Prior to January 2010, the OSE encouraged donors to channel resources to cost-effective, innovative, scalable strategies, and also advocated for more broad-based principles of engagement that could create the foundation for sustainable development. The strategic objective was to bring together a broad coalition of partners that could complement and leverage the efforts of the UN and other stakeholders in five focus areas:

Support to the Government of Haiti

• In 2009 the OSE tracked more than US $1.7 billion in pledges of aid to Haiti, including $479 million from the April 2009 donors’ conference in Washington, DC. Prior to the earthquake, the OSE was the only entity with credible information on the status of the Washington conference pledges. Between December 2009 and January 2010—a period during which the Special Envoy worked closely with donors—Washington conference disbursements increased from 12 to 30 percent.
• The OSE supported the establishment of a children’s shelter for orphans and vulnerable children by working with the Hôpital Université d’État l’Haïti (HUEH), the Haitian Social Welfare and Research Office, the Ministry of Social Affairs, and the NGO Zanmi Lasante. The children, several of whom are physically and cognitively impaired, receive comprehensive primary care, educational services and psychosocial support as prescribed by their individual care plans. A donation was obtained to purchase the property for the shelter and a grant was obtained for the expansion and modernization of the facility. The expansion plan includes the building of a dormitory, a kitchen, playground, and music and physical therapy section.
• The OSE, in collaboration with the Ministries of Health and Education, designed a bi-annual de-worming campaign. Working with the National Bureau of Nutrition and the School Health Division as primary partners, the campaign sought to distribute de-worming pills and vitamins to school districts across Haiti’s ten departments. (See “Post-Earthquake Achievements” for more de-worming activities in 2010.)

Environment and Disaster Risk Reduction

• Deforestation is a major problem in Haiti, where the demand for wood-based fuels has depleted the country’s naturally sylvan landscape. In November 2009 the OSE helped Haiti’s delegation to the Hemispheric Conference on Coordination of International Cooperation to forge partnerships with Mexico and other countries with successful track records in reforestation and disaster risk reduction.
• The OSE arranged for the pro bono services of Andrew White, coordinator of the Rights and Resources Initiative and an expert on reforestation with significant experience in Haiti. He reviewed the OSE’s strategy on reforestation and supported the OSE in the planning and coordination of a high-level meeting in Haiti on deforestation in June 2010. (See also “Post-Earthquake Achievements.”)
• In an effort to expand the use of fuel-efficient stoves, which generate less harmful exhaust and reduce the demand for wood-based charcoal, the OSE worked with several organizations in the housing, commercial, and education sectors to introduce fuel-efficient stove products and pilot programmes in a variety of settings. The office worked with housing NGOs such as Haven and Habitat for Humanity on ways to integrate fuel-efficient stoves into their designs.
• The OSE worked closely with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on the expansion and replication of the Carrefour-Feuilles-based Love ’N Haiti fuel briquette programme. Love ’N Haiti collects, sorts, and processes household waste into briquettes for home use, making for an environmentally responsible, less expensive alternative to wood-based charcoal. (The project is now selling the vast majority of the briquettes it produces to the World Food Programme for use in its school feeding programme.) With new modifications to the presses and an improved assembly line, the project aims to produce approximately 10,000 briquettes a week. Love ’N Haiti’s waste processing and recycling programme covers 70 percent of the Carrefour-Feuilles neighborhood in Port-au-Prince. Plastics and metals, which cannot be used in briquette production, are sold to recycling companies at market rates. Roughly 30 percent of the collected waste is recycled; more than 350 residents earn an income in the programme; the majority of the community is now serviced by waste collection teams; and consumers of the briquettes pay 78 percent of the price for a comparable amount of charcoal. Identification of additional partners and investors to support expansion and upgrades to current operations is underway.
• James Lee Witt, a former director of US Federal Emergency Management Agency, traveled with the Special Envoy to Haiti in July 2009 and committed $250,000 to provide disaster preparedness training for Haitian women. In collaboration with the OSE and the UN in Haiti, in August 2009, the Witt team visited Port-au-Prince and possible training sites on a fact-finding mission. The UN assisted this effort by identifying government and civil society partners which ensured that Witt-funded training programmes did not duplicate or undermine existing initiatives. The Witt team provided training on hurricane preparedness in one department.

