The Enabling Environment for Food Security Project in Haiti, supported by the Feed the Future initiative, aims to improve the business environment for agriculture. The project utilizes the Enabling the Business of Agriculture Index (EBA) to assess the ease of doing agribusiness in Haiti. The EBA scores, ranging from 0 to 100, evaluate the strength of the legal and institutional environment for agribusiness across eight topics: seed, fertilizer, machinery, finance, markets, transport, water, and ICT.
Haiti’s performance in the EBA is particularly weak, with scores below 30 in all topic areas except enabling access to agricultural machinery. The country’s legal framework is characterized by weak or absent registration and licensing systems, as well as few quality control measures. In the area of finance, Haiti’s performance is hindered by limitations in moveable collateral and non-bank lending. The lack of a law governing the creation and governance of microfinance institutions and the absence of best practices in electronic money transactions further exacerbate these challenges.
In comparison, Colombia has adopted 33 out of 36 finance best practices, while Haiti has only 11. The country’s financial cooperatives have a sound legal framework, but the absence of a law governing microfinance institutions and the lack of best practices in electronic money transactions hinder the development of the financial sector. The EBA scores for Haiti’s financial sector are significantly lower than those of Colombia, with a score of 33/100 compared to Colombia’s 33/100.
Haiti’s performance in water management is also poor, with a score of 12/100. The country lacks a regulatory framework specific to water management, and best practices such as requiring the establishment of basin/aquifer plans and corresponding institutions are absent. The water abstraction and use permit system in place for irrigation use does not require public notice or compliance with national or basin/aquifer management plans. Haiti could look to best practices adopted by Colombia and Nicaragua to improve its water management scores.
The regulatory framework for tractors in Haiti is also characterized by inefficiencies and costs. Streamlined import procedures facilitate easy import into Haiti, but registration is administered in an inefficient (5 days) and costly (41% income per capita) manner. Operational safety, performance, and longevity of machinery are not legally safeguarded in Haiti, and the country has adopted neither national nor international tractor standards. Vendors are not required to provide ongoing maintenance service, and type approval requiring certain testing is not required of tractors before they enter the market.
Haiti’s performance in the area of seed is particularly weak, with a score of 10/100. The country has no legal framework governing plant breeding rights, seed variety registration, or seed quality control. Companies can legally produce breeder and foundation seed of local public varieties, but companies are not obtaining access to germplasm preserved in national gene banks. Public research institutes license public varieties to companies for production and sale, but Haiti has no quality control measures required during seed production, no framework for seed certification, and no seed bag labeling requirements. Significant gaps in the legal framework of Haiti’s seed system reduce private sector investment and weaken consumer confidence.