World Summit Regarding Ayiti’s Future Held in the Dominican Republic

In early June, the most recent World Summit was held in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic to discuss Ayiti’s future given the catastrophic devastation caused by the 7.0 earthquake that hit the island-nation on January 12th. Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez Reyna's welcoming remarks at the Summit began with "in only 30 seconds, more than 300,000 people were injured; in just 30 seconds, more than one million people lost their homes; in just 30 seconds, Ayiti lost 120 percent of its GDP; in just 30 seconds thousands of children were made orphans, thousands lost their most close relatives, and thousands were left in anguish."

The theme of the World Summit was Solidarity Beyond the Crisis, and was hosted by Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez, in collaboration with Ayiti President Rene Preval, and Ayiti Prime Minister, Jean-Max Bellerive. Ayiti President Rene Preval stated that "Ayiti was already facing a very difficult situation before the earthquake. We shouldn't only heal the wounds caused by this earthquake. We must develop the economy, we must develop the agriculture, we must develop the education and health, create jobs and strengthen democratic institutions." To a large extent, the World Summit was successful in securing a sustainable commitment for Ayiti’s long-term recovery. The World Summit on Ayiti focused on four specific development central themes: (1) economic re-foundation, (2) territorial re-foundation, (3) social re-foundation; and (4) cultural and artistic recovery.

In late March, the United Nations hosted the International Donors Conference on Ayiti. The International Donors Conference garnered pledges of $5.3 billion for the next two years and $9.9b for the next three years and beyond. The World Summit on Ayiti sought to solidify those commitments and to create permanent ties of solidarity between the international community and Ayiti. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that "we have more than one million people that are currently living in very precarious conditions, in camping tents." Secretary Clinton is part of the United Nation's Special Envoy to Ayiti. Secretary Clinton continued that "we cannot allow for people to die during this Hurricane Season because they inhabit temporary dwellings." It is estimated that more than 1.3 million people were left homeless amid predictions of a very intense hurricane season. Much of Ayiti's fragile infrastructure was destroyed by the earthquake, which left more than 200,000 people dead, and 300,000 people injured including two thousands amputees.

The Summit also sought to spearhead the beginning of Ayiti’s reconstruction work. The commitments of donor countries and organizations were reviewed, and a list of the projects containing the priority activities, and detailed progress reports were analyzed to effectively manage the reconstruction process. The priority activities identified in the action plan, which require almost immediate attention, and financial support focused on development of critical infrastructure including highways, potable water systems, electricity, housing, schools and universities. By the conclusion of the World Summit, the international community and multilateral organizations agreed to provide Ayiti with more than US $15 billion in aid during the next decade.

The World Summit included participants from Heads of State and Government, as well as representatives of multilateral organizations to evaluate the aid to Ayiti and arrange for the disbursement of economic resources for Ayiti’s recovery. In particular, former Jamaica Prime Minister, P.J. Patterson, Special Representative of the CARICOM Heads of Government to Ayiti, and Ambassador Colin Granderson, Assistant Secretary-General, Foreign and Community Relations, represented the Caribbean Community at the forum.

Lydie Nadia Cabrera Pierre-Louis

Re-Emerging Market: Reviving Ayiti's Coffee Industry

The cataclysmic earthquake that has devastated the nation of Ayiti has created a global outpouring of sympathy, prayer, and aid both financial and physical for the people of my homeland. There has been a global collective consciousness that has resulted in the often repeated phrase “we must do something to help.” For those that have left their homes to travel to Ayiti to help in the relief efforts, contributed their time or donated money to assist Ayiti in her time of need, I offer a deep and heartfelt merci. The work that you do will become a part of our shared history for centuries to come.

During the next few months, the principal focus on Ayiti will be survival. As we look further down the time-line to many many months, to one year to two years, and beyond, the focus on Ayiti will shift to re-building or in development parlance—nation building. The re-building will not only be in-terms of adequate construction that complies with hurricane and earthquake codes, but also in-terms of industry, trade, education, and tourism. Ayiti in recent history has had a limited industrial base, but that has not always been the case.

Prior to Ayiti’s Revolution in 1804, which resulted in Ayiti’s independence from France, Ayiti at the time called Saint-Domingue, was the most prized colony in the New World. Sainte-Domingue was often called the "Pearl of the Antilles," because it was the richest and most prosperous colony in the French empire, and one of the wealthiest colonies in the world. Sainte-Domingue was the most important trading port in the Americas because of the sheer volume of trade that flowed to and from Europe. By 1780, Saint-Domingue produced about 40 percent of all the sugar and 60 percent of all the coffee consumed in Europe. This single tiny island, roughly the size of Maryland or Belgium, produced more sugar and coffee than all of the British West Indies colonies combined.

