Addicted to Haiti? Us Too. 6 Reasons We Just Can’t Stop

Each difficulty can be seen as an additional opportunity that helps never to give up. It can also be seen as a way to invent a new way of carrying out a task or simply organize oneself differently. You can thus develop your ability to adapt and demonstrate your creativity.

Haiti is a country that is riddled with pitfalls. But Haiti is full of culinary and agricultural diversity and specificities, artisanal wealth, and cultural heritage that give it a unique reputation in the Caribbean.

But how do you ask someone not to give up in a country that seems to be at rock bottom? What reasons will you give not to stop when the amplification of kidnapping cases across the country, with ransom demands, makes you dizzy? When young girls, mothers are raped? When what’s worse, no trial for the murderers? Endless corpses and shivering places of torture as in the time of intriguing and predatory Rome?

The article that you are going to read is a risky proposition. It is a tenacious work that refuses to take shortcuts or succumb to the clichés that have long characterized many views on the world’s first black country with scientific claims. This republic is neither perplexing nor unsolvable nor destined to be.

Reader, this article appeals to your heart as the last refuge of patriotism. At a time when the idea of ​​another Haiti is not possible does not resonate even with the majority of our “good thinking.” Either way, it’s a daring bet. Those who are risk-averse would not be willing to put their money on a coin that lands nine times out of ten.

Addicted to Haiti? Us too, Here are six (6) reasons why we can’t stop.

The number one reason we just can’t stop

1- The country is full of natural resources

Haiti is predominantly an agricultural country, not a mining one, as taught in geography textbooks. Nonetheless, the country is endowed with mineral resources. The Republic of Haiti’s territory contains numerous intriguing indications and deposits of mineral substances of considerable economic significance, which are likely to pave the way for a vigorous national mining industry (prepetit, 1992). According to Claude Prepetit, geological and mining research in Haiti is progressed. Until 1972, it was conducted by mining firms with the objective of locating economically viable resources. Since 1972, the Haitian State has opted for much more systematic research, which it has entrusted to international institutions under bilateral or multinational partnerships. According to various reports (including Jane Regane’s Haiti’s gold rush offers mining firms carte blanche over the wealthy, the Guardian, 05/30/12), the Haitian subsoil conceals wealth worth up to $20 billion dollars. Others, it should be emphasized, refer to a somewhat larger sum. According to Camille Charlemers’ revelation to Alter Press, the gold deposits of Haiti’s basement are valued between 80 and 100 billion dollars, based on Dr. Daniel Mathurin’s investigations (undisputed date, NDA). This is not the only explanation; there are others as well:

2- Resilience to natural phenomena as a means

Poor countries are more vulnerable to natural disasters (including those relating to the environment) than rich countries (Easterly, 2001). It is a fact since Haiti occupies the top of the ranking among the poorest countries for Latin America and the Caribbean. The negative impacts are often greater in Haiti than elsewhere in the region. For example, in 2008, Hurricane Ike hit Cuba and Haiti but killed seven people in Cuba and a hundred times more in Haiti, i.e., 793 (Zanuzo et al., 2014).

But it is not always the natural phenomena that pose problems in themselves. Still, it is above all that the country has not learned to build its resilience to mitigate the risks of the phenomena which, in any case, happen.

Third reason why we are addicted to Haiti:

3-The essential oil and textile industries

After mango, at least since 2009, essential oils are the most exported products by Haiti on the international market. Essential oils in Haiti are driven by vetiver, for which Haiti is now the world’s leading producer (According to the reinforced integrated framework https://cir.ht/agriculture.php). According to the BRH, exports of essential oils increased from 9 million in 2009 to 36 million in 2017.

In Haiti, the textile industry weighs nearly 60,000 jobs and 900 million U.S. dollars in exports, or nearly 90% of the country’s total exports. With these data, the textile industry is the first sector in terms of exports and would be the third-largest employer in Haiti behind agriculture in the general sense and the public sector (nearly 80,000 jobs).

But the industry is not at its peak. It would seem that before 1990, the manufacturing industry in Haiti employed approximately 100,000 workers.

 Fourth reason

4-The example of poultry production

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, from 2011 to 2014, the increase in egg production was spectacular. It went from 1 million to 6.3 million. Further, the production of broiler chickens increased from 100,000 chickens per month to approximately 250,000 from 2011 to 2014. Haitian production offers a very advantageous quality, and competitors compete with imported eggs, resulting from dumping and smuggling.

5- Export agricultural products

The agricultural sector has played a significant role in the economic history of Haiti. From independence to the second half of the 20th century, the sector was dominated by sugar, coffee, sisal, and cotton.

The Madame Francisque mango, a variety specific to Haiti, for which it is one of the leading exporters of this product with more than 13,000 tonnes exported annually and an estimated contribution to the economy of nearly 8 million U.S. dollars in 2007 ;

Coffee, whose particularly fluctuating supply over the past 50 years (25-48 thousand tons) has only enabled the country to satisfy a tiny part of its annual export quota, i.e., some 11% of the 18 thousand tons planned, although the product is now largely exported informally to the Dominican Republic; Cocoa beans, which continue to play an important role in Haiti’s agricultural economy, thanks to an expanding supply over the past five decades, increasing from around 2,500 tonnes in 1961 to 9,400 tonnes in 2010 and a value of export estimated at $13.9 million in that year. Seafood / Fish (lobster and mollusks) whose total value of formal exports was around 6.9 million dollars in 2011.

Grilled nuts, honey, sweet makos are all local products that mark the spirits.

And last but not least

6- A reserve army of skills for the country

Ayiti pa gen moun is a reasonably widespread conception in Haiti that the country’s failure is explained by the fact that this country does not have the skills to get it out of the impasse. According to World Bank data, 80% of qualified Haitian executives live abroad. A good part of the Haitian diaspora can be considered a reserve army of skills for the country. In a perspective of real success, Haiti could have benefited from their expertise because these elements have accumulated a set of knowledge and know-how abroad that the country undoubtedly needs. It is not that the Haitian nation does not have enough skills that could significantly contribute to its success. On the one hand, people competent in business are blocked by the system, and on the other hand, the country does not create the necessary conditions for the retention of its own.

In conclusion, success is not spontaneous, but it requires that we stay in the process of progress for a long time. The adversities, the calamities that are currently descending on Haiti, like stones detached from the mountain, do not indicate that Haiti is doomed to remain as it is. The country has a lot to achieve.

The sanctuary Worthy and proud From our memories Still Exploits of our fathers And our mothers For moons We swore That you wouldn’t die We’ve had enough To see you “die” without “existing” Freedom You will be reborn will grow And live” victory day.