CDB Provides Funding To Help Haitian Entrepreneurs

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BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Jun 02 2016 – The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has announced that it will contribute US$500,000 to give female and male entrepreneurs in Haiti better access to business loan and savings products.

The Bank’s funding will specifically focus on underserved and unserved micro, very small and small enterprises (MSEs) on the island.

In Haiti, few financial institutions cater to the needs of the country’s MSEs, whose average financing needs range from US$6,000 to US$23,000. Overall, these businesses face an aggregate financing gap of US$1.9 billion.

The Bank’s contribution will be made through the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

The funds will be used to establish a specialised MSE business financing assessment unit, Centre Financier pour Entrepreneurs (CFE). The unit will be set up within Le Levier, a financial institution which has a network of 43 savings and credit cooperatives across Haiti’s 10 departments and 72 branches.

This initiative aims to strengthen the capacity of the financial institutions within Le Levier’s network to better appraise credit applications from MSE clients. With this process in place, MSE owners are expected to have better access to financing instruments that best suit their needs.

Haiti is one of the Bank’s newest member countries, having joined the Bank in 2007.