Overview:
Decentralizing and decongesting Port-au-Prince are long overdue. The mass exit of the capital’s displaced residents may be key to the ever elusive “Haitian-led” solution.
NEW YORK—While chatting with a cousin last week, she told me that her side of the family still in Port-au-Prince was biding their time, waiting for a lull in the gang attacks to go back to our province in Haiti’s Artibonite region.
Kesner Pharel, one of Haiti’s leading economists, doesn’t want to talk about the current crisis shaking his nation, a country teetering on the brink of humanitarian catastrophe and economic collapse.
Instead, Pharel, who has long sounded the alarm about the ramifications of Haiti’s never-ending political crisis on its fragile economy, wants to talk about what will happen after the crisis ends, and how Haitians living in South Florida and elsewhere can help the country rebuild.
Haitians abroad, he says, account for nearly $4 billion in remittances sent to Haiti. That’s more than the country’s current budget for this fiscal year, which stands at about $2.5 billion. It is also more than what the international community provides the government, which is less than $1 billion.
“The supply of hard currency in Haiti now is the diaspora money, the remittances,” he said. “There is no argument about it.”
And that means just one thing, Pharel added: “We’ve got to get a dialogue with the diaspora.” Pharel acknowledges that most of the money being sent by Haitians living abroad ends up paying for food, schooling, medical care and funerals. Still, amid the sacrifices many are making to ensure there’s a social safety net in the country, there are those with disposable income who can invest.
These are the people Pharel is hoping to appeal to this weekend when his Group Croissance commemorates its 30th anniversary in Miami with a two-day International Finance Summit. The forum will look at Haiti’s economy and the ways the diaspora can help, as well as how to leverage its political clout in the United States to effect change back home.
The annual summit, which usually takes place in Haiti, is free and will take place at Miami Airport Convention Center at Miami Merchandise Mall, 711 N.W. 72nd Ave., between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. It was planned for Miami even before an alliance of armed gang leaders launched a deadly barrage of attacks on Port-au-Prince on Feb. 29, bringing the entire capital to an standstill.
“What I am trying to do is speak to Haitian doctors, Haitian engineers, some of them in their 60s and 70s, who have some money and let them know, there are some companies in Haiti … and to see how they can invest in them,” said Pharel, adding about 200 people have already registered. “We’re trying to see how we can build some confidence and get this money into the hands of Haitian companies.” Among those in attendance will be representatives of Haiti-based firms looking for an injection of cash as well as the representative of the country’s only investment bank, Profin.
