Haiti Seeking Some $2 Bln From Donor's Conference
15 years ago
By Matthew Cowley
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Haiti's government will seek some $2 billion in commitments from foreign donors at a conference to be held in Washington Tuesday, senior government officials said Monday.
The government is looking for an initial $125 million to close this year's budget deficit, and is also looking to finance about half of a $4 billion, three-year poverty reduction strategy, or PSRP, said Economy and Finance Minister Daniel Dorainvil in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
Tuesday's conference, which brings together 30 donor countries and multilateral organizations, comes amid concerns about budget cutbacks in the developed world due to the credit crisis. It was originally scheduled to take place in April 2008.
The conference was postponed amid riots over food shortages, which led to the ouster of the previous prime minister, Jacques-Edouard Alexis. There was another delay as four hurricanes within one month devastated parts of the country in late August and early September. According to the International Monetary Fund, the damage ran around $900 million, or 15% of Haiti's gross domestic product.
So President Rene Preval's new prime minister, Michele Pierre-Louis, had her hands full when she took office in early September. By February, the new government had drawn up its budget priorities and opted to get the donor conference back on track.
At a preliminary meeting in Canada in early March, the country's major donors took the unusual step of agreeing to a single set of conditions to be applied to all their loans, Pierre-Louis said in the interview.
The government's PSRP program focuses on basic infrastructure such as building three major roads across the country, supplying electricity, investing in agriculture and providing support for the private sector, Pierre Louis said.
The longer-term objective is to encourage the private sector, the prime minister said. The Haitian delegation met earlier Monday with representatives from the U.S. textile manufacturing industry, who are keen to take advantage of Haiti's duty-free access to the U.S. textile market, authorized under a special U.S. law.
"Change and development will come only through investment, whether private sector in Haiti or international investors," Pierre-Louis said.
The country has made significant progress with basic security since the worst years of 2003 to 2005, primarily due to improvements in the local police force, the prime minister said. The same cannot be said of the legal system, however.
"Justice is still where we have to put a lot of effort, and also the jails," Pierre-Louis said.
The government is also keen to work with the U.S. to combat the flow of drugs through Haiti. Nearly 15% of drugs arriving in the U.S. are shipped through Haiti, the prime minister said.
The officials said a small country like Haiti struggles to cope with the amount of money that is generated by the drugs trade, and the power it has to corrupt institutions. They said drug money has infiltrated political campaigns and added that some lawmakers are now "working hard to prevent institutions from being strengthened."
According to the IMF, Haiti's economic growth slowed to 1.3% in the financial year from October 2007-September 2008, down from 3.4% in the previous year. Twelve-month inflation peaked at 19.8% in September 2008, up from 7.9% a year earlier, but declined to 10.1% by end-December, as food and fuel prices fell, the IMF said.
-By Matthew Cowley, Dow Jones Newswires; 201 938 5692; [email protected]
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