After the Ayitian Revolution, trade with Ayiti ended abruptly, in large part because the world’s nations (the United States included) did not recognize the former slave colony that had defeated Napoleon’s army, as a legitimate government. The Republik d’Ayiti was ignored by the world for approximately one century. The richness of the Ayitian Revolution and the aftermath is a wonderful story, and has been written by a number of historians, political economists, novelists, and journalists. Time and space does not permit me to retell the story now. However, I encourage you to read the works of C.L.R. James, Robert Heinl, Paul Farmer, Hans Schmidt, and Edwidge Danticat.

Since the 1990s, Ayiti’s coffee industry has experienced a stop and go paradigm. U.S. Agency for International Development sponsored the Haiti's Coffee Planting Project to help local Ayitian planters meet the standards of gourmet coffee drinkers in the United States. The project spent $5.8 million to help 20,000 farmers belonging to 24 local cooperatives. Haiti's Coffee Planting Project united the farmers into a single federation, which acquired an export license in order to sell the coffee directly to customers abroad. However, it has been a struggle to market Haitian coffee not because Ayitian coffee is not delicious or in gourmet parlance--yummy, rather because the Haiti's Coffee Planting Project did not including roasting plants. The project helped the farmers set up 23 processing plants to wash the beans, sort out only the ripe beans, and then sun-dry them on clean, cement drying beds. However, the coffee beans would then be sold to U.S. companies, which would ship the coffee beans to their own roasting plants and then market the coffee to U.S. gourmet retailers.

The project had minimal success. In South Florida for a few years in the early 1990s, an Ayitian coffee called Haitian Bleu was available in 14 Barnie's Coffee & Tea Company stores. ''When we first started purchasing it, we didn't know how it would sell. Then it took off,'' says Scott Young, who managed the Barnie's store in Plantation, FL. ''We have carried it a little over a year, and it's just a delicious coffee,'' Young added. Haitian Bleu has the same type of coffee plant and grown in the same region as the wildly successful Jamaican Blue Mountain bean. In the end, as a matter of practicality U.S. coffee retailers do not want to surrender precious retail shelf space to unknown coffee growers from a country that is known primarily for its poverty, and dictators rather than its agricultural acumen. Unfortunately, due to political and economic unrest in Ayiti, the foreign investment capital needed to build the infrastructure necessary to grow, cultivate, process, roast, market, ship, and sell Ayiti’s coffee never materialized.

Over time, many Ayitians farmers lost the skills needed to grow, harvest, and process coffee. Ayiti’s neighbors in South America, in particular Brazil eventually cornered the regional coffee market. Brazil’s coffee industry was aided by foreign investment to modernize its facilities including processing and roasting facilities. As a result, between 1998 and 2002, annual coffee exports from Ayiti fell to a mere four million dollars, less than one sixth its former sales volume in early 1990s. Ayitian coffee export industry has declined during the past century because of infrastructure issues more so than concerns regarding the quality of the coffee or Ayitian politics. The principal reason for the decline of Ayitian coffee industry has been a lack of investment in processing facilities needed to process quality coffee beans, and roast the coffee beans to provide the quality assurance to sell Ayitian coffee to U.S. gourmet market. However, that may be changing. The devastating Ayitian earthquake a few weeks ago, may have assisted Ayiti's potential as a coffee exporter, to turn the proverbial corner.


A few years ago St. Thomas University in cooperation with the Archdiocese of Miami’s sister Archdiocese in Port-de-Paix, Ayiti located on the northwest Atlantic coast of the island, entered into collaboration with COCANO fair trade coffee cooperative that received support from the Catholic Relief Services Fair Trade Fund. Tommy Bassett of the Just Trade Center is a seasoned fair trade expert who is providing guidance to the COCANO fair trade cooperative, and has accompanied members of St. Thomas University on several trips to Ayiti. Bassett believes that growing coffee in an environmentally and economically depressed landscape like Ayiti is not easy. However, the success of the cooperative lies with the spirit of Ayitian coffee farmers who are intrinsically connected to the land. “They have a rural existence that’s very much in tune with nature,” Basset stated. Poets have referred to the connection as symbiotic. Bassett recalls his own symbiotic moment as he stood on the edge of a mountainside in Port-de-Paix, under a leafy tree sipping velvety smooth chocolate infused locally grown coffee with Ayitian farmers, he turned and with a bit of surprise and elation in his voice stated “man we can see the ocean.” That is the beauty of the land and the magic of Ayiti.