Economic Development and Private Sector Investment

• The OSE helped broker a public-private partnership to increase the use of biofuels in Haiti, between BioTek, a biofuels company, and the Government of Haiti. This partnership will create hundreds of jobs for Haitian sugar farmers, and BioTek also committed to providing job training, free seeds for crop substitution, and cleaning and maintenance of local watersheds.
• The OSE worked to support the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) international business conference in Port-au-Prince in October 2009, when the Special Envoy spoke to more than 500 Haitian and international businesspersons interested in investing in Haiti. Following the meeting, 97 percent of the participants expressed an increased level of interest in investing in Haiti. Numerous initial contacts were made between international and Haitian businesses during this conference and many have resulted in follow-up meetings and business proposals. International investors have requested a second such conference in Port-au-Prince to further discuss and develop business opportunities.
• The OSE has maintained a close working relationship with the Soros Economic Development Fund (SEDF), which has made several key investments in Haiti (including two deals that closed after the earthquake). The OSE brokered meetings between the SEDF and the UN’s stabilization mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) prior to the earthquake, and the SEDF subsequently launched
  the Haiti Invest Project, an equity-investment programme with an initial commitment of up to $25 million. Haiti Invest had approached potential partners in an effort to significantly expand this initial capitalization six-fold (up to $150 million), and was considering investments in garment manufacturing, agriculture, logistics, tourism, energy, and housing. Current SEDF investments include $3 million for apparel manufacturing, which is expected to create 1,400 new jobs in 2011; $2.3 million debt and equity investment for the export of frozen mangos (increasing the income of small-scale farmers as mangos that would have been rejected can now be frozen and exported); and two grants of $250,000 each for training of factory workers and management and for the creation of a sustainable mango industry.


