additional 19,768 acres of agricultural land back in production in the Artibonite Valley and National Route 1, the 155-mile stretch linking the capital in the south with Cap-Haitien in the north.
At a cost of almost $2 million per mile, only 31 miles of the originally envisioned 49 miles, from Port-au-Prince to St. Marc, have been able to get a makeover. The Haitian government and the IDB are still searching for financing for the last 18 miles, which Moreno's 12-car convoy experienced as they bounced and zig-zagged their way around potholes en route from the city of St. Marc to the western Arcadins Coast.
``When you look at things from a distance, you think you're doing a lot,' Moreno says, noting that the IDB will triple its grants to Haiti next year to $128 million. ``But when you come here and see on the ground the huge amount of need, you think you are putting only a little drop in the bucket. That's the contrast you feel.'
Last week, a Washington-based team of the U.S. Agency for International Development visited Port-au-Prince -- making good on a promise by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who visited in April, to evaluate how U.S. taxpayers' money and other foreign aid is being spent in Haiti.
Last Wednesday, Haitian businessmen finally broke ground on a $56 million, 30-megawatt heavy fuel power plant. The project, conceived in 2005, is expected to save the Haitian treasury at least $2.5 million a month, but will still only meet a fraction of the country's energy needs.
But the fact that a group of Korean investors has agreed to pump $3 million into the project -- Haitian investors and banks are already putting in $20 million -- is a sign of progress, Haitians say.
``It says Haiti is open for business. Foreigners are starting to believe in the country again,' said Haitian investor Daniel Rouzier. ``The limelight being put on Haiti right now means we have a strategic window of opportunity to get this country moving again.'
The new power plant is not the only investment taking shape around a calmer Cité Soleil, where a new U.S.-government-financed police station recently opened. In addition, newly constructed streets and parks, financed by $6 million in U.S. assistance and built by the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration, offer children and residents respite from their slum.
Recently, the Haitian-owned West Indies Group began clearing a nearby lot for the construction of a new $40 million, 1-million-square-foot industrial park. With its 40 buildings, the park will be able to employ 25,000 textile workers as part of the duty-free HOPE II legislation approved by the U.S. Congress. Among those interested in possibly investing in the project is billionaire George Soros' foundation.
``It's time for Haitians to take responsibility for their future,' Rouzier, the Haitian businessman, said. ``We have to come up with internationally competitive projects. We have to be willing to compete with the outside world. We can't just rely on U.S. trade advantages to make Haiti competitive. It has to come from the inside. Rebuild infrastructure and make it available at rates available in other countries.'
Haiti: Shipwrecked Haitian: Those who couldn't swim, died:
By JONATHAN M. KATZ and JENNIFER KAY (AP) – 40 minutes ago
CAP-HAITIEN, Haiti — There was no warning when the overloaded sailboat plowed into a coral reef and began to break apart. In the darkness, some 200 migrants were plunged into the water, grabbing desperately at anything that might help keep them afloat.
Joanel Pierre, a skinny 18-year-old, lifted his gray T-shirt on Wednesday to display the scratches clawed into his body by drowning shipmates.
"The ones who knew how to swim, swam," he told The Associated Press, speaking quietly and averting his eyes.
"The ones who didn't, died."
Fifteen bodies had been recovered Wednesday, and another 70 people remained missing as the U.S. Coast Guard warned that prospects for finding more survivors were becoming dim. And the 118 who had already been rescued began to tell the story of their doomed voyage.
The blue-and-white sailboat set out before dawn Saturday filled with people from miserably poor northern Haiti. Their families had saved up $500 apiece to send them to what Haitians call "the other side of the water."
In this case the destination was the Turks and Caicos Islands, a tourism-dependent British territory where there are jobs in construction and maintenance — and sometimes, a little hope for a better future. Pierre hoped to work as a mechanic.
The boat was jam-packed with people. Men filled the deck, exposed to the hot sun, while women and men alike filled the dark, nearly airless hold below, survivors later told rescuers. Pierre said the hold was packed so tight that nobody could lie down.
During the two-day journey, the migrants ate twice, they said — rice and beans both times. There was also water aboard.
About 10 p.m. Sunday, Pierre clambered onto deck for some fresh air, and was rewarded with a welcome sight: the lights of Providenciales gleaming on the horizon.
