Check out this NYT article about efforts to bring fresh fruits and vegetables and other healthier options to corner stores / convenience marts in low income urban neighborhoods. Many residents of urban neighborhoods rely on mini-marts for the majority of their food purchases as chain grocers do not build stores in the communities and transportation options are limited. Public health types have labeled these communities as "food deserts" - areas with low availability of healthy affordable foods. Back when I lived in Baltimore, my teacher roommates said that the standard breakfast for many of their students was a bag of chips, little debbie or a candy bar and one of the little jugs of artificially flavored sugar water. They could pick it up on their walk in to school for a dollar.
Will these same kids start grabbing an apple over a pack of mini doughnuts? Not if there is no apple there to begin with.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
getting closer
Today's Miami Herald and the AP say the current PM is all but on her way out... but that she won't got without a fight. She refused to answer the Senate's summons today which would most likely result in a vote for her removal. Interesting comment by the MH author that foreign governments are more interested in protecting support for the Clinton investment plan that standing behind a strong leader like Michelle Pierre-Louis who doesn't have political alliances in Haiti.
real deal environmental health
According to this NYT article Sweden recently released new dietary guidelines and food labeling that give equal weight to the environmental impacts of food production as they do to nutritional value...brilliant! The challenge is making the information meaningful to the consumer in a way that doesn't overwhelm them and really helps them make balanced decisions.
Biotech and world hunger
Highly recommend this debate in the NYT a few days about whether or not biotechnology is the solution to world hunger. PP Anderson is a faculty member in my program - a very smart guy and a really nice one too!
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
here we go again... already?
News report from Miami Herald reinforcing rumors that the Haitian prime minister is on the verge of being ousted. According to several Haitians I deeply respect, Michelle Pierre-Louis is(was?)a ray of hope in a largely corrupt and ineffective government. It is almost laughable that members of the Haitian senate would accuse her of being ineffective given then until only a few months ago 1/3 of the senate seats were unfilled due to more than 18 months of election delays. How can a PM lead a non-existent government? As the article suggests, accusations against her likely have more to do with political wrangling/positioning for next year's presidential election than what she has/has not accomplished over the last year. Sigh - time will tell.
Friday, October 9, 2009
more than just a moment?
Been hearing lots of people and news sources talk about how we are experiencing the most stable social/political in Haiti in the last decade. While I'd have to agree that this is the "quietest" Haiti has been in my 5 year history here, I've seen things go up and down and up and down so quickly that it's hard to know what to believe about the future. This article gives you a little more info on what is being talked about...
ANALYSIS-Impoverished Haiti is stabilizing but still risky
By Jim Loney
MIAMI, Oct 8 (Reuters) - How stable can a nation like Haiti be, where U.N. soldiers still keep the peace, where a prime minister was toppled by food riots 18 months ago and where a president was overthrown by armed rebels five years ago?
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton raised eyebrows at an investor conference in Port-au-Prince last week by saying that Haiti's political risk was lower than it had ever been in his lifetime.
That period includes a popular uprising that ousted the 30-year Duvalier family dictatorship in 1986, a military coup that sent President Jean-Bertrand Aristide packing in 1991 and years of gang violence and political tumult.
"It's a slight exaggeration. If he had said lower than at any time since 1986, the year Duvalier departed power, I might be inclined to agree with him more," said Jean-Germain Gros, a Haitian-born political analyst at the University of Missouri.
"But there is no question that things have stabilized somewhat in the last two years," he added.
President Rene Preval's government and the 9,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force have calmed gang violence in the slums. Kidnappings for ransom, rampant last year, have dropped sharply.
The legislature, once a forum of chaos and contention, passed a budget on time this year, a sign that Preval's olive branch to warring political factions is working.
"This is the first time you see a relative willingness on the part of the executive and legislative branch, with the various parties represented there, to work together," said Mark Schneider, an analyst at International Crisis Group.
"WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY"
The charisma Clinton, appointed U.N. special envoy to Haiti in May, lured several hundred potential investors to the capital Port-au-Prince last week and many said they believed a window of opportunity had opened to put money into a country desperately in need of roads, power and foreign investment.
About 70 percent of Haiti's 9 million people live on less than $2 a day.
Clinton brought representatives of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, the arm of the World Bank that insures political risk in emerging economies. The agency has never written a policy in Haiti but said its window is open.
"We would be very happy and ready to look at very good, sound projects to underwrite," said Noureddin Ennaboulssi, a senior MIGA underwriter who visited Haiti last week.
