Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Salvador Lamothe has announced a developing plan aimed at making Haiti an emerging nation by 2030.

Developed with assistance from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF,) the three-year investment program is designed to “achieve accelerated, balanced economic growth and poverty reduction.”

Poverty in Haiti is rampant. Seventy-eight percent of Haitians survive on less than $2 dollars a day and more than 50 percent of children under the age of 5 are malnourished. Over two-thirds of the labor forces do not have formal jobs. Haiti is still recovering from the 2010 earthquake which destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure and left 300,000 Haitians dead and over a million homeless.

Prime Minister Lamothe hopes that bolstering development in Haiti plan will act as a long-term road map for bringing about a lasting and significant improvement in the quality of life and standard of living of the Haitian people. He says the reformation project, based on economic reform and reconstruction, will maintain strong economic growth achieved through “an increase in farming, manufacturing, and tourism, the creation of businesses and foreign direct investment.” The Haitian market also aims to gain freedom from dependency on foreign aid and plans to modernize its economy with boost reforms.

Haiti’s international development donors play a significant role in the nations’ efforts to attain its objectives in the reconstruction of the country. With goals of restoring public finances and attracting new investments from foreign countries, such as Venezuela, neighboring Dominican Republic and the United States, “A lot of efforts are needed to achieve this,” says Haiti’s finance minister, Marie Carmelle Jean Marie. The implementation of this development plan hopes to bring the majority of the Haitian people out of poverty to form a solid middle class and maximize newly created jobs, guaranteeing security and justice for the Haitian people.

— Ellie Malfaro

Sources: Carribean360, Haiti Partners, Emerging Markets
Photo: Ethos