Haitian diaspora supports development in Haiti

by Paul Collier
Comment is Free, THE GUARDIAN, UK - Port-au-Prince- Beyond the begging bowl: Haiti need not be a failing state. Its problems are fixable if only the world community co-ordinates.

Haiti is on all the lists of “failing states”. Yet the persistence of its troubles demonstrates not so much their intractability as the past incompetence of the international community in helping to tackle them. Haiti should not be a failing state: its fundamentals such as neighbourhood are remarkably favourable. Its problems are fixable if the international community moves beyond gestures to a co-ordinated use of a range of policies: security, trade, governance and aid.

Like most failing states, Haiti is structurally insecure and periodically torn apart by political violence. It has one of the fastest rates of population growth in the world and a chronic shortage of jobs. Unsurprisingly, with few jobs and agricultural incomes in decline, the aspiration of young Haitians has been emigration. The last year has compounded these problems: the world food crisis toppled the government; the country was hit by four hurricanes and because of the US recession, 30,000 illegal immigrants are about to be repatriated.

Haitian emigration has enabled a trade policy to develop. Firms in the bottom billion need privileged access to our markets and this is usually difficult to negotiate. The large Haitian diaspora in America has become an effective political lobby: in 2006 Congress passed the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act (HOPE), which has given Haiti the best trade deal on earth, with duty-free, quota-free access and generous rules of origin guaranteed for a decade.

The security provided by peacekeeping and the market access provided by HOPE are a window of opportunity: potentially Haiti could now break into the US garments market. In Bangladesh the sector provides more than 2m jobs; in Haiti, a 100,000 jobs would be transformative.

• Paul Collier is professor of economics at the Oxford University

View the full article online here: ‘Beyond the Begging Bowl‘