Haiti

Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere with more than 80% of the population earning less than $2 a day.  Less than half of the population above the age of 15 can read or write and many have never been enrolled in school.  Economic and social conditions coupled with government corruption have been regarded as traditional reasons for its suffering.  Recent natural disasters such as the hurricanes in 2008, leaving nearly 200 dead, and, now, the January 2010 earthquake, claiming nearly 300,000 lives and destroying thousands of livelihoods, have added another dynamic to in Haiti’s long list of struggles.

Drawing on BRAC’s experience of starting up in post-conflict and post-disaster environments, BRAC aims for a multifaceted, bottom-up intervention in Haiti to address immediate needs for relief and long-term needs for rebuilding economic activity and livelihoods. 

BRAC has made a credible commitment to improve the lives of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people in Haiti, empowering women and girls, and fostering bottom-up economic development through sustainable financial services and social enterprise development. For the last several years, BRAC has been providing technical assistance to Fonkoze, Haiti’s largest microfinance organization, to replicate its ultra poor program . 

At the Clinton Global Initiative last September, BRAC publicly committed itself to reduce extreme poverty in Haiti.  It agreed to explore ways to deepen its work with Haitian partners such as Fonkoze and Partners in Health.  These two organizations (along with the Association of Peasants of Fondwa and the University of Fondwa) requested BRAC help them scale up to achieve national impact.   Drawing on its decades of experience in scaling up successful programs to a national level, BRAC had sketched a plan to implement an integrated development program.