The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in support to the Ministry of Agriculture, is supporting 500 rural households in Grand'Anse in the establishment of "resilience funds" (caisses de résilience).

Based on a logic of savings and investments, the Resilience Fund helps members not only save money, but also allows them to access credit in the event of an emergency. Debtors repay the borrowed money with interest at a rate set by the members. After each 12-month cycle, the money saved and the profits generated are shared among the members of the association. Hence the "caisses de résilience" which consists in promoting and encouraging community credit and savings initiatives, with capital coming from membership fees of grassroots associations.

With the technical support of the FAO, 500 families, whose more than 70% of which were women heads of households, managed to organize themselves in groups of 20 to 30 people, in 6 communes of Grand'Anse in order to constitute a fund turnover used to finance their economic activities.

Resilience funds are being implemented under the project "Protecting, Rehabilitating and Diversifying the Livelihoods of Hurricane Matthew Affected Populations". This project uses an integrated approach to enable 12,000 rural households (60,000 people) in the departments of Grand'Anse and the South to restore their lives and strengthen their resilience face the future natural disasters.

HL/ SL/ HaitiLibre