But before he could savor the moment there was a powerful jolt and a skidding sensation, "like a car had blown its tire," Pierre said. The hold began to splinter as the waves smashed the vessel against a reef, survivors said. People spilled into the water.
"People started yelling, `God help me!'" Pierre said.
Pierre spoke Wednesday in Cap-Haitien, the northern Haitian city where he and dozens of other survivors were flown back from the Turks and Caicos. Others were still being held in a gym in Providenciales, while the worst-off were being treated at a hospital there.
Like most of those who made it, Pierre managed to swim through 6-foot swells to the jagged reef that sank the boat and clung to it for his life. The sun was scorching, and there was no food or water.
"We were hungry, thirsty, uncomfortable," he said. "We went through every misery at once."
Others held onto to pieces of the boat — all that remained of the homemade craft — terrified as they drifted that their bleeding wounds would attract the black tip and tiger sharks that come to the area to eat snappers, the fish that spawn there in the summer.
Early Monday, a boat passed nearby. Survivors waved and screamed, but it didn't veer from its course, said rescuer Dja Castel, recounting what survivors told him. Many gave themselves up for dead.
By the time the first rescuers arrived, the survivors had been in the 15-foot-deep water for 17 hours, and nobody was strong enough to scream.
Castel, who was on a boat in the area, spotted a red piece of clothing waving in the wind — someone's shirt. As he approached, he couldn't make out people amid the wreckage of the boat.
Eventually the rescuers spotted a man clinging to a piece of wood. Two others were trying to swim toward a reef where about 20 people clung to the coral.
The rescuers threw a rope to one of the swimmers and pulled him aboard. The other swimmer was going under, and Castel dived in to help. The swimmer's arms flailed in the waves.
"He was fighting the water," Castel said.
On the boat, Castel gave the man mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Water poured from his nose and mouth and ran down the sides of his face.
After 10 minutes, the crew pronounced the man dead and turned their attention back to the living.
Some on the reef were wearing only their underwear.
"They looked like someone who had lost hope," Castel said.
He said it was easy to get them aboard: "It was like you use a net to catch fish. All of them came together."
The parched survivors gave their thanks to God.
At a government clinic in Providenciales, doctors hooked IV drips to survivors' arms. The patients, many bleeding, cried out in weak voices in pain and for the people they had lost.
"They were so dehydrated they looked like mummies," said Robert K. Houseman, a local photographer.
Back in Cap-Haitien on Wednesday, relatives gathered at the airport to meet returning survivors being flown home by Turks and Caicos immigration authorities.
Pierre, who was reunited with his mother, said for all the horrors of the voyage he was still desperate to get out of Haiti, where 80 percent of the people survive on less than $2 a day.
"I'm not going on the water again," he said. "But if God made it possible for me to get a plane ticket, I would go."
Kay reported from Providenciales, Turks and Caicos.
Haiti: Officials say 3 miners die in Haiti landslide:
Authorities in Haiti say at least three miners died when part of a mountain collapsed near a poor neighborhood of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
United Nations spokesman Fred Blaise says U.N. peacekeepers are digging through the muck with bulldozers and other equipment in case anyone else was trapped when the earth gave way Wednesday.
He says the workers were mining the mountain for construction materials near the impoverished neighborhood of Jean-Marie Guilloux.
Associated Press
2009-07-30 06:51 AM
Haiti: Haiti, with IDB assistance, to rebuild schools hit by hurricanes:
Source: Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
Date: 24 Jun 2009
A $20.5 million grant will help repair and equip public education facilities
The Inter-American Development Bank today approved a $20.5 million grant to help Haiti rebuild and equip schools destroyed or damaged by last year's hurricanes or in dire need of repairs.
The bulk of the IDB grant will be used to replace, repair or improve the buildings of at least 50 public schools, including the construction of sufficient classrooms, offices, dining rooms, kitchens and bathroom facilities. Resources will also be used to equip the schools with new furniture, clean water systems and solar lamp posts.
The project will be carried by Haiti's FAES economic and social assistance fund, a government agency with an impressive track record in executing small-scale infrastructure projects and in coordinating services between different ministries.
Over the years FAES had built or repaired more than 330 schools using IDB financing, applying high standards for civil works. None of these schools suffered significant damage during last year's hurricanes.
The project will also seek to involve local school authorities and communities in preventive maintenance of their infrastructure. Training will be provided and a maintenance fund will be established using grant resources. FAES will seek to secure additional public funds for its annual budget in order to sustain the school maintenance fund.