As Ayiti struggles to rebuild herself yet again, I have no doubt that she will rise from the ashes, the pain, and the suffering with a deeper understanding of herself and stronger spirit. In the interim, Ayiti will need the help of every person who believes in the right of self determination and the unfailing power of the human spirit. If you wish to purchase one-can-or-two-or-three of the COCANO Ayitian coffee, please contact me via email. It is a tax deductible contribution and proceeds are sent to the coffee farmers in Ayiti. With your help Ayiti will rise again.

Lydie Nadia Cabrera Pierre-Louis

The World Bank and IMF Forgave Ayiti's Billion Dollar Debt as Ayiti Struggles to Reform Public Programs and Policies

A few weeks ago the boards of the World Bank and IMF decided to approve Ayiti’s (Haiti)$1.2 billion debt relief under the enhanced HIPC (Heavily Indebted Poor Countries) Initiative and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI). The interest payment on Ayiti’s loan had grown to approximately $20 million per month, which is a staggering payment for a poor island-nation with approximately $4.1 billion in GDP and $1,300 per capita.

Ayiti’s debt was relieved because Ayiti had reached the completion point under the enhanced HIPC Initiative. For Ayiti to reach the completion point, Ayiti had to make several reforms despite suffering through a series of humanitarian crises and enduring the devastating impact of four hurricanes, drastic increases in food and energy costs and challenging political conditions. A number of political leaders and organizations urged for the cancellation of Ayiti’s debt. US organizations including Jubilee USA Network, Institute for Justice and Democracy in Ayiti, TransAfrica Forum, the Quixote Center, Center for Economic and Policy Research, the Episcopal Church, and Partners in Health worked together to build the political will in the U.S. for Ayiti’s debt cancellation, in partnership with colleagues in Ayiti, throughout the Americas, across Europe and around the world. Ayiti is now under the MDRI for further debt relief from International Development Association (IDA) the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). MDRI relief would save Ayiti US$972.7 million in debt service of which US$486.7 million owed to IDA and US$486 million to the IADB.

Several of the reforms that Ayiti has made and will continue to make as part of the debt forgiveness program, include: implementing a national poverty reduction strategy; strengthening public expenditure management; producing audited government accounts; ensuring commitment to an asset declaration law, which requires a country not to nationalize foreign assets; adopting a law on public procurement; strengthening tax and customs administration; improving debt management and financial reporting; establishing a financing mechanism to allow over 50,000 additional children to attend public school; allocating over 20 percent of recurrent spending to education; implementing a national teacher training program; approving an HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment plan; and, improving immunization rates for children under the age of eighteen.

Despite the extensive list of reforms, Ayiti’s public health law and public health program are not included as reform iniatives althougth they are in dire need of renovation. I recently joined a group of approximately 60 doctors, nurses, administrators and educators on a week-long medical relief mission to Les Cayes, Ayiti to provide medical services to residents in one of the poorest areas in Ayiti. Medical doctors came from as far as China, New York, Philadelphia, New Jersey and Florida to volunteer their services. The mission was organized by Gaskov Clergé Foundation which was developed to promote, health, sports, education and science in Ayiti. I was the only lawyer in attendance, and my involvement was originally limited to providing strategic support to the board by interviewing various parties and taking footage of the medical mission for an upcoming documentary. However, within a few hours of arriving in Ayiti, my role expanded as the need from the community extended beyond the group’s initial expectation. As word spread within the community that “doctors from America had arrived,” people came from neighboring provinces to seek free medical services. The week was intense. Each day the doctors consulted with 300-600 patients, and 2-3 surgeries were performed at the national hospital with limited surgical resources. My cutting-edge interviewing skills gave way to my language skills. I placed the camera aside, to a large extent, to fufill the more fundamental need of serving as an interpretator for the non-French speaking doctors and conducting direct patient medical history inquiries of patients who primarily spoke French and Creole.

A few observations became immediately apparent. First, poverty in Ayiti is not at all analogous to poverty in the United States. Poverty in Ayiti is brutal. The concept of health insurance, public funding for hospitals, or effective medical equipment are non-existent, therefore resident do not receive basic medical care. Second, the majority of illnesses that the doctors treated were preventable, if patients had public health information regarding the importance of washing their hands, using clean water to bathe, and drinking parasite-free water because preventive medicine is not accessible. Third, what Americans consider as "basic" necesities to maintain health such as clean water, annual medical check ups, dependable medical equipment and supplies, is not basic provisions provided by the govenment for the residents of Ayiti. Clean water and public health education is a national concern. Things that are viewed as “basic” to Americans are life-giving and extremely precious to residents of developing countries. As Ayiti struggles to reform its macro-economic policies, developed countries such as the United States should continue to encourage the government of Ayiti not to overlook the importance of public health education and the need to provide “basic” preventive care to the poorest of the poor.

Lydie Nadia Cabrera Pierre-Louis
Assistant Professor of Law
St. Thomas University School of Law