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On Thursday, August 6, 2026, Université Quisqueya (UniQ) convened a conference-debate on its campus in Port-au-Prince under the theme "Private Sector and Political Governance in Haiti: Opportunities, Possibilities, and Limits."

Organized at the initiative of Rector Jacky Lumarque, who delivered the keynote, the panel brought together business leaders, academics, and financial sector actors to examine whether the private sector can contribute to more effective, transparent, and inclusive governance in Haiti.

The discussion was moderated by Frantz Duval, Editor of Le Nouvelliste, and featured panelists Richard Coles (industrialist and CEO), Frédéric Gérald Chéry (professor at the Université d'État d'Haïti), Robert Jr. Paret (CEO of Groupe ProFin), and Michèle Oriol (professor at UniQ and UEH) (InfoNation, Le Nouvelliste).

The private sector can help strengthen governance through investment, job creation, technical expertise, and support for more reliable public services, but it cannot substitute for a legitimate, capable, and accountable state.

This tension defined the panel's central question: can the private sector contribute to better governance without capturing it?

Haiti must invest in Its people to make sure they can thrive instead of surviving. Haiti needs a visionary leadership that deserves serious attention because it shifts the conversation away from permanent dependency and toward Haitian economic agency.

Haitian people are not waiting to be rescued, since there is no plan B in terms of adoption of a country for them as US continues to send thousands of migrants back home due to immigration laws.Haitians outside of Haiti are already working, saving, sending remittances, running businesses, educating their children, and sustaining migrant communities under conditions; that would overwhelm most societies because love to work and support their own families and friends.

What they need now is a financial system in Haiti that rewards effort, values calculated risks, and makes progress possible and that’s where comes a stronger middle class can be strengthened the national economy for growth and development to create better working conditions, more jobs, and more opportunities at home.

The country should not accept an economy in which a small elite controls formal opportunities while the overwhelming majority survives in informality, uncertainty, and exclusion. Haiti needs a formal economy where all businesses are registered, taxes are collected, transactions are recorded, index funds are created to spread wider risks into financial ecosystem, and indeces or metrics are made to know the best players, performers that play by the rules and those that sabotage the system for their own benefit and personal gain. Haiti cannot become stable or won't be a prosperous nation if prosperity is permanently concentrated and the middle class continues to shrink.

Haiti’s Middle Class in Haiti From Survival to Economic Development To Create Wealth.

A democracy without a broad middle class is vulnerable while an economy without broad purchasing power is weak; and a society without accessible education cannot unlock its own talent. This is why American Dream lives on and continues to support a lot of immigrants of other countries because they create the environment for a stronger middle class and empower local economies with businesses to support economic development and prosperity while strengthening a stronger secondary market with government assistance with contracts, business loans for acquisition with SBA, and a private capital market that is powering and empowering more commercial transactions with independent financial advisors to analyze the best businesses that are ready for acquisition and being part of a strong corporate enterprise through an exit.

Building the Haiti’s Middle Class Economy According to Groupe Profin's Robert Paret Jr.

Haiti’s recovery cannot be measured only by economic aid, political agreements, or short-term security operations. It must also be measured by whether ordinary Haitian families can earn stable incomes, educate their children, build savings, start businesses, and purchase the goods and services that make a dignified life possible.

This is the deeper significance of the economic vision associated with Robert Paret Jr., Founder and chairman of Groupe ProFin and a figure in Haiti’s investment and capital-markets sector.

His central argument is straightforward: “Haiti is not without money. It has diaspora remittances, domestic savings, entrepreneurial energy, and investment possibilities. The problem is that the country lacks enough trustworthy and effective mechanisms to turn those resources into productive investment, jobs, and broad-based prosperity”. In his conclusion, he stated that” The last 40 years won’t be the next 40 years for Haiti”.

A stronger Haitian middle class is therefore not a luxury. It is the foundation for national stability, democratic participation, domestic production, and long-term development. As a trusted leader and leading voice who is advocating for a stronger middle class to create and distribute wealth in Haiti. Because a stronger secondary market can support more business development, M&A, exits for private investors to capitalize on within a corporate governance framework and a result, more venture capital will flow into the Haitian startup ecosystem to support existing companies and businesses that are doinh well and can compete on international standards and metrics while doing the social good in their communities, satisfy their customers needs and improve their products on a continous basis.