UN Photo: Sophia Paris

• The OSE worked extensively with Denis O’Brien, CEO of Digicel, the Caribbean’s largest telecommunications provider, to foster international investment in Haiti. Mr. O’Brien, together with the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), hosted a working group meeting in Port-au-Prince in November 2009 to catalyze interest shown by participants in the CGI annual meeting in September 2009. Subsequent CGI Haiti Action Network Meetings have taken place every two months in Port-au-Prince or New York City.
• Digicel, under the guidance of Mr. O’Brien (chairman of Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year programme in Ireland), launched an entrepreneur-of-the-year programme in Haiti after the Deputy Special Envoy approached Mr. O’Brien for the funding for the initiative. The OSE was instrumental in designing the programme, identifying its judging panel and advising on outreach to the Haitian population in all ten departments. The award recognizes outstanding Haitian business leaders and cultivates a spirit of innovation throughout the country. With assistance and support from the OSE, the Clinton Foundation and CGI, the programme identified 96 national finalists from an initial pool of several hundred applicants. Twenty-four regional finalists were selected and invited to a CEO retreat in Miami to discuss entrepreneurship in Haiti and small and medium enterprise development priorities. The programme culminated on 10 January 2011 when the entrepreneur of the year was selected by the judging panel at a televised event in Port-au-Prince which was attended by the Prime Minister and more than 700 guests. Digicel will continue the programme in 2011 and preparations are underway to identify the 2011 entrepreneurs.
• The OSE worked closely with the Ireland-based Soul of Haiti Foundation to foster introductions between members of the Haitian and Irish business communities. In October 2009, a group of Haitian businesspeople traveled to Ireland to discuss partnerships and investment opportunities in Haiti. Soul of Haiti has also launched Brand Haiti, modeled after the Brand South Africa initiative, and will work to highlight positive developments in Haiti as well as investment opportunities. The foundation has also been producing “Love Haiti” T-shirts, now sold in stores in Europe, and also procuring Haitian coffee, now sold in Irish cafés and specialty food stores. The coffee has been well received and subsequent orders have been placed. Soul of Haiti is also working to develop a line of dried Haitian fruits such as dried mangos and citrus.
• In November 2009, Taxback.com, under Managing Director and CEO Terry Clune (2009 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year), established a call centre in Port-au-Prince, providing services for tax documentation and support to international clients. The centre was badly damaged in the earthquake and suspended operations, but Mr. Clune brought a small group of Haitian employees to Ireland in summer 2010 for further training and career development. Taxback.com is now exploring opportunities to reestablish its call centre in Port-au-Prince and potentially bring other similar technology businesses to Haiti.
• The OSE also consulted with Haitian business owners through the Forum Economique du Secteur Privé. Members of the forum communicated their interests in fighting contraband, ensuring equitable contributions through taxation, and receiving support from the Haitian government.
• Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (RCCL) is investing in tourism infrastructure in the northern part of Haiti near Cap-Haïtien, at the Citadel, and in the nearby city of Milot. After conversations with the OSE in the fall of 2009, the company expanded its presence in the north and its long-term commitment to tourism in Haiti. RCCL invested $55 million to develop Labadee, a beach resort area on Cap-Haïtien, and brought approximately 650,000 tourists to Haiti in 2010. The first ship to dock at the Labadee pier sailed in December 2009. RCCL is committed to purchasing local food products when and where possible, and has built a school for the children of Labadee village in partnership with Prodev. The school will also provide vocational training in hospitality for adults in a programme that will be jointly administered with the Ministry of Tourism. RCCL has also been working closely with the Institut de Sauvegarde du Patrimoine National, the World Heritage Fund, the IDB and Minister of Tourism Patrick Delatour on a project to restore damaged areas of the Citadel and the Sans Sous Palace and to develop additional infrastructure for the preservation of these important historic sites. RCCL and its partners are seeking additional funding to support the restoration.
• After discussions with the OSE, the International Finance Corporation is funding a two-year technical assistance initiative to create approximately 10,000 new jobs through work on the industrial parks that host investment, and through outreach initiatives to bring new foreign investors to Haiti.
• In collaboration with Dr. Abe Valentin of Caribbean Harvest, the OSE worked on expanding Haiti’s fish farms, the largest of which raises hybrid tilapia in Lake Azuei. Caribbean Harvest has completed the construction of a new fish farm in Boucan Carré in the Central Plateau. The OSE played an essential role in facilitating introductions to providers of technical and financial assistance to Caribbean Harvest.

Essential Services

• The OSE supported the University of Notre Dame’s efforts to expand the production of iodized salt and draft a national policy on the use of fortified salt throughout Haiti. (The use of iodized salt confers several health benefits and mitigates diseases including elephantiasis.) The project suffered significant setbacks after the earthquake but is now operational again.
• The OSE has been working on the rehabilitation of the water system at Port-au-Prince’s Hôpital Université d’État l’Haïti (HUEH), the public hospital that serves the majority of the population of the capital. This facilitation led to the restoration of potable water in the hospital in December 2009, and the OSE has also helped with the excavation and repair of four abandoned cisterns on the hospital grounds. This has brought clean water to the surgery, obstetrics section, and kitchen.

Civil Society Coordination

• In July 2009, the Special Envoy and Dr. Paul Farmer (who at that time had not yet been appointed Deputy Special Envoy) convened an NGO meeting involving approximately 100 partners in Port-au-Prince to discuss NGO coordination and how to better accompany the Government of Haiti. At this meeting, President Clinton announced that his office would create an online civil society organization (CSO) portal as a first step towards coordination, transparency and accountability.
• The OSE and the IDB compiled the first comprehensive, dynamic, web-based directory of CSOs working in Haiti. (There are more CSOs in Haiti, per capita, than in any other country except for India.) The directory is currently accessible through the OSE’s website, www.haitispecialenvoy.org.
• In September 2009, the OSE organized a meeting in Port-au-Prince to better coordinate disaster risk preparation and planning.