The agricultural and rural sector has powerful tools for responding to the emergency and channeling the investments of the international community.

“Agriculture is one of the economic sectors that has provided the most coordinated response to the January 12 earthquake,” says Alfredo Mena, the Representative of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) in Haiti.

Mena believes the country’s agricultural and rural sector has two powerful tools for responding to the tragedy: a program for emergency aid and support for food production, and a national agricultural investment plan.

Both documents were drafted under the leadership of the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Rural Development and the Minister, Joanas Gué, with technical assistance from several agencies, including IICA.

This expeditious response to the disaster paved the way for another effort to channel the generous reconstruction aid arriving from different parts of the world, in order to achieve the Government’s objectives.

On February 10, just a month after the disaster, Minister Gué sent out a letter to the international community. Writing from the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, which lay in ruins, he called for coordinated efforts to address the crisis.

“This is a very difficult time for Haiti, one that requires that the people and their organizations show great courage. To contribute to the efforts of the Haitian people, all external aid is welcome and the  Ministry of Agriculture has the key responsibility of coordinating all such aid.”

In his letter, the Minister thanked IICA and other agencies that had come to the aid of Haiti’s agricultural sector, but also called upon them to ensure that the projects they promoted were consistent with the Government’s priorities and objectives.

“We need to draw up reconstruction projects that dovetail with the guidelines we established in the program for emergency aid and support for food production in response to the four hurricanes that hit Haiti during the summer of 2008, the earthquake on January 12, 2010 and the displacement of the population,” the Minister explained.

Nearly seven months after the disaster, Alfredo Mena says, “We have promoted the Ministry’s plans, accompanied the Minister on international missions and at various meetings with the international and donor community, and worked with the Ministry’s technical personnel to develop proposals for the medium and long-term reactivation of the agricultural sector. Much remains to be done, however.”

This second issue of IICA with Haiti provides details of some of the projects under way in the Caribbean nation; outlines fruitful alliances with strategic partners; and reports on a wide range of actions in which the Institute is acting as a bridge for horizontal cooperation between Member States.

More information: alfredo.mena@iica.int