The IDB-funded project will complement the efforts of several other international agencies and foreign aid donors helping Haiti repair schools after last year's hurricanes. The IDB has also supported programs to improve the quality of basic education and vocational training in Haiti.
Haiti: Haiti Report for June 27, 2009:
Haiti Report for June 27, 2009
The Haiti Report is a compilation and summary of events as described in Haiti and international media prepared by Konbit Pou Ayiti/KONPAY.
It does not reflect the opinions of any individual or organization.
This service is intended to create a better understanding of the situation in Haiti by presenting the reader with reports that provide a variety of perspectives on the situation.
To make a donation to support this service: Konbit Pou Ayiti, 7 Wall Street, Gloucester, MA, 01930.
IN THIS REPORT:
- Prime Minister Pierre-Louis Emphasizes Haiti's Need for Financial Support
- South Florida Congressional Delegations Calls for Assistance for Haiti and TPS for Haitians in the US
- New IDB Grants to Rehab the Peligre Hydroelectric Plant
- Ambassador Janet Sanderson Steps Down
- Senator Bill Nelson Researching Haiti's Drug Trafficking Problem
- MINUSTAH Escalation of Violence, Student Protests, the Minimum Wage
- Miami Herald Editorial: It's time to help Haiti
Prime Minister Pierre-Louis Emphasizes Haiti's Need for Financial
Support:
Two months after foreign donors pledged more than $300 million in aid to Haiti, the hurricane-ravaged Caribbean nation has yet to receive any of the promised funds -- or even an outline of where the money will go, Haitian Prime Minister Mich?le Pierre-Louis said Thursday.
'We are frustrated,' said Pierre-Louis, using her first official visit to South Florida to repeat her government's call for donors to make good on pledges at April's donors conference in Washington. "We are in dire need of financial support, so it would be helpful to know exactly if they want [the funds] to go into agriculture, in environment, education or health. This was the plan that was presented and they all agreed on it.' Pierre-Louis' frank appeal -- and assertion that as Haiti's biggest donor the United States also could do more -- came three days after former U.S. President Bill Clinton and now U.N. special envoy to Haiti made a similar appeal to donors.
Clinton, during his first public address since being named to the post last month, said one of his priorities will be to get donors to honor their $353 million in pledges. 'That probably is one of the roles President Clinton will have to play, see what follow-up there can be to the donors conference,' Pierre-Louis told The Miami Herald during a visit with the editorial board. A group of business leaders invited Pierre-Louis to South Florida to discuss investment opportunities in Haiti. As part of her investment pitch, she stressed that despite the difficulties in Haiti, opportunities abound. New roads have been built, Miami-based Royal Caribbean is building a $50 million pier and soon the government, with a Venezuelan loan, will begin work on renovating the Cap-Haitien airport. The northern city is Haiti's second largest.
But even as she encouraged Haitian Americans and others to invest, stressing that humanitarian aid alone won't develop Haiti, she conceded that the Caribbean nation was not ready to stand on its own.
It needs the support of its international partners, including the United States, which spends about $350 million a year in the country
-- none of which goes to the government. All U.S. funds are handled by private, nongovernmental organizations. The Haitian government used savings from the Venezuelan Petrocaribe oil fund to buy heavy machinery following last year's hurricanes. Without it, Haitian government officials have said they would still be waiting on the international community to dredge deadly rivers, reinforce banks and reconnect storm-damaged roads. Also, using South Korean parts, Venezuela, with help from Cuba, constructed three new power plants in three major cities, and also provided $48 million in fertilizer to Haiti.
Cuba recently sent a team of experts to help Haiti figure out how to evacuate residents in cases of hurricanes. 'With the Cubans, it's a very good cooperation. They don't bring money, they bring their savoir faire in health, in education,' she said. "They are not transporting ideology to the country. They are low-profile and very serious.' The partnership with Venezuela is 'based on the needs expressed by the president and the government,' Pierre-Louis said. "I don't put them in competition, but it's true that the U.S. could do much more and better focused, better targeted.' Meanwhile, Clinton's efforts to help Haiti may have to start with a conversation with the State Department, where his wife Hillary Clinton serves as U.S. secretary of state. Washington carries a lot of weight on Haiti, and some donors are waiting for direction from the Obama administration.
