Agence Haitïenne de Presse

A workshop has been held to draft the national strategic document on growth and poverty reduction.

The Ministry for Planning and External Cooperation organized a workshop Wednesday (June 20, 2007) at the Hotel Le Plaza in the capital as part of efforts to draft the national strategic document on growth and poverty reduction in Haiti.

According to workshop leader Michel Delerme, this type of document is one of the demands made by international donors including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for grants of aid to poor and indebted nations.

The workshop, which included local elected officials, representatives of non-governmental organizations and grassroots organizations, will make it possible to put together a plan that should lead to the drafting of a document to be submitted to Parliament for ratification and to the international donors for approval and financing, said Mr. Delerme.

The various geographic departments of the country have already held a similar workshop to find, together with all sectors of national life, solutions adapted to the needs of each region of the country, he said.

The document that is being drafted will enable the government to determine its priority actions for the various regions of the country in order to reduce poverty and promote economic growth, said the workshop leader.

For his part, the government's delegate in the West Department, Michel Bernadin, said that this initiative will make it possible to move toward better living conditions for the population.

He said he believes in the success of this plan as a means of attaining a genuine increase n the country's wealth.

The IMF and the World Bank have already envisaged, he said, a package of $860 million for this project and have shown their determination to see all sectors of national life become involved in the drafting of this strategic plan.

For his part, the Deputy from Cabaret, Volciné Pierre Jérôme, who took part in the workshop, said that this strategic national plan for growth and poverty reduction should be taken very seriously because, he said, the the system imposed by the international community can only be beneficial to the Haitian people.

Civil society organizations, he said, rather than the international community, are the ones who really want to eliminate public debt.

The Deputy also denounced a plan to dispossess the Haitian state of its assets through privatization.