"My sense right now is that the country is moving in the right direction," he said. "The country is doing a lot to provide a climate conducive to foreign direct investment."
Ennaboulssi said MIGA had had recent inquiries from firms involved in agriculture, textiles, infrastructure and tourism.
He declined to reveal MIGA's risk rating on Haiti, a proprietary formula used to determine insurance pricing. MIGA writes insurance on currency, war and civil disturbance, expropriation, breach of contract and other risk factors.
But Belgian risk insurance agency ONDD has Haiti's medium-to-long term political risk for export transactions rated a seven, the highest measure on its 7-point risk scale.
The Belgian agency's Haiti ratings across all measures of war, expropriation and political risk are higher than poor African nations like Guinea Bissau and Burkina Faso.
BETTER POLICE, BUT WEAK COURTS
The Haitian National Police force, which replaced the dreaded army in the mid-1990s, is not nearly ready to provide enough security to allow peacekeepers to withdraw, analysts said. The force has grown to about 9,000 trained officers and the government's goal is 14,000 by 2011.
And while the police force is stronger, potential investors could be deterred by a weak judicial system whose ability to enforce business contracts is in question, Gros said.
"That's the big black hole in Haitian governance. If there is one area in which no one can claim progress it's in the judiciary," he said. "Prisons are overcrowded. There is still a lack of judges and those that are on the bench are corrupt."
Investors will watch with interest a current debate on whether to reinstate the army, which terrorized the country before it was disbanded by Aristide in 1995. Many Haitians are believed to oppose such a move.
"Haitian history has been such that an independent military has not been easy for civilian governments to control and has been available for purchase by economic sectors, so that raises questions of political stability as well," Schneider said.
Presidential elections next year to replace Preval raise the prospect that this "window of opportunity" for investment could narrow quickly. But some investors appear undeterred.
"Haiti is a scalded cat," Wilhelm Lemke, an official with shipping logistics firm Enmarcolda SA, said of failed past efforts to stimulate the economy. "You can be skeptical, but if you approach it with the glass half full instead of half empty, it makes all the difference. We are seizing this opportunity." (Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Alan Elsner)
ANALYSIS-Impoverished Haiti is stabilizing but still risky
By Jim Loney
MIAMI, Oct 8 (Reuters) - How stable can a nation like Haiti be, where U.N. soldiers still keep the peace, where a prime minister was toppled by food riots 18 months ago and where a president was overthrown by armed rebels five years ago?
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton raised eyebrows at an investor conference in Port-au-Prince last week by saying that Haiti's political risk was lower than it had ever been in his lifetime.
That period includes a popular uprising that ousted the 30-year Duvalier family dictatorship in 1986, a military coup that sent President Jean-Bertrand Aristide packing in 1991 and years of gang violence and political tumult.
"It's a slight exaggeration. If he had said lower than at any time since 1986, the year Duvalier departed power, I might be inclined to agree with him more," said Jean-Germain Gros, a Haitian-born political analyst at the University of Missouri.
"But there is no question that things have stabilized somewhat in the last two years," he added.
President Rene Preval's government and the 9,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force have calmed gang violence in the slums. Kidnappings for ransom, rampant last year, have dropped sharply.
The legislature, once a forum of chaos and contention, passed a budget on time this year, a sign that Preval's olive branch to warring political factions is working.
"This is the first time you see a relative willingness on the part of the executive and legislative branch, with the various parties represented there, to work together," said Mark Schneider, an analyst at International Crisis Group.
"WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY"
The charisma Clinton, appointed U.N. special envoy to Haiti in May, lured several hundred potential investors to the capital Port-au-Prince last week and many said they believed a window of opportunity had opened to put money into a country desperately in need of roads, power and foreign investment.
About 70 percent of Haiti's 9 million people live on less than $2 a day.
Clinton brought representatives of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, the arm of the World Bank that insures political risk in emerging economies. The agency has never written a policy in Haiti but said its window is open.
"We would be very happy and ready to look at very good, sound projects to underwrite," said Noureddin Ennaboulssi, a senior MIGA underwriter who visited Haiti last week.
"My sense right now is that the country is moving in the right direction," he said. "The country is doing a lot to provide a climate conducive to foreign direct investment."
Ennaboulssi said MIGA had had recent inquiries from firms involved in agriculture, textiles, infrastructure and tourism.
He declined to reveal MIGA's risk rating on Haiti, a proprietary formula used to determine insurance pricing. MIGA writes insurance on currency, war and civil disturbance, expropriation, breach of contract and other risk factors.