'The donors watch a few parameters. . . . Usually the donors follow either the U.S. or the IMF [International Monetary Fund]. It is said very bluntly. The Japanese told me, 'We are waiting for the signs from the U.S. We have to take that into account.' ' Pierre-Louis spent the day meeting with Haitian and American journalists, talking about the post-hurricane recovery and the ongoing challenging landscape in Haiti. On Friday, she will meet with Haitian-American leaders and attend a private reception sponsored by Miami Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones at the new Little Haiti Cultural Complex. She returns to Haiti on Saturday. Her visit comes just days before Haiti holds controversial runoff elections for 11 senate seats, and a day after President Ren? Pr?val ended negotiations on a controversial law to raise the country's minimum wage from $1.70 a day to $4.90. In his compromise he sent to parliament, Pr?val offered to raise the entry level wage to $3.04 a day for assembly workers for now, and $4.90 for everyone else. Government workers and those in agriculture would be exempt. (Miami Herald, 6/19)
South Florida Congressional Delegations Calls for Assistance for Haiti and TPS for Haitians in the US:
While progress is being made in a hurricane-ravaged Haiti, the country remains in need of assistance, including temporary relief from deportation for thousands of undocumented Haitians living in the United States, a South Florida congressional delegation said Monday after a day-long visit to the Caribbean nation. Led by Miami Democrat Kendrick Meek, the group met with President Ren? Pr?val, key Haitian business leaders, U.S. embassy personnel and U.S. Coast Guard officials. It included Weston Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz, along with Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and Mario and Lincoln Diaz- Balart. 'There are so many wonderful things that are happening in Haiti,' said Ros-Lehtinen, who highlighted the University of Miami's Project Medishare Program that is training Haitian doctors and health professionals in the country.
'There's a lot that we can do. There's a lot that we can do together.
Haiti's problems must be paid attention to. We can be part of that solution,' said Ros-Lehtinen, ranking minority member of the foreign affairs committee. Lincoln Diaz-Balart said in addition to granting an estimated 30,000 Haitians Temporary Protected Status, the Obama administration can further help Haiti by revising the State Department's travel warning to American citizens. Haitians and U.S.
business owners have long complained that the travel warning is an impediment to attracting critical investments to the country. 'It's a beautiful country, Haiti, with an extraordinary history and one of the ways in which they are going to lift themselves up from poverty is with tourism,' he said. "I would urge and I will, the Obama administration, the State Department to review that policy because security -- the lack of security that has been at the cause of the warning to U.S. tourists -- has been improved. The [Haitian] government has made tremendous strides in improving security.'
Delegation members said they discussed a myriad of issues during their visit, including the need for TPS, the 11,000 jobs created under a U.S.-congressional back HOPE II legislation and the efforts of the U.S. Coast Guard in curtailing illegal smuggling operations. Wasserman Schultz said after visiting the U.S. Embassy, she wants to assure Haitians that there is a legal way to migrate and that the waiting time has now been seriously reduced. The one disappointment, Wasserman Schultz said, was Sunday's low voter turnout for the elections. 'The political strife that seems to have existed in Haiti for quite some time, still seems to exist. That appears to be a major obstacle to Haiti's progress. It's one thing for us to be able to provide aid and to pass wonderful legislation like the HOPE legislation . . . but if Haiti isn't able to get their political act together, then it's sort of gotta get out of its own way first before others around the world will be able to effectively help them,' she said. ``That is the message we brought to President Pr?val and the leadership.'
Meek also said he plans to ask for the appropriate Haitian authorities to look into the death of a mourner attending Haitian community activist G?rard Jean-Juste's funeral last week in Port-au-Prince.
Peacekeepers with the U.N. Stabilization mission in Haiti, known by the French acronym MINUSTAH, are accused of firing into the crowd and killing a mourner. South Florida activists have asked Meek to demand answers. 'It's an international issue because the U.N. was involved . . . but I think it's very, very important for the future of security and also relations between MINUSTAH and the Haitian people that there is some conclusive evidence to show what really happened,'
Meek said. (Miami Herald, 6/23)
New IDB Grants to Rehab the Peligre Hydroelectric Plant:
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved $120M in grants for 2010 to help Haiti invest in key sectors such as infrastructure, basic services and disaster prevention, with a portion of the funds expected to help towards a second phase of rehabilitation of the country's Peligre hydroelectric plant. Output from the 54MW plant is currently half of its potential due to the age of the equipment and reservoir sedimentation reducing the volume of water available for hydro power. The plant was built in the early 1970s and over recent years has contributed approximately half of the electricity distributed by state-owned utility Electricite d'Haiti (EDH).