Beyond the Myth of “No Capital” In Capital To Develop its Economy.

For years, Haiti has often been described as a country with too few resources to develop. Paret challenges this assumption by drawing attention to the money that already circulates in and around the Haitian economy. Haiti receives more than $4 billion in diaspora remittances annually, alongside meaningful local savings. Yet these funds are frequently consumed immediately, held outside formal investment channels, or deployed without the structures needed to support productive entreprises.

Remittances are indispensable to many households. They pay for food, rent, school fees, health care, and daily survival. But a nation cannot build a durable middle class if nearly all household income is used to respond to crises. Families need the ability to save, invest, insure themselves against emergencies, and accumulate assets . The sad truth is money is back to where it comes from as most goods for Haitian consumers are imported from other countries, so there are no policies to protect Haitian-made goods and make mechanics to empower local Haitian producers to sell their goods with specific food suppliers in Haiti with payment systems that only work to support Haitian producers, farmers and consumers.

Paret’s message is not that remittances should stop helping families. Rather, a portion of these flows could be connected to credible investment vehicles—such as professionally managed funds, bonds, business-financing platforms, housing initiatives, and local infrastructure projects. These instruments could allow members of the diaspora and residents in Haiti to invest in the country while spreading risk and demanding accountability.

The objective is to create bridges between people who possess capital and entrepreneurs or institutions capable of putting that capital to work.

The challenge of Haiti is not merely to bring money into Haiti. The challenge is to organize Haitian capital more effectively and strategically to benefit local Haitian producers and farmers so they can compete with foreign imported goods.

The challenge of capital at home and abroad, if it finances productive work, it will create prosperity, but if it uses for consumption only, it will impoverish most people and create more Brain drain, more emigration, and more dependency, and more instability, insecurity or inequality.

The diaspora should have safe, transparent ways to invest beyond emergency transfers as they can allocate a portion of remittances to a special dedicated fund to help the needy and those in distress for instance, Haiti’s National Emergency Fund or Haitian DIASPORA Fund, which is a fund that will be used to support a growing economy in Haiti.

Small and medium-sized enterprises should be able to obtain capital without surrendering to predatory lending and have a clean pathway to pay back loans with a credit score to show how they perform commercially when it comes to business credibility, trust, and customer satisfaction and confidence.

Young Haitians should see education as a route to a profession, not merely a credential for emigration. This is where Haitian entrepreneurs can become successful as they apply their skills and knowledge to build their businesses, non-profit, and foundations to support local communities and empower their cities and towns. They don’t need to wait for job opportunities, yet they can create their own pathways to build a successful business that can benefit their communities and support local initiatives.

The Middle Class as an Engine For Growth and Independence.

A middle class is more than a group of people with moderate incomes. It is a social and economic force that transforms challenges, social issues into tradable solutions and wealth creation. It includes teachers, nurses, accountants, engineers, technicians, entrepreneurs, skilled workers, civil servants, farmers who have moved beyond subsistence, and small-business owners to become investors, successful entrepreneurs with exits, and operators who can advise new entrepreneurs and business owners about their success and transfer these skills into monetized assets and revenue. It consists of people who can plan beyond tomorrow and work independently to sustain their lives with multiple stream of income, and consult or advise Haitian businesses and nonprofit organizations about their expert knowledge to convert sales into long-term contracts, commercial opportunities, and investment opportunities to build an enterprise.

When this group grows, it expands the domestic market beyond their territorial boundaries to export their products and services to new markets and create more additional revenue streams to support the growth of their businesses. Families with rising purchasing power can buy locally produced food, clothing, construction materials, transportation, communications services, education, insurance, and cultural products. That demand gives businesses a reason to expand, hire workers, improve quality, and invest in new products.

