Economic Development and Infrastructure

While economic development and infrastructure are national scale issues, much can be achieved at the departmental and commune level. CSI investments will be made at three scales: local, CSI Area, and national.

Economic Development and Infrastructure Programmes will be divided into five themes: Private Sector Development, Tourism, Roads, Energy, and Telecommunications

Private Sector Development

The private sector within the CSI Area is quite active across a number of themes, particularly agriculture, charcoal production, fisheries, tourism, local services and small scale trading. However there is much room for expansion and improvement in all of these sectors, especially in terms of sustainability.

Private Sector Development projects are anticipated in several main areas: access to credit, access to insurance, technical assistance and capacity building, and start up grants.

Market Assessment and regional planning

The project will, in coordination with the Ministry of Planning and other relevant ministries, will assess market potential and support a planning process based on improved information to think about long-term strategic growth.

Access to credit

Limited access to credit at reasonable rates is a major constraint to local development. Potential projects include the introduction of microcredit schemes, or credit guarantees for larger investments such as agricultural processing plants.

Access to insurance

Access to insurance is very limited for businesses in the CSI area, making businesses highly vulnerable to natural disasters (particularly flooding) and business risks such as theft. Although insurance providers are present in Haiti, interventions will be needed to increase access to them for businesses in the CSI area.

Technical assistance and capacity building

A major limitation to economic development is the skills deficit – both in terms of technical skills and of business/ management skills. A number of CSI projects will focus on capacity building and technical training in fields such as business and staff management, accounting and marketing. This will improve the prospects of businesses starting and surviving in the CSI Area

Tourism

Tourism is the one of the greatest potential sustainable development opportunities for the CSI Area after agriculture. Indeed, the area possesses major coastal tourism assets: a tropical climate, clean seas, white sand  beaches and coral reefs. The aesthetic quality of these assets is in some cases as good as anything to be found within the Caribbean. The CSI Area also has potentially important natural terrestrial tourism assets: a rural setting, access to a mountainous national park, local caves, river walks and waterfalls.

A small scale and struggling tourism industry is already present in the CSI area, with beachfront hotels and nascent ventures such as bird watching tours and a scuba diving centre.

Sustainable tourism development projects will focus on the area’s natural assets and are anticipated in three areas in partnership with the Ministry of Tourism: Tourism infrastructure and governance, Ecotourism, and Regional Promotion.

Tourism infrastructure and governance

A key infrastructure need for international tourism is an international airport at Les Cayes. The CSI will support efforts to secure this airport by providing technical support to the airport project’s development and financing process. Other areas for investments include: communal infrastructure (public beach amenities, cave entry, picnic sites), good governance to help prevent over-development and environmental damage of sensitive coastal sites, and capacity building for hospitality staff.

Ecotourism

Ecotourism is a niche business with distinct potential for the CSI area, particularly for its marine environment. CSI projects will operate within a sustainable tourism plan which will ensure that improved access to the region does not increase environmental damages. This plan will likely include some form of maintenance and benefit sharing with the local communities, including improving existing trail networks with better markers and maps.

Regional Promotion

Tourism promotion of the CSI Area at the national and international level is most effectively done collectively rather than by each hotel or Commune. The CSI can support the launch and coordinate individual promotion efforts into a central, high profile promotion campaign, thereby significantly enhancing the region’s national and international visibility.

Roads

The sustainable development of the CSI Area will not be achieved without an adequate road network.  Unfortunately road building and maintenance is particularly challenging in the area: steep topography, broad river beds, frequent flash flooding, and strong erosion forces combine to increase construction costs and destroy inadequately built roads.

Building and maintenance of primary roads is generally a national scale issue beyond the scope of CSI projects. On the other hand, the CSI can assist with secondary and tertiary roads, which are managed at the Commune and community level, respectively. In particular, CSI projects can help improve and maintain tertiary roads and tracks by training community based management teams.

Energy

Haiti lacks adequate infrastructure for energy generation and distribution.  The majority of the country does not have access to the main electric grids so alternative energy solutions are required in rural areas. This is a major constraint to development. The national electrical grid reaches only 6 out of the CSI Area’s 10 Communes. Within those 6 Communes, electricity from the grid is available only in the town centers and only for 4 to 6 hours per day.  Cooking is mostly done using basic charcoal stoves and three stone fires. This explains why charcoal production, which is not only highly damaging for the environment but also highly inefficient, is so widespread.

The CSI energy strategy is to improve access to sustainable and affordable energy across the entire area.  Investments are planned in three areas: access to the national electrical grid, mini grids and clean energy.

Access to the national electrical grid

This will require investments which are beyond the scope of the CSI, both in generation and in transmission capacity.  The CSI will play a key role in advocating for these investments at the national level.

Mini grids

Mini grids are relatively small, self-contained electrical networks. In theory, they can range in size from three houses linked to a solar panel, to sophisticated networks with large diesel generators servicing several thousand people. In practice, most of the mini-grids operating in towns in the CSI area are powered by diesel generators and service 20 – 100 homes on an irregular basis. These grids are characterized by high running costs and inadequate billing and demand management systems.

CSI projects will target rapid expansion of mini grids, accompanied by technical improvements in existing grids. The power sources will typically be diesel and clean energy hybrids, particularly photovoltaic solar. Though CSI investments can help cover initial capital costs, the operation and maintenance of the grids will need to be fully self financed through a billing system.

Clean energy

The most important types of clean electrical energy anticipated for the CSI area are photovoltaic solar and micro-hydroelectric, with some small scale wind power. Research will also be conducted to assess the potential of biomass and biofuel power plants.

For cooking, CSI projects will focus on introducing improved stoves for fuel wood and charcoal.  At present, national level issues constrain the potential for large-scale expansion of the bottled LPG market.

Telecommunications

Access to telecommunications in the CSI Area is relatively good but could be improved, particularly in inland and mountainous areas. Full coverage will provide a range of benefits including greater access to phone-enabled services such as banking and disaster warnings.

While investments will need to occur on a purely commercial basis, the CSI could assist by mapping the current coverage and assessing the scale of the remaining market.