The five-year long US$40M rehabilitation programme will be in three phases - one for each of the plant's three turbines. Back in December last year, IDB approved a grant of US$12.5M for the first phase, with the last phase expected to be funded by the OPEC Fund for International Development. The $120M grant announced earlier this week was described by IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno as a vote of confidence in the Haitian public sector, which has shown a growing capacity to put aid pledges into action. The funds are a marked increase in resources being made available to the country - in 2009 the Bank allocated $100M in funds, with $50M allocated in the two years previous. The IDB is currently financing 22 projects in Haiti, with a total budget of $675M. The portfolio of loans and grants is largely focused on infrastructure, agriculture, water and sanitation, electricity, education, vocational training and state modernisation.
(International Water Power and Dam Construction, 6/26)
Ambassador Janet Sanderson Steps Down:
Mideast expert and career diplomat Janet Sanderson landed in a deeply polarized Haiti 3 ? years ago to dizzying curiosity: Some in this highly machismo culture, puzzled by the appointment, doubted whether she would succeed. Now, as Sanderson leaves her post as the United States' top envoy in Haiti, observers say she was a much better fit than many first assumed. 'She was a very good ambassador, very respectful of the country,' said Ren? Max Auguste, president of the Haitian-American Chamber of Commerce, which hosted both her welcome and farewell dinners. "She would try to solve problems through dialogue. The problem she realized is that President [Ren?] Pr?val could have done much more as far as his leadership actions, guiding the country for change.' In a vexing and often turbulent Haiti, where many an envoy have left frustrated and traumatized, Sanderson, 54, is considered a survivor. She has lasted longer than her predecessor, and unlike the ambassador before him, she isn't leaving in anger. And unlike other Haiti envoys who have fled into retirement, Sanderson is continuing with her career, and has been rewarded with a job in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department. (Miami Herald,
6/26)
Senator Bill Nelson Researching Haiti's Drug Trafficking Problem:
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson is in Haiti researching the impoverished country's drug-trafficking problem. He was expected to meet President Rene Preval on Friday to discuss other issues including last weekend's Senate elections. Nelson also will visit the Cite Soleil slum and a U.S.-funded agriculture project. The U.S. estimates that 10 percent of South American cocaine bound for North America passes through the island that Haiti and the Dominican Republic share. Nelson's home state of Florida is a two-hour plane ride away. The three-day visit is part of a renewed international focus on Haiti including a recently pledged $353 million in foreign aid. Haiti's prime minister said this month that no money has arrived. (AP, 6/27)
MINUSTAH Escalation of Violence, Student Protests, the Minimum Wage:
excerpted from "Beat the Dog Too Hard", Haiti's Elections By MARK SCHULLER A couple of days ago, the UN troops (MINUSTAH) gave a press conference about the upcoming elections, promising that they would be secure and devoid of violence. The only thing that worried the UN was the weather. Why is the UN so interested in these elections, especially since it seems clear that many people here aren?t? At this same press conference, the MINUSTAH spokesperson was questioned by several journalists about their increasing aggression against the Haitian population. On Thursday, UN troops roughed up a partisan of deposed president Aristide at a funeral and following demonstration for Father Jean-Juste, a leader within Aristide?s Fanmi Lavalas party. This triggered a reaction from the crowd, and according to the spokesperson, MINUSTAH fired seven shots in the air. At least nine were audible in footage by Tele Ginen. One person died at the protest, found lying in a large pool of blood. The UN denied it was by their bullets (they ignored the question of whether they were metal or rubber), suggesting he died from someone throwing a rock. To date, if there has been an autopsy, the results have not been published.
For the better part of the month of June, college students have been staging almost daily protests, that began with a localized concern about taking away labs and shortening classes in the State University of Haiti?s School of Medicine but have broadened to support the movement to raise Haiti?s minimum wage. At many of these protests the UN has responded by firing teargas. It has been the cause of concern for many neighboring residents and doctors at the State Hospital, adjacent to the School of Medicine where many canisters of teargas have been shot. The UN evaded all questions about the severity of the response, instead asking journalists a rhetorical question if they didn?t have a duty to respond when public property was destroyed. In a case last Wednesday, the only provocation was a tire was burned on a street corner and a burned-out minivan was blocking traffic in front of campus.
