By: Jude Elie
April 12, 2022
Haiti, today, is well positioned to benefit from various initiatives created by the US government in just the past couple of years. Among them stand out the BUILD Act, that created the IDFC (International Development Finance Corporation), set-up to facilitate the economic development of countries with low-income economies, as well as the GFA (Global Fragility Act), formulated to strengthening global resiliency, democratic renewal, and promoting peaceful, self-reliant nations that will become strong economic and security partners capable of addressing shared challenges.
These are of the utmost interest to Haiti, facing tremendous challenges, mainly, in Security, Environmental disasters, Transportation, and Energy.
Thirty-five years of bad governance and corruption has brought Haiti to its knees. Haiti needs to make a 35year leap forward in the next 5 years in order to regain its rightful place in the Caribbean.
On the Security issue we welcome the GFA’s new approaches to conflict resolution, mitigation, and prevention. Peace and Security go hand in hand with sustainable development.
On the Energy challenge, we need to jump from a present capacity of 500MW to one of 3,000MW. It is unacceptable that today, 80% of our population is without electrical power.
Sustainable development can only be attained with constant energy availability.
We need new technologies in our transportation systems and must make our major ports into Special Economic Zones. We will use state of the art maritime transport system to ferry goods, fuel, and people safely to our major coastal cities.
Years of environmental neglect has made Haiti extremely susceptible to floods and landslides after an average downpour. A concerted effort with all our international partners will be necessary to stop the degradation of our environment and reverse the trend
Haiti urgently needs major investments in all aspects of its infrastructure. To that end, we welcome the U.S. Government’s forward advances in the spirit of partnership with Haiti to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability, but also in the facilitation of its economic development through the IDFC.
Jude Elie is am engineer, political activist and a Haitian presidential hopeful.
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