BUSH-CLINTON HAITI FUND WILL GRANT $2 MILLION DOLLARS TO HELP 25,000 MANGO FARMERS

Haiti gets $2M grant to help create jobs

Published: Aug. 11, 2011 at 4:43 PM


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Aug. 11 (UPI) -- Haiti's devastated economy will receive a boost of $2 million through a grant from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund to help regenerate the country's small business sector.

The Caribbean nation is still reeling under the effect of last year's earthquake, several natural disasters before that and years of poor governance.

A magnitude-7 temblor hit Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas Jan. 12, 2010, causing extensive damage, and killing an estimated 220,000.

The country's Parliament, presidential palace and many other important structures were destroyed, along with countless homes and businesses. Ten months later an outbreak of cholera killed hundreds more.

The money pledged by the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund will go to non-profit organization TechnoServe to implement a Haitian Business Accelerator project that aims to transform small and growing businesses into investment-ready, bankable companies that can be positioned to develop Haiti's formal economy and promote jobs.

Haiti's informal economy and black market in all essential sectors pose a challenge to international aid-givers and benefactors.

The project is expected to last three years, a period that TechnoServe and HBA will use to work with businesses they see as worthy of investment and hope to transform them into businesses that are ready for investment.

TechnoServe has more than 1,000 Haitian businesses within its sights and plans to work with a selection of 750 entrepreneurs most suited for success. It plans to "train this elite group with global best practices in business development," the fund said.

"Haiti's formal business sector is very small and businesses of all sizes have suffered significantly since last year's earthquake," fund Vice President for Programs and Investments Paul Altidor said.

"Small and growing enterprises hold the potential for transforming Haiti's economy but these enterprises need business acumen and access to financial services in order to attract the private investment they need to develop. The Business Accelerator will help them do just that," Altidor said.

The fund says it is also working with TechnoServe's Haiti Hope Project, which aims to increase the income of 25,000 small farming families in the mango sector. 

TechnoServe recently completed a business plan competition called "Mon Entreprise, Mon Avenir" -- "My Business, My Future" in French -- guiding more than 80 promising Haitian entrepreneurs.

The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund was founded after the 2010 earthquake, when U.S. President Barack Obama asked former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to lead a major fundraising effort to assist Haitians to "build back better."

With help from Clinton and Bush, the fund, raised cash for humanitarian relief and began independent operations in May last year to help promote sustainable reconstruction. The latest grant is part of that effort.

However, Haitian politics are far from stable. Violent confrontations between rival gangs and political groups are endemic and the human rights situation is reported by U.N. experts as "catastrophic."

None of the international efforts undertaken since the earthquake and cholera outbreak have addressed an underlying source of unrest and instability -- the income gap between the impoverished Creole-speaking black majority and the French-speaking minority, 1 percent of Haiti's population of 9.7 million but said to be in control of nearly half the country's wealth.

Although Haiti is rich in many natural resources including bauxite, gold and silver, it subsists on mango and coffee exports and foreign aid, much of it from the United States, Canada and the European Union, that funds up to 40 percent of the government budget. Despite numerous measures by aid-givers, corruption is still a major issue in Haiti.

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HAITI MANGOES IN THE "CROSS HAIRS" OF TROPICAL STORM "EMILY"...

Aug 3, 7:55 AM EDT


Tropical Storm Emily on path toward Haiti

By TRENTON DANIEL
Associated Press




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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Tropical Storm Emily brushed past Puerto Rico and headed Wednesday toward the Dominican Republic and Haiti, where more than 630,000 people are still without shelter after last year's earthquake.

A "steady shield of rain" should reach the island of Hispaniola shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti around noon Wednesday and the rainfall should worsen by late afternoon, said John Dlugoenski, senior meteorologist with Accuweather.com.

"The biggest threat to lives is probably the flooding," Dlugoenski said.

Civil defense officials and the military in the Dominican Republic have already begun moving people out of high-risk zones ahead of the storm. Haitian authorities urged people to conserve food and safeguard their belongings.

In Haiti's capital of Port-au-Prince, Jislaine Jean-Julien, a 37-year-old street merchant displaced by the January 2010 earthquake, said she was praying the storm would pass her flimsy tent without knocking it over.

"For now, God is the only savior for me," Jean-Julien said at the edge of a crowded encampment facing the quake-destroyed National Palace. "I would go some place else if I could but I have no place else to go."

Haitian emergency authorities set aside a fleet of 22 large white buses in the event they needed to evacuate people from flooded areas. Emergency workers would then bus the people to dozens of schools, churches and other buildings that will serve as shelters.

"We're working day and night to be able to respond quickly in case we have any disasters," said Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste, director of Haiti's Civil Protection Agency.

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain could fall in some parts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which could cause life-threatening flash floods and mud slides in areas of mountainoust terrain.

Emergency workers, both Haitian and foreign, also sent out text messages to cell phone users, alerting them to the approaching storm and to take precautions such as staying with friends or relatives if that were an option.

Such advisories are not uncommon but few in Haiti have the means to heed them because of the crushing poverty.

"This is not the first time we've heard these messages," said Alexis Boucher, a 29-year-old man who lives in Place Boyer, a public square that became a camp after the earthquake. "We receive these messages and yet we still don't have anywhere to go."

A slow-moving storm that triggered mudslides and floods in Haiti killed at least 28 people in June.

The United Nations peacekeeping force in Haiti notified its 11,500 troops to be on standby in case they need to respond, said Sylvie Van Den Wildenberg, a spokeswoman for the U.N. peacekeeping mission. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies also, put emergency teams on standby, which have access to relief supplies already in place for up to 125,000 people in seaside towns throughout the country.

In the Dominican Republic's southern tourist districts, workers at hotels and restaurants gathered up umbrellas, tables, chairs, and anything else that might be blown away.

Capt. Frank Castillo, dock master of the Marina Casa de Campo in the southeastern tourist city of La Romana, and his crew helped boat owners secure their vessels in slips or pull them ashore.

In Puerto Rico, there were no reports of major damage or injuries and no immediate demand for the nearly 400 schools that were converted into emergency shelters around the island.

Gov. Luis Fortuno had declared a state of emergency and most government offices were closed. Ahead of the storm, people cleared water and other emergency supplies from store shelves and tourists fled the small Puerto Rican islands of Culebra and Vieques.

But most of the island saw no more than sporadic gusts and showers.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm was heading west at 14 mph (22 kph) Wednesday morning, and it was expected to veer later toward the northwest. The storm was about 145 miles (230 kilometers) south-southeast of Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic. It had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph).

A tropical storm warning was in effect for Puerto Rico, Vieques, Culebra, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, the southeast Bahamas, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

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Associated Press writers Ben Fox in San Juan, Puerto Rico; David McFadden in Kingston, Jamaica; Ezequiel Lopez Blanco in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and Raul Colon in San Juan contributed.