But Belgian risk insurance agency ONDD has Haiti's medium-to-long term political risk for export transactions rated a seven, the highest measure on its 7-point risk scale.
The Belgian agency's Haiti ratings across all measures of war, expropriation and political risk are higher than poor African nations like Guinea Bissau and Burkina Faso.
BETTER POLICE, BUT WEAK COURTS
The Haitian National Police force, which replaced the dreaded army in the mid-1990s, is not nearly ready to provide enough security to allow peacekeepers to withdraw, analysts said. The force has grown to about 9,000 trained officers and the government's goal is 14,000 by 2011.
And while the police force is stronger, potential investors could be deterred by a weak judicial system whose ability to enforce business contracts is in question, Gros said.
"That's the big black hole in Haitian governance. If there is one area in which no one can claim progress it's in the judiciary," he said. "Prisons are overcrowded. There is still a lack of judges and those that are on the bench are corrupt."
Investors will watch with interest a current debate on whether to reinstate the army, which terrorized the country before it was disbanded by Aristide in 1995. Many Haitians are believed to oppose such a move.
"Haitian history has been such that an independent military has not been easy for civilian governments to control and has been available for purchase by economic sectors, so that raises questions of political stability as well," Schneider said.
Presidential elections next year to replace Preval raise the prospect that this "window of opportunity" for investment could narrow quickly. But some investors appear undeterred.
"Haiti is a scalded cat," Wilhelm Lemke, an official with shipping logistics firm Enmarcolda SA, said of failed past efforts to stimulate the economy. "You can be skeptical, but if you approach it with the glass half full instead of half empty, it makes all the difference. We are seizing this opportunity." (Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Alan Elsner)
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Up to the challenge
Many of my Haiti-connected friends have been sharing this link to the BBC's World Challenge. 12 finalists have been named for the annual cash prize that honors innovation by small businesses and grass roots organizations towards sustainable development and renewable energy. Who wins the prize is up to the public - online voting ends November 13th. I encourage you to check it out. I'm tempted to tell you to vote for Love 'N Haiti - a project working in a neighborhood not far from the where I work...several of our moms live there...but all the projects are so cool that I just can't bring myself to do it. Check them all out and follow your heart!
One part of Love'N Haiti's program involves turning trash collected from streets and canals into a charcoal alternative that can be burned on cooking stoves. Charcoal production has been a driving force behind Haiti's terrible deforestation problem. Finding alternative fuels that are accessible, affordable and acceptable to the general public is essential to saving what little forest cover is left. Several options are already out there including solar ovens and recycled briquettes but the real challenge comes in getting households to actually adopt these new technologies on a consistent basis.
I have a very distinct memory from a couple years ago when I visited a very well known NGO's project in rural Haiti. The site manager was proudly showing me bags and bags of recycled briquettes made from farm waste that were stacked in ther warehouse. Ten feet behind them, the project's cook was making lunch for the staff - using wood and charcoal. How can we expect households to seek out and use this new product when the staff cook is literally surrounded by it and still chooses charcoal?
Change is not easy - but it's not possible at all if we don't have the technologies to begin with. So I am all for ongoing development of alternatives - and cash prizes to encourage them - as long as someone is there for the long, tiring and much-less-glamorous follow through. At first glance it looks like Love N Haiti is invested in the community for the long haul...but still, follow your heart.
One part of Love'N Haiti's program involves turning trash collected from streets and canals into a charcoal alternative that can be burned on cooking stoves. Charcoal production has been a driving force behind Haiti's terrible deforestation problem. Finding alternative fuels that are accessible, affordable and acceptable to the general public is essential to saving what little forest cover is left. Several options are already out there including solar ovens and recycled briquettes but the real challenge comes in getting households to actually adopt these new technologies on a consistent basis.
I have a very distinct memory from a couple years ago when I visited a very well known NGO's project in rural Haiti. The site manager was proudly showing me bags and bags of recycled briquettes made from farm waste that were stacked in ther warehouse. Ten feet behind them, the project's cook was making lunch for the staff - using wood and charcoal. How can we expect households to seek out and use this new product when the staff cook is literally surrounded by it and still chooses charcoal?
Change is not easy - but it's not possible at all if we don't have the technologies to begin with. So I am all for ongoing development of alternatives - and cash prizes to encourage them - as long as someone is there for the long, tiring and much-less-glamorous follow through. At first glance it looks like Love N Haiti is invested in the community for the long haul...but still, follow your heart.
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