The agricultural development initiative in Haiti began in 2010, following the earthquake and its aftermath. USAID/Haiti’s engagement of the private sector took place within a national context shaped by the disaster and its consequences. The agency’s focus on disaster response and recovery drove its initial relationships with external organizations, often engaging Haitian companies and private sector actors as recipients of aid rather than as partners.
In 2016, USAID/Haiti began working on its first post-earthquake Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS), recognizing the potential for private sector relationships to play a key role in the country’s development. The Mission collaborated with the US Global Development Lab’s Center for Transformational Partnerships (CTP) to conduct a private sector landscape assessment (PSLA) to explore opportunities for private sector collaboration.
The assessment team researched and met with over 90 representatives from the private sector, government, and USAID/Haiti projects working in various sectors, including renewable energy, agriculture, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), finance, and information communication technology (ICT). The primary message from these meetings was a positive one, indicating that the private sector is ready to engage with USAID, building on current successes and finding new, less transactional, and more strategic ways to support Haiti’s development.
Private sector engagement (PSE) encompasses the full range of modalities in which USAID interfaces with for-profit firms to further development objectives. Key forms of PSE include public-private partnerships, which involve a commitment of resources from both sides, and non-partnerships, which involve collaboration without a formal partnership agreement.
The assessment identified opportunities for PSE in various sectors, including agriculture, WASH, renewable energy, ICT, and diaspora investment and entrepreneurship. In agriculture, priority opportunities include partnering with buyers to develop market-driven, structured, and mutually beneficial supply chains, and incentivizing and enabling investment in agricultural infrastructure, processing capacity, and services.
In WASH, priority opportunities include expanding private delivery of quality and affordable WASH services through public-private partnerships, and accelerating the scaling of local WASH solutions and business models. In renewable energy, priority opportunities include incentivizing and enabling investment in renewable energy projects, and enhancing the ecosystem for renewable energy investments and management.
In ICT, priority opportunities include increasing digitization and fostering an environment that creates local ICT solutions. In diaspora investment and entrepreneurship, priority opportunities include supporting and incentivizing diaspora direct investment and entrepreneurship, and supporting the development of channels to enable pooling of diaspora savings as an alternative source of finance.
The assessment team’s research and meetings with private sector representatives highlighted the potential for PSE to support Haiti’s development, particularly in the sectors of agriculture, WASH, renewable energy, ICT, and diaspora investment and entrepreneurship.