Right or wrong, many Haitian people are increasingly fed up with the UN occupation, which according to many sources spent $600 million last year. For the first time since I?ve been coming here since 2002, I have begun to hear people to tell me to f*** off and go home. Other blan (foreigner / white people) are noticing the same. Many people are speculating about the timing of the UN?s escalation of violence. Some have theorized that it represents the UN?s putting in place a new order, a new stage in the country?s development. On Wednesday, the day before the UN allegedly shot the Lavalas member, Haitian president Ren? Pr?val officially announced his objection to the law raising Haiti?s minimum wage from 70 goud ($1.75) to 200 goud ($5). The day before this, former U.S. President Bill Clinton officially accepted his post as UN Special Emissary, in which he promised to bring together a range of donors, including the private sector, to bring jobs to Haiti. In his presentation with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- Moon, Clinton cited the Collier Report more and in greater detail than a plan ostensibly coming from the Haitian government.
The Collier Report ? and ostensibly the Haitian government?s strategic plan ? argue that Haiti?s future lies in low-wage manufacturing work, exploiting Haiti?s dual ?comparative advantage? of proximity to the U.S. and very low wages. Granted a unique opportunity in the HOPE Act, a nine-year tax relief that according to industry sources is $1.50 per pair of pants, Haiti needs to act quickly to privatize two of the remaining four public utilities (the port and electricity) to capitalize on this momentum and create jobs, says the Collier report (and according to Clinton, who said he read both, the Haitian government?s plan). Of two dozen grassroots activists who are actively engaged in civic life and debate world events such as Iran?s elections and Israel?s settlement policy, none have heard of the Collier Report or its author, Oxford economist Paul Collier (and all I?ve heard from since Bill Clinton?s speech haven?t heard about the government?s plan either).
The manufacturing lobby, just granted a unique opportunity not given any other country in this $1.50 customs exemption, have made it their top priority to stop the passage of the minimum wage law while refusing to testify and submit to Parliament?s questioning until the previous weekend, more than a month after the Senate unanimously passed the minimum wage legislation. Some workers believe that industrialists are afraid to be asked about their bookkeeping practices, among others. Several workers complained that while their taxes were taken out of biweekly pay, the Haitian social security office didn?t even have a file for them. The industry lobby threatens that the 200 goud minimum wage will be the cause of 15,000 jobs lost.
One of the eight primary industrialist families, presidential candidate Charles-Henri Baker, allegedly sent a pink slip to 300 workers, saying they would be fired the day that the 200 goud minimum wage law is put in effect.
Research with several factory workers reveals that the average quota for pants is 500 per day and average wage is 100 goud ($2.50) per day in P?toprens factories, which is 20 Haitian cents per pair of pants per person. Since the average size of factory lines is 25, this is 5 goud, or 12.5 cents for ALL Haitian laborers on a pair of pants.
Consequently, doubling the minimum wage would be 10 goud, or a quarter per pair of pants. This extra 12-and-a-half cents pales in comparison to the $1.50, to say nothing of the final retail cost. According to union sources, in the Wanament Free Trade Zone, the average quota for t-shirts is 3000 per day per ?module.? Average wage is 150 goud, or 5 Haitian cents per person per t-shirt. Again 25 people per module and this figure is 1.25 goud (three and an eighth cents) for all Haitian labor. Article 137 of Haiti?s Labor Code obliges the Haitian government to augment the minimum wage to keep up with inflation if it?s greater than 10% in any given fiscal year (Oct 1-Sept 30). The last time the minimum wage was increased was in 2003. Given the global food crisis felt acutely in Haiti last April, it is long overdue, and 200 goud is actually lower than it should be to keep pace with inflation and the devaluation of the goud.
