Support for Haitian Entrepreneurship

This project aims to support microbusinesses and small and medium-sized Haitian enterprises by increasing their access to technical support and credit. The project also provides support to the Haitian Government to improve its policies and regulatory framework to promote entrepreneurship and private sector development. Some project activities include: (1) training expert advisors to provide services including business plan development accounting and marketing to 10 000 microbusinesses and 2 500 small enterprises to increase their rentability; (2) developing financial services that are better aligned to the needs of microbusinesses and small and medium-sized enterprises in order to increase their access to credit; and (3) providing technical support to the Ministry of Trade and Industry for the development of a national private sector development strategy.

Among the results achieved as of March 2018: 1) Participating microbusinesses and small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) have adopted better management practices with coordination of actions with the non-financial services programs; strengthening of services offered by chambers of commerce and implementation of a monitoring and feedback mechanism; 148 business plans prepared; 19 funding files completed; 118 technical support requests fulfilled; 7 technical support requests carried out for a total of 832 entrepreneurs; 2) Participating financial institutions offer financial products and services tailored to the needs of MSMEs: - 2 new financial products introduced in 4 participating financial institutions and rolled out in 3 departments; - 518 MSME loans granted including 167 for women entrepreneurs; - opening of the financial centre for entrepreneurs; 3) Ministry of Trade and Industry has adopted measures fostering MSME development: - the salt project line was chosen with the signing of agreements and the creation of a local roundtable.