Denis O’Brien

Haiti’s Potential
Waiting to Be Fulfilled

Haiti’s problems are well understood and, if anything, over-analyzed. Its people are
poorly educated and lack opportunities for income generation. Political leadership
over many decades has been weak. Haitians don’t always have enough to eat and
when they are sick, health care is hard to come by. Haiti’s environment is degrad-
编辑, its infrastructure is lamentable, control over its wealth and assets is over-con-
centrated, violence is too common.

The reasons behind each of these problems may be complex, but the outcome
is that Haiti isn’t working. It is unable to take care of the needs of its citizens in any
even remotely adequate fashion. It wasn’t able to do so before the earthquake of
一月 12, 2010, and it is even less equipped to do so now.

Analysis of where Haiti goes from here inevitably turns around the problems,
over and over again. Haiti’s past is picked over, its failures held up to the light, each
new dawn that didn’t deliver examined under the microscope as to find out what
went wrong. And it is important that lessons are learned. But not enough attention
is paid to the positives. Let’s for a change not get stuck in the detail and let’s look
at what is right with Haiti.

Market access. Haiti has enviable market access. It is a short distance from the
world’s largest consumer market in the U.S. and proximate to wealthier Caribbean
and Central American neighbors. Not only does this make it easier for Haiti to
export goods—compared, 例如, to many landlocked poor countries—but
it also means Haiti can bring in what it needs to create a manufacturing infrastruc-
真实. Haiti also has preferential trade treaties with the United States and the

Denis O’Brien is Chairman of the privately-owned Digicel Group and serves as
anchor member and facilitator of CGI’s Haiti Action Network. O’Brien founded
Digicel in 2001, and launched in Haiti in 2006, where Digicel made the largest ever
private sector investment in the country. O’Brien chaired the 2003 Special Olympics
World Summer Games in Ireland, and is Chairman and Co-Founder of Frontline, 这
International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders. 在过去
decade he founded the Iris O’Brien Foundation and the Digicel Foundation to support
projects in disadvantaged communities. The latter was established in 2004, and oper-
ates in Jamaica, Haiti, and Papua New Guinea.

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Denis O’Brien

European Union, including the recently extended HOPE II covering garment
exports to the U.S., and the Caricom Economic Partnership Agreement.

A young population. Six in ten Haitians are under age 24, so there is a large
latent labor force of energetic, diligent, and committed workers who have the
enthusiasm and optimism to bring
their country forward.

To conceptualize Haiti’s
未来, we must identify
what is needed to unleash
this potential. Haitians
themselves know the answers
to their problems. In survey
after survey, even since the
earthquake, even of those
who have lost everything, 这
answers are the same. 第一的,
they say, we need jobs.
第二, 教育.

International will. There are
many countries whose situations
are as desperate as Haiti’s, 谁的
indicators are just as bad—and
which most of us would be hard
pressed to name. Unlike Burkina
Faso or
the Central African
Republic—and, sadly, partly as a
consequence of the earthquakes—
Haiti is firmly on the international
agenda for the first time ever and
in the consciousness of people
everywhere. President Clinton has
played a key role in putting Haiti
on the international agenda, 和
was doing so long before January
2010. Haiti also has a diaspora of
about two million people who
remain powerfully connected to
and deeply concerned about their
homeland.

民主. Haiti has had over five years of political stability; there is no risk of
civil war, and without an army, no risk of a coup. Conditions for democracy are
better than ever, and the government continues to plan for the presidential and
senate elections scheduled for November 28 of this year.

Debt free. As of July 30, 2010, Haiti’s total debt to international financial insti-
tutions is zero. Haiti is now freer of debt than perhaps any time since 1825, 什么时候
France demanded “compensation” of $21 billion in today’s terms. Government finances are available not for debt servicing, but for public services. Haiti contrasts favorably with many poor African countries that have significant foreign debt. Natural resources. Many parts of Haiti, particularly the northern coast, enjoy beautiful scenery and are ripe for tourism development. The country’s micro- climates enable a wide variety of crops to be grown. The richness of Haiti’s strong and distinctive culture, especially creativity in the visual arts, is another unique selling point. All of these characteristics speak to me of one thing: huge untapped potential. This is what I saw when Digicel started to look at the Haitian cellular market five years ago—and commercially, it has been a very successful move. 8 创新 / fall 2010 从http下载的://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/5/4/7/704651/inov_a_00038.pdf by guest on 07 九月 2023 Haiti’s Potential Waiting to Be Fulfilled To conceptualize Haiti’s future, we must identify what is needed to unleash this potential. Haitians themselves know the answers to their problems. In survey after survey, even since the earthquake, even of those who have lost everything, the answers are the same. 第一的, they say, we need jobs. 第二, 教育. To achieve this, two things must be prioritized: 第一的, lots and lots of investment, especially from the private sector and second, leadership in every sector—politics, 商业, civil society, and culture. INVESTMENT The truth is, we all share responsibility for where Haiti is today. 的 $4.3 十亿
spent in aid in Haiti over the past ten years, most was under the control of inter-
national organizations. OECD figures suggest that Haiti received the 11th highest
level of aid to fragile states, of which virtually all are enduring or recovering from
冲突. Yet the lack of progress in growing Haiti’s economy is woeful.

The average Haitian is considerably worse off today than in the 1960s. 从
1970 to the 1990s, per-capita GDP declined by 0.3 percent per annum. 从 1990
到 2008, this accelerated to a decline of 2 每年百分比. This occurred while per-
capita GDP in other developing countries was growing at about 4 百分
每年. Haiti has been falling further and further behind the rest of the world.