This conflict, the UN?s increasing use of the trigger, and the debate in Parliament are likely to continue with increased intensity when Parliament will reconsider the act in light of the President?s objections next Tuesday. This conflict is but one manifestation of a larger global system that is reeling from an economic crisis and shifting following the new U.S. administration. Speaking of the UN and their attacks against both the students and Lavalas, I was told of a proverb, bat two f?, chen pap rele. If you beat a dog too hard, it won?t bark anymore (because it is dead). [Mark Schuller is Assistant Professor of African American Studies and Anthropology at York College, the City University of New York. He has co-directed documentary Poto Mitan: Haitian Women, Pillars of the Global Economy
(2009) and co-edited Capitalizing on Catastrophe: Neoliberal Strategies in Disaster Reconstruction (2008) among other reports and articles about Haiti, development, and globalization. He is in Haiti for the summer.] (6/25)
Miami Herald Editorial: It's time to help Haiti As of last week, when Haitian Prime Minister Mich?le Pierre-Louis visited Miami and this editorial board, Haiti still had not received a penny of the $300 million in hurricane aid promised to the storm- ravaged island by the international community at a donors conference in April. This is an unacceptably slow response to Haiti's critical needs. With June almost over, the most dangerous part of the hurricane season will soon be upon us. If aid is not received soon, it will be too late to prevent a repetition of the series of disasters that occurred last year when Haiti was hit by four consecutive storms within a matter of weeks, inflicting death, misery and enormous economic damage.
Haiti has barely begun to recover from the trauma of last year's punishing storms, but its needs are vast and its resources are scant.
Without international help it cannot reasonably hope to be ready for this year's Caribbean storms, which strike with regularity at this time of year on Hispaniola and other islands in Hurricane Alley. Ms.
Pierre-Louis rightly expressed frustration with the international community's failure to deliver on its promises. This is not just about building up the nation's infrastructure, but about enabling Haiti to make reasonable plans for a viable economic future. It's time for the donors to pony up. A promise made should be a promise delivered, particularly for a country where the needs are great and millions live in poverty.
Meanwhile, five U.S. members of Congress from South Florida made a worthwhile trip to Haiti on Monday to underscore the need for the United States to grant temporary protected status to Haitians already in this country. It makes no sense whatsoever for this country to be offering aid and economic support for Haiti and at the same time deporting Haitians who don't meet the proper immigration requirements.
These are the very people whose money transfers to friends and family on the island provide the most direct source of aid. They should remain here while Haiti rebuilds. Here, they can work and help family back home. In Haiti they would only add to the ranks of the needy.
(Miami Herald, 6/23)
Haiti: Haiti president's party picks up 5 Senate seats:
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — President Rene Preval's party won five of 11 contests to fill open Senate seats, according to preliminary results released Monday by the provisional electoral council.
Five other parties won one seat each in the June 21 run-off elections. One seat wasn't filled because voting was canceled in the central plateau region after political violence.
The result was a good one for Preval, giving his Lespwa party 12 seats in the 30-member body, including the nonvoting presidency. That could give him a boost for planned economic reforms sought by the U.S. and other aid donors and for constitutional changes to increase presidential powers that have been limited in the wake of Haiti's dictatorships.
But at least four sitting senators have threatened to try to block the seating of the victors because of extremely low voter turnout in the run-offs and alleged fraud in April's first round.
Turnout in the latest voting was even lower than the 11 percent tallied in the first round. No official percentage has been reported for the June 21 elections, but there were 12,640 fewer valid ballots cast than in April.
On election day, residents of the capital, Port-au-Prince, cited frustration with leaders who have failed to lift them from poverty as their reason for not voting. Many were angry over Preval's opposition to a $3-a-day increase in the minimum wage. Fear also was high after weeks of protests and political party clashes that left several dead.
Another obstacle to getting voters out was a boycott by ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas party, whose candidates were barred from running.
The low turnout could fuel complaints by the government's opponents that it has stumbled in developing Haiti as a democracy. The 11 Senate seats in play have been vacant for more than a year, with elections postponed repeatedly since late 2007.
Another round of legislative elections is scheduled for later this year, but officials say it is likely the balloting will be postponed.
Campaigning has already begun for Haiti's 2010 presidential election. Preval, who previously served as president from 1995 to 2000, has said he will not seek a third term.
Haiti: Bill Clinton to visit Haiti as UN envoy:
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton is slated to make his first trip to Haiti next week as U.N. special envoy to the storm-ravaged country.
Clinton begins a three-day mission Monday to help the impoverished Caribbean nation recover from four devastating tropical storms, which killed about 800 people last fall causing some $1 billion in damage.
Clinton is working to ensure the world delivers on a $335 million pledge made in April for Haiti's recovery.
The trip comes as the U.N.'s 9,000-member peacekeeping mission faces growing tensions.
On Monday, Haitian police said a protester who died after a clash with peacekeepers was killed by a bullet, and not by a rock as initially reported.
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