Geography of haiti.

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Haiti is an independent country in the West Indies, west of the Dominican Republic, whom it shares the island of Hispaniola with. (Dominican Republic owns two thirds of the island, and Haiti owns the western third). The country is approximately 28,000 square kilometers and has a population of nearly 9 million people, which grows at an annual rate of 2.5%. Port-au-Prince is the country’s capital and largest city. Haiti is defined by rough and mountainous terrain, and so has been named “land of mountains”. It also has small coastal plains and river valleys. Haiti has a tropical climate, but lies in the middle of the hurricane belt and is prone to severe storms from June to October, with occasional flooding, earthquakes and periodic droughts. French and Creole are the official language of Haiti, as it was a French colony for a period of time. Today, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with a GDP of only $1,900, with two thirds of the people unemployed and three quarters living in poverty. Haiti’s international debt is more than $1 billion.

   

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Haiti has numerous development indicators to show how well the country is developing. The main ones are explained below, each with potential solutions to further develop the country and improve standards of living.

SOURCES OF FINANCE

Currency: Gourde( HTG)

Exchange Rate: $1 to 37.138 Haitian Gourde

Potential sources of income: International Monetary Fund, World Bank ,Foreign                                                 Direct Investment (FDI), Inter-American                                                         Development Bank, Aid and Taxation.

International Monetary Funds (IMF)

Set up in 1944 at the Bretton Wood conference, New Hampshire, to help put in place an economic structure that would help the problems experienced by many countries in the 1930s. It also aims to stabilise the international monetary system and help when monetary flow from trade causes problems. It provides help and advice as well as funds to countries experiencing balance of payments problem. The IMF gets its funds from its 184 member states called “quotas”. Quota determined by the economic size of the member state.

World Bank

An agency of the United Nation. It has a group of five organisations which focuses on providing funds for projects aimed at alleviating poverty, inequality and promoting development and has 184 member states.

International Bank for reconstruction and development(IBRD): Provides loans and advice to poor countries to assist development.  

The international development association (IDA): Offering interest free credits and grants to countries who are not able to borrow through normal market channels.

International finance corporation (IFC): Providing finance through the private sector for development.

The multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA): providing investor with protection against risk to promote investment in developing countries.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)

They have policies to attract investments. Such investments are often associated with multinational corporations. The right conditions have to be in place e.g. security, peace, law and legislation, freedom of market, local labour supply , legal issue: protection for the investors property and rights, tax regime etc. These are some of the conditions that investors looking to invest in foreign countries would like to be in place to protect their investment. This mode of investment has been criticised as being a mean by which multinational companies can exploit poorer countries.

Inter-American Development Bank

The Inter-American Development Bank, the oldest and largest regional bank in the world, is the main source of multilateral financing for economic, social and institutional development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Its loans and grants help finance development projects and support strategies to reduce poverty, expand growth, increase trade and investment, promote regional integration, and foster private sector development and modernization of the State.


Aid

This can be bilateral, from one country to another or multilateral, aid distributed by an agency who co-ordinate donations. It helps to kick start economic development, used to develop vital infrastructure needed to encourage other investments. Some draw backs of receiving aids could be, crowding out domestic investments, creates a dependency culture, distorts the working of the market, not always used for appropriate purposes and can be linked to various strings attached to receiving aid that may not be in the recipients countries interest. Foreign aid makes up approximately 30% - 40% of the national governments budget of Haiti.  In fiscal year 2004-2006, the U.S gave more than $600million in Aid. The united states is Haiti’s largest bilateral assistant donor .

TAXATION

Taxation is the only practical means of raising the revenue to finance government spending on the goods and services that most of us demand. This should raise essential revenue without excessive government borrowing and should do so without discouraging economic activity. It is difficult to create an efficient tax administration without a well-educated and well-trained staff, when money is lacking to pay good wages to tax officials and to computerize the operation (or even to provide efficient telephone and mail services), and when taxpayers have limited ability to keep accounts. As a result, governments often take the path of least resistance, developing tax systems that allow them to exploit whatever options are available rather than establishing rational, modern, and efficient tax systems. The informal structure of the economy in many developing countries and because of financial limitations, statistical and tax offices have difficulty in generating reliable statistics. Due to the political climate, no current taxation system is in place in Haiti

Public Administration

Haiti is the least developed country in America with a strong history of re-occurring violence and is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Haiti has depended extensively, since the mid-1970s, on foreign development aid for budget support. The United States has been the largest donor, but it has frequently interrupted the flow of aid because of alleged human rights abuses, corruption, and election fraud.

The prospects for development improved for a while when Jean-Claude Duvalier left in 1986. It was then that the economy began to grow February 1986 departure; some important economic reforms took place, and the economy began to grow but this was later stalled. The economy could have continued to grow but political and social problems prevented this.

In June 1997 the Prime Minister Rosny Smarth resigned leaving a 10 month gap where the Parliament was reluctant to accept any recommendations for a new prime minister put forward. This meant a long period of time passed when there was no legislative government. In January 1999 a new prime minister was appointed, Jacques-Edouard Alexis who decided to hold elections to reconstruct Parliament.

In 2005 the Haitian National Police (HNP) were accused of unlawfully abusing/murdering citizens acting outside their authority. However lack of interest from the Haitian government meant that investigations were unsuccessful in trying to find who was at fault. This was further made difficult by people acting as HNP so it was hard to determine if it was actually a member of the HNP.

Due to the lack of courses within the police department when citizens were arrested for crimes they were later released due to the countries corrupt and inefficient judicial system. For example a HNP officer killed a man who was arguing with him at the police station. This officer was arrested but no other information was available and so he was released.

Despite recent developments within the country corruption is still occurring within Haiti.

With reports in lack of help for societal and violence against women, internal trafficking of children, child abuse, child labour, gang murders, torture, kidnapping and severe corruption within the government itself, Haiti still remains dependent from the help from other countries.

Health System

Haiti’s health system includes the public sector, the semi-public sector, and the private sector.

The public sector was seriously affected by the country’s political crisis, which led all foreign aid to be channeled through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The Ministry of Health is structured into central, departmental, and community levels. Through its central directorates and units, it sets standards. Planning, monitoring, and supervision are the responsibility of the heads of the nine sanitary departments. One-third of the country’s 663 health institutions belong to the public sector.

The semi-public or mixed sector encompasses nonprofit institutions that are supported mainly by NGOs. Staff is paid in whole or in part by the public sector, but is managed by the private sector.

In 1994 there were 49 hospitals and 61 other inpatient facilities, with an estimated 90 beds per 100,000 population. Of the country’s total health care facilities, 32% are operated by NGOs. The private, profit-making sector is comprised of physicians, dentists, and other private practice specialists who mostly work in Port-au-Prince and in private health care facilities. Public and private establishments function completely independent of one another with very little networking. Differences in access to adequate health care are further magnified by the uneven geographical distribution of centers and hospital beds.

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Social security benefits are limited to formally employed people. In 1995, the Insurance Agency for Occupational Accidents, Illness, and Maternity (OFATMA), an autonomous body under the umbrella of the Ministry of Social Affairs, provided insurance coverage to 2,500 public and private firms. In 1996 it covered 60,000 workers, an increase from 40,000 covered in 1994.

The estimated per capita expenditure in health for 1995 was G15.7 (US$ 2.0); it represented a decrease compared with that of 1990, which was G24.8 (US$ 3.4). Total per capita expenditure on health reached US$ 9, representing 3.5% of GDP in 1995. According to ...

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