Posted: 2009-07-23 15:23:50 (0 Comments)
The Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) yesterday said it had approved a programme that outlines its assistance strategy for Haiti for the period 2009-2012, according to a report at www.cananews.net.
The CDB said that the four-year "Country Strategy" programme involved an assessment of the development challenges confronting Haiti, as well as the government's development agenda in response to those challenges.
"It was arrived at after extensive discussions with the Government, the private sector, several non-governmental organisations. CDB also engaged in broad consultations with other development partners operating in Haiti to avoid duplication and to enhance donor coordination."
The CDB said that the major objectives of the strategy are to provide support to the government's macroeconomic stabilisation initiatives; strengthen Haiti's economic growth and poverty reduction prospects and provide support to industries with significant growth and job creation potential within a short time frame.
The strategy is also aimed at accelerating support to human resource development "by greater attention to the use of new technologies and to provide support to food security and re-forestation initiatives".
The CDB also said that it is providing a US$10 million grant to Haiti as part of a broader programme of support by other multilateral financing institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), that seeks to enhance fiscal and debt management in the country through a series of technical assistance projects.
"The technical assistance projects being assisted by the donor institutions are aimed at enhancing revenue through institutional strengthening of the key revenue collection agencies; better expenditure targeting to ensure greater poverty reduction effectiveness; better budgeting management controls and oversight; improved debt management; and greater transparency to reduce corruption.
"CDB's role is to provide budgetary assistance in support of the need to maintain short-run budgetary macroeconomic stability, contributing to the efforts of the other donors to assist the Haitian government in attaining its longer term fiscal and debt objectives.
"This support will enable the Government to continue providing basic services, implement critical infrastructure agreed to with international development partners and post-hurricane infrastructure rehabilitation and recovery," the CDB added.