The size of Haiti’s “real” economy is dwarfed by inflows of foreign aid and
remittances from the diaspora. Even bearing in mind the difficulty of capturing the
informal sector, the figures are grim. Before the earthquake, over half of Haiti’s
GDP arose from international aid; a further one-quarter was from remittances.
What might be recognized as a formal economy is very small, in the region of 15
的百分比 $11 billion GDP. Exports in 2008 were just $491 百万.

Assuming the generous pledges totaling $11.5 billion made to Haiti at the New
York donor conference on March 31, 2010, are fulfilled—and this is happening
very slowly—a flood of money is about to come into the Haitian economy.
然而, we need to be very careful that it doesn’t drown the nascent Haitian-
owned private sector, the productive part of the economy on which Haiti’s long-
term future depends. Otherwise this money will wash through, rebuilding lost
infrastructure but not really transforming the nation.

Making sure the private sector is at the forefront of redevelopment efforts is
the key. As essential and valuable as NGOs are to the post-earthquake rescue and
recovery efforts, we need to ensure they don’t mop up all the most talented and
educated staff or create wage inflation. We need to make sure businesses that are
interested in Haiti and can contribute for the long term win the contracts they
need to get a foothold, rather than enabling companies to come in, construct, 拿
the check, and run.

Foreign direct investment doesn’t only bring money into an economy or pro-
vide infrastructure such as telecommunications. 至关重要的是, it also brings manage-
ment expertise, technology transfer, and increases in productivity. I am proud of
这 900 young Haitians employed by Digicel. They have a thirst for knowledge and

创新 / fall 2010

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Denis O’Brien

new skills, and I have no doubt that many of them will go on to set up businesses
and become wealth generators themselves.

Private-sector investment will definitely provide growth over the medium and
长期. Private capital will flow to where it can secure the best returns. 尽管
the challenges, we need to make sure that Haiti adopts policies that are as pro-busi-
ness and enabling of private-sector investment as possible in banking and finan-
cial services, in law, and in taxation. There is much in Haiti’s favor. 现在是时候了
to complete the picture and make Haiti a compelling investment case.

LEADERSHIP

As a consequence of many factors, Haiti’s government lacks capacity. 不足为奇-
英利, given the losses suffered on January 12, this situation has worsened—at a
time when leadership was never more desperately needed.

It is my hope that in the run up to Haiti’s presidential election, political lead-
ership will emerge that has the right experience and the capacity to lead Haiti into
未来. The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, 例如, has asked that
the international community second staff to each ministry to support and train
公务员, building the necessary management capacity and improving gover-
nance to deal with the many daily challenges they face. Equally, the Haitian gov-
ernment needs to be more open to such support and to assistance.

The fact is, implementation of a new social and economic plan is the biggest
challenge for Haiti’s new leadership. It will require conviction, perseverance, 和
staying focused on the vision of a better life for Haitians through the thousands of
decisions and actions that need to be taken every day day in, day out.

If change is difficult to manage in a comparatively closed and controlled sys-
tem like a business, how much harder is it in a country of 9.2 百万人? 我们
cannot wait forever for the one grand plan that is going to change Haiti. For all the
importance of coordination, we cannot wait until every last organization is lined
up and ready to step forward together.

This is the importance and the distinguishing quality of President Clinton and
the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI)—and not only in Haiti. CGI is about action,
not talk. It’s about what follows after a situation is identified, the problems enu-
merated, possible solutions sketched. CGI provides a supportive framework, 和
also accountability. And this is what gets results.

For the more than one million Haitians living in camps and on the streets, 这
situation is every bit as urgent as it was on January 13. We need to reinvigorate our
努力, recognizing that they will be needed into 2011 and beyond. For the Digicel
基础, the focus will remain on education and schools. As the opportunities
available to Haiti develop and mature, the future constraint will be finding quali-
fied people to work in and run new businesses and industries. We want to help
make sure that the capacity is there when it is needed at each phase of Haiti’s devel-
选项.

创新 / fall 2010

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Haiti’s Potential Waiting to Be Fulfilled

It is time for all of us concerned with Haiti to lead by example. We need to get
started, and those who have already started need to redouble their efforts. At times
it will be messy, things will be difficult. But we cannot let aspiration be the enemy
of action. The committed members—businesses and NGOs—of the CGI Haiti
Action Network have demonstrated over the past year the value of choosing proj-
ects in areas in which they have expertise, be it energy or culture or education or
enterprise, and of doggedly pursuing these projects and delivering on promises.
Their experiences and impact are detailed in the pages of this journal.

It is time to stop romanticizing and marveling at Haitians’ seemingly bottom-
less reserve of resilience. Instead we need to empower them to start to make a dif-
ference—for themselves, their families, and their communities. We need to con-
vince Haitians that their future is truly in their own hands, not those of the NGOs,
the politicians, or the international community. Redeeming Haiti and improving
the lives of Haitians within a generation is an achievable goal. This is not a hope-
less task, but Haitians themselves need convincing that it is within their reach.

I turn again to the potential and the positive: in the roster of failing states in
certain parts of the world, Haiti is among the most fixable. Every amazing thing
mankind has achieved has been done one step at a time, by putting one foot in
front of the other, by having a vision and making a start. If Haiti can be turned
around in the next five to ten years, it can offer a model of development for those
other countries and, most of all, hope for a better future.

创新 / fall 2010

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