Clinton Foundation Announces More than $700,000 in Grants to Haitian Agricultural Sector
President Clinton leads Agricultural Investment Delegation to Haiti
Announcements include various grants geared towards improving agricultural practices throughout the country
New York, NY— Today, the Clinton Foundation announced over $700,000 in targeted grants in support of agriculture, energy and the environment. These commitments will create new jobs, diversify products, develop new technologies and programs, and provide outreach and training.
"A strong agriculture sector is important for food security, national health as well as economic growth and job creation," said President Bill Clinton. "By strengthening Haiti's agricultural sector, we can support the tremendous potential to increase job creation and international exports. That is why my Foundation is working to promote programs at the nexus of agriculture, energy and the environment, and build partnerships with social businesses that are developing sustainable solutions to some of Haiti's key issues."
Over the course of the last two days, President Bill Clinton also traveled to the Artibonite, North and Central Plateau regions of Haiti, and visited several projects and sites in the Port-au-Prince area along with an Agricultural Investment delegation of key executives and investors, highlighting Haiti’s agricultural sector. This was President Clinton’s fourth targeted investor trip to Haiti.
The various grant announcements included:
- A $40 million investment by Heineken to upgrade and expand their Haitian brewery, which includes investment in regional programs that will help build the capability of smallholder farmers. The announcement comes after Heineken made a $15 million Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) commitment, in collaboration with the Smallholder Farmers Alliance, to locally source 20 percent of all raw materials for brewed products and 40 percent of their packaging materials. By 2018, the commitment is expected to bolster Haiti’s packaging industry and improve the livelihood of 18,000 farmers by sourcing their sorghum for the packaging of Heineken products.
- A $150,000 grant to the Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA). The grant will support the SFA’s efforts at growth, operations, and sustainability in Gonaives. The funds will be used towards planting thousands of trees and to maintain the 150,000 trees and improve nursery operations by the SFA in the Gonaives area.
- The Clinton Foundation will also provide $150,000 to La Colombe and the Leslois Shaw Foundation, to develop a Coffee Academy in Thiotte. The academy will be a coffee farm with an academy attached with community services, training, and courses related to coffee farming. It will also undertake outreach and agricultural extension services for the surrounding area to improve quantity and quality of coffee yields.
- A $100,000 grant to the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) in collaboration with the North Coast Development to install a one-hectare solar market garden (SMG), a solar‐assisted agricultural development concept first developed in West Africa by SELF and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi‐Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). The SMG will enable farmers to grow high-value and high nutrition crops during dry seasons.
- The Clinton Foundation will also provide a grant to Mission of Hope to develop a SMG, through installing a solar drip irrigation system as part of a wider solar program with Mission of Hope.
- The Clinton Foundation will extend $57,000 in grant funds to the North Coast Development (NCD) Sisal Nursery Expansion project. The project will support farmers’ efforts to expand the sisal nursery, train area farmers in sisal growing techniques, provide initial resources for area farmers to increase staff, and purchase equipment. The project aims to reach an annual production of 1 million sisal bulbs, and will sell the sisal fiber to SisalCo, which will compost and reuse the waste produced.
- Fuego del Sol (FdS), in collaboration with the World Food Program (WFP), Haiti National Office, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Haiti Communitere (HC), will receive $100,000 in funding from the Clinton Foundation to produce fuel briquettes for eco-stoves that the WFP places in area schools. The project will provide 20 jobs to the most vulnerable and earthquake affected citizens of Haiti, selected by the IOM. The Foundation’s grant will enable the project to triple its production of briquettes, and to undertake price setting and efficiency tests for their production process.
- Finally, Zanmi Agricole and the Centre de Formation Fritz Lafontant will receive Clinton Foundation funds to support their efforts in developing a seed bank, which will support efforts to increase agricultural production in Haiti.
Other announcements made during the trip included:
- The launch of the Haiti Forest social initiative in collaboration with the Yunus Social Business GmbH (“YSB”) and Virgin Unite. The project will aim to solve social and environmental issues in Haiti by bringing sustainable, productive, and socially responsible forests to the country. Ten thousand hectares of land is being committed by the Ministry of Environment to develop the new, Haiti Forest initiative in the Artibonite and northern part of the country.
- The Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA), in partnership with the Bureau de Nutrition et Development, has agreed to establish a second site for SFA in Massaide, in the Central Plateau. The new site will be a collaboration with a women’s led farming cooperative, Femmes Agricole de Maissade, which will increase female employment and financial security.
- President Clinton also visited the Partners In Health/Zanmi Lasante (PIH/ZL) Nourimanba production facility in the Central Plateau, where they will produce a peanut-based therapeutic food used to combat malnutrition. Completed in March, the facility was constructed in partnership with Abbott and the Abbott Fund. Nourimanba is distributed through PIH/ZL’s network of health facilities throughout rural Haiti.
About the Clinton Foundation in Haiti
The Clinton Foundation has been actively engaged in Haiti since 2009, focusing on private sector investment and job creation in order to create long-term, sustainable economic development. After the devastating earthquake in 2010, President Clinton formed the Clinton Foundation Haiti Fund and raised $16.4 million from individual donors for immediate earthquake relief efforts. Since 2010, the Clinton Foundation has raised a total of $34 million in Haiti, including relief funds as well as projects focused on restoring Haiti's communities, sustainable development, and capacity building. The Clinton Foundation has now refocused its efforts in Haiti from emergency planning, putting emphasis on private sector investment and job creation as well as capacity building and education. In 2012, the Clinton Foundation concentrated on the four priority sectors of energy, tourism, agriculture, and apparel/manufacturing, working to bring new investors, develop and support local organizations and business and improve Haiti’s business environment to facilitate economic growth.
About the Clinton Foundation
Building on a lifetime of public service, President Bill Clinton established the Clinton Foundation with the mission to improve global health, strengthen economies, promote health and wellness, and protect the environment by fostering partnerships among governments, businesses, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and private citizens to turn good intentions into measurable results. Since 2001, President Clinton’s vision and leadership have resulted in nearly 5 million people benefiting from lifesaving HIV/AIDS treatment; more than 15,000 U.S. schools building healthier learning environments; more than 51,000 micro-entrepreneurs, small business owners, and smallholder farmers improving their livelihoods and communities; and more than 248 million tons of CO2 being reduced in cities around the world. And President Clinton has redefined the way we think about giving and philanthropy through his Clinton Global Initiative, whose members have made more than 2,300 commitments that are improving the lives of nearly 400 million people in more than 180 countries. For more information, visit clintonfoundation.org, read our blog at clintonfoundation.org/upclose, and follow us on Twitter @ClintonTweet and Facebook at Facebook.com/BillClinton.