Last Updated on May 13, 2020, 8:32 AM AST by Anthony Morris
The World Bank had a sum of activated US$9.5 million on April 23 for providing immediate funding to Haiti’s agriculture sector and support the food security amid COVID-19 pandemic.
World Bank Country Director for Haiti, Anabela Abreu, has said that the World Bank has been working closely with the Haitian authorities at both central as well as local levels, and with the development partners, for helping the country in addressing the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic which would be far-reaching.
The local agriculture sector of Haiti supplies almost 45% of Haitian food requirements. Safeguarding agriculture would be essential to mitigating the impacts of this crisis in the impoverished nation, the rural poor in particular.
Around 35% of Haiti’s population needed urgent food support before the COVID-19 crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic would now worsen the situation in the country, because of the external threats such as decreased remittances from overseas, fluctuation of the global markets and the closure of Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic, which would limit the country’s access to basic food supplies.
Locally, social distancing measures which have been put in place for containing the spread of the novel coronavirus, disruption of supply chains and loss of income would exacerbate the issue in Haiti.
The financing given by the world bank would be used for safeguarding the maintain the purchasing power of the rural and urban poor, production for the next two cropping seasons and would preserve the value chains and food markets.
This funding would be allowing 21,500 farmers in the Southern and Nippes regions to finance the inputs and the materials such as fertilizers and seeds, and it would also support land preparation.
The CERC also includes communications campaigns which would promote the social distancing and sanitation measures during the implementation.
These funds have been mobilized under the Haiti Resilient Productive Landscape Project using the Contingency Emergency Response Component (CERC).
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
