Wednesday, November 22, 2006

by Vario Sérant
Caribbean Net News Haiti Correspondent
Email: vario@caribbeannetnews.com

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: The European Commission (EC) has chosen Haiti as an experimental partner to undertake common development programming.

European development official, Louis Michel, made the announcement Sunday at the end of a 24-hour visit to Port-au-Prince. Two meetings are to be held on this proposal on November 20 and 21 "between the Haitian government and the European Commission and all the donors in order to share out the job better, increase our means and be more effective", added Michel.

"The country which one wants to make an experimental country in terms of development is Haiti," asserted Michel, stressing that "in fact, Haiti is the only country that has beenselected for that."

The European Commission intends to allocate 233 million euros to Haiti for the five next years within the framework of the European Development Fund (EDF). At the request of the Haitian government, these funds will be invested in the infrastructure sector.

"President Rene Préval shared with me his willingness to continue equipping the country with infrastructure," indicated Michel.

In addition, Michel promised to do the best he could to plead, not only at the level of the European Union (EU), but also at the World Bank level, to find additional means to reinforce education, in particular, schooling in Haiti.

Michel raised the possibility of allocating to Haiti an additional amount of 60 million euros as a bonus for good management, to encourage the reinforcement of public institutions and good management of public finance.

Otherwise, Michel renewed the interest of the European Commission in the municipal and local elections set for December 3. The European Union granted 4 million euros for the upcoming poll, a third of the total financing for these elections.

The decentralisation issue was raised by President Préval during talks with Michel. “It is not only the Haitian capital that has to be developed. The country’s regions have to be developed also. The Head (of State) is very concerned about that," said Michel.

Michel declared that the European Commission will help the Haitian government to organise a forum on decentralisation in February or March 2007. "President Préval wishes to mobilise on this occasion the members of Parliament, civil society, the private business sector, the workers, the religious world, and so forth," he announced, asserting "that was part of President Préval's strategy of social appeasement and reinforcement of the country and citizens."

"A series of basic services can be better offered to the population when it is close to the population. The local level, even departmental, is important," concluded Michel.

Along with President Rene Préval, the Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis and other members of the Haitian government, Louis Michel also held discussions, during his short visit to Haiti, with the civil chief of the Mission of Stabilisation of the United Nations in Haiti (MINUSTAH), Edmond Mulet.

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