Prince last month in order to explore opportunities for job creation and economic development in Haiti. We were lucky enough to have a series of meetings with hotel and internet entrepreneurs, USAID and NGO workers, and leaders of the country’s largest microfinance organization and farmers’ cooperatives.With reconstruction dollars just beginning to trickle in (18 months after the earthquake), many of the capital’s streets are still consumed with rubble, while parks and parking lots overflow with USAID tents that provide meager shelter for hundreds of thousands of people. Meanwhile, the government remains largely anemic, without income or infrastructure necessary to provide basic services including schools, health services, even trash collection. It is a challenge.
So where to start? Well… jobs. Moving over half million people out
of tent cities will require that these individuals have sustainable sources of revenue with which they can build or rent shelter elsewhere. And who creates jobs? Businesses. People willing to invest (and risk) time and money in growing enterprises. But here comes the rough part … there is no commercial financing in Haiti. Banks do not lend to business. Instead, companies must bootstrap all growth, using whatever small profits they have to slowly build their business. Under this scenario, economic growth that should take ten years – and juice the fiscal system that needs to be developed in parallel, providing funding for schools, health, infrastructure – will take five times as long, or likely as much as a century. Public investment has no choice but to follow the private sector’s timeline, as redistribution of wealth first requires generating some wealth.
As we drove the winding roads (stopping for some roadside tasso kabrit of course), we passed Wyclef’s entourage of SUVs, en route to a new hotel he is rumored to be building in beautiful Jacmel. I can think of no greater form of patriotism than private sector investment at this moment. Base of Pyramid Enterprises (WorkSquare’s parent company) now has the challenge of figuring out how to provide the resources and incentives for more Haitian entrepreneurs to do the same. Pou yon Ayiti pi bel.
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