UNCTAD coordinates mission to Haiti as part of chief executives board cluster on trade and productive capacity

Coordinated response being developedto aid economic recovery in Haiti

Geneva, 13 October 2010 -- In Port-au-Prince, a 4-7 October interagency mission of the Chief Executives Board (CEB) Cluster on Trade and Productive Capacity held consultations with senior officials of the Haitian Office of the Prime Minister and the Ministries of Commerce and Industry, Economy and Finance, Agriculture, and Planning, as well as the Investment Facilitation Center, the Central Bank, and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Haiti is already preparing plans for the assistance needed for the medium- and long-term development of the country.

The UN-CEB Interagency Cluster on Trade and Productive Capacity will provide coordinated response to the needs of the economic recovery. The mission to Port-au-Prince consisted of UNCTAD and ITC.

The purpose of this interagency mission was to discuss five technical assistance proposals in the areas of:

• External Debt Management (with UNCTAD as lead agency);
• Export Capacity (International Trade Centre (ITC));
• Attraction of Foreign Investments (UNCTAD);
• E-regulations (UNCTAD); and
• Industrial Standards (United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

Consultations on the proposals on foreign investments and e-regulations were held with André Dunbar, Director General of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry along with Guy Lamothe, Director General of the Investment Facilitation Center (CFI) and Jean Mathurin, Chief Economist of the Prime Minister´s Office, and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

ITC had interesting meetings with the Ministry of Agriculture on its proposals to develop the export capacity of Haiti, particularly concerning coffee.

UNCTAD also discussed assistance in the area of public finances with Jean V. Affricot of the Ministry of Finance, and Jean H. Joseph, Bank of the Republic of Haiti. During the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the optical fibre connecting the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank was destroyed. The management of the public finances of Haiti needs to be re-established and by the same token upgraded by using improved technology. UNCTAD, through its DMFAS programme, has been providing assistance to Haiti since 1985. The Haitian officials expressed strong support for this project which will be web-grounded. This assistance is very timely: further to the destruction of the building of the Ministry, there is a pressing need to re-build the system of information on external debt (public and private) and on aid flows. The capacity of the Government to manage this information that is crucial for policy makers and development strategy also needs to be quickly enhanced.

The interagency mission received interesting feedback from the governmental officials and the private sector, and was told that all these proposals should be finalized in the next few weeks and formally submitted to the Haiti Recovery Fund and other sources of funding.

Coordination with other international entities providing assistance in these areas is urgent. Therefore a meeting was held with the Resident Representative of the Inter-American Development Bank in Port au Prince and contacts are ongoing with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Further coordination between the interagency Cluster´s proposals and the forthcoming assistance provided by the Enhanced Integrated Framework to give trade assistance to least developed countries (LDCs) was discussed with the Ministry of Commerce.

The mission was concluded on 7 October with a wrap-up session involving all the ministries concerned by the issues discussed.

ANNEX

Images

Credit photo: Silvana Rangel

From left to right: GROZEL (UNCTAD), SUTHERLAND (ITC), JOSEPH (Mins. Des Finances), CLAIRMONT (MCI), AFFRICOT (Mins. des Finances), TORTORA (UNCTAD)
Credit photo: Silvana Rangel