Economic Activity Revives in Haiti Two Years After Earthquake

Recovery, reconstruction are ongoing, but at slower pace

More than half of population displaced by earthquake now back in housing

Lack of economic capacity still remains a big challenge for the country

The international community responded to the disaster with pledges of over $10 billion in aid. For its part, the IMF forgave around $270 million in debt and also offered Haiti a line of credit under the Extended Credit Facility arrangement (ECF).

The IMF recently took stock of its dealings with Haiti during the fourth review of the country’s ECF. The IMF’s Executive Board approved a $7.4 million disbursement to support the country’s long-term economic reconstruction plans.

In an interview with IMF Survey, the IMF’s mission chief for Haiti, Boileau Loko, shared his insights on the country’s recovery and its economic prospects.

IMF Survey: Two years on from the Haitian earthquake, is life better for the Haitian people?

Loko: The recovery and the reconstruction are ongoing, but at a slower pace than we all thought. However, we can still see that more than half of the 1.3 million people living in camps have now found new houses.

The downside is that there are still about 500,000 people living in tents. But, the government is working to see how these people could be moved back to decent housing.

IMF Survey: Can you point to something which tells you that the lives of ordinary Haitians have improved?

Loko: In Port-au-Prince, many camps have disappeared and there is also some economic activity. This has translated into a positive GDP growth rate.

Since then, new schools have been built, social health facilities have been restored, and the government is functioning.

So the recovery is slow and we all want it to be faster. But we have to remember that this was a huge earthquake. We expect that everything will go quicker in the future and that the 500,000 people staying in tents will go back to decent housing.

IMF Survey: What was the growth rate last year? What do you expect it to be this year and for the coming year?

Loko: Before the earthquake, the average growth rate was about 3.5 percent. After the earthquake in 2010, we had a negative growth of about 5 percent.

We have come back to a growth rate of about 5 or 6 percent and we expect the growth rate to be about 5.5 percent in this year, knowing that the population growth rate is 2 percent.

This means that per capita GDP will increase. We expect it to increase at least by 3 to 4...