This is the virtuous cycle Haiti needs to expand its economy through :

1. More productive investment finances businesses and jobs.

2. Better jobs raise household incomes.

3. Higher incomes increase savings and purchasing power.

4. Greater demand supports local businesses and tax revenues.

5. More revenue and investment can strengthen education, infrastructure, and public services.

But that cycle cannot begin with consumption alone, it must be driven by local production programs to empower local businesses with government contracts and suppliers network. It requires income-generating production as the businesses are able to earn more income from their activities to hire local talent to increase productivity and production, reliable financing where funding will come fromvarious sources: banks, private capital, revenue-based finance, independent financial institutions for personal and business loans, basic security to protect ambulant individuals and consumers to go their social gatherings, fair rules to all businesses as they operate with registration requirements report requirements and indexing data, and institutions that citizens trust to carry out the businesses with good intentions and serve their customers and clients in their best ability and give them the satisfaction they deserve and crave for.

Education Must Lead the Strategy For Haiti To Thrive Economically.

A stronger middle class must also be a more educated one and know how to manage their wealth and finances better and get expert advice to support them to achieve their financial goals. Education is not simply a social service and it is just to know how to read and write, but it is about to learn to operate your own business and life more effectively and efficiently;

It is about the economic infrastructure where we must build the lives that we dream with existing knowledge, assets, and risks to become more successful and productive. A country cannot compete, innovate, or attract serious investment when large portions of its population are excluded from quality schooling, technical training, digital skills, and professional development. The education system in Haiti needs to train on financial literacy and business operations at the basic level to children and young adults so they learn how best they must manage risk and returns and how they can use balance sheet to read business statements and learn business strategies to develop their own businesses or manage someone else’s business and nonprofit organizations.

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Haiti’s inequality remains severe, and the country’s middle class is estimated to have shrunk to about 8% of the population. At the same time, a large share of Haitians live below international poverty thresholds which they don’t enough to basic needs and support their own livelihoods.

These figures show why the middle-class project cannot be limited to a small urban elite, it needs to include more people across territories, markets, and cities. It must reach young people, women, provincial cities, rural producers, informal workers, and the diaspora.Young people can become technical experts, builders, business owners at early age without needing to graduate high schools , as they learn the tradable skills to become successful entrepreneurs.

Education should therefore be linked directly to employment and entrepreneurship as the students demonstrate their ability to build and develop a business concept and seek for customers, clients, and business partners to operate, they should have opportunities to meet with investors, pitch their business ideas to them and get grants from local nonprofit organizations and foundations. Local investors should have existing connections and networks to link to commercial partners and local municipalities to help develop their business and create better solutions to meet the local needs and demand.

Haiti needs stronger pathways in vocational and technical education, including construction trades, renewable energy, agriculture, logistics, accounting, nursing, information technology, hospitality, manufacturing, and entrepreneurship. There is also where students who can apply these skills can grow their service-based careers to improve performance and reach more potential customers and more markets. They need to have easy access to funding to start their operations with a business plan and have business advisors to help them plan their business outcomes and suppliers to have more programs to support new businesses as they can show they can deliver with a few contracts before opening up to more markets to help them grow so they can hire new people into their teams.

Students should leave school not only with diplomas, but with usable skills and access to opportunities. Their diplomas will be useful if they can apply them to become productive, or else it would have been better to have tradable and solid skills to earn money so they can support their own needs and can come back later to school to get their diplomas.

An educated middle class is also better positioned to demand accountable government, reject corruption, participate in civic life, and build professional institutions. Broad access to education and health care is widely recognized as essential to reducing inequality and strengthening long-term economic growth. Thus, in being educated citizens, they can contribute more significantly to society and create more opportunities and prosperity as they are more dependent and less productive citizens who only complain and criticize governments without contributing to a more functioning government to pay taxes and support local communities.

Purchasing Power Is Dignity and Truest Form Democratic Power.

Purchasing power is often discussed as an economic statistic, but it is also about human dignity because it is where people can feel they can afford to buy what they need and want without having financial constraints. A family with purchasing power does not have to choose constantly between food and medicine, tuition and rent, or transportation and safety is a family that has the freedom to choose and explore new options and better opportunities and make make wise investment for their children’s futures.

It can make plans and prioritize its own choices and charter its own decisions to improve the quality of their lives. It can repair a home, invest in a child’s future, and support a local business while being able to be financially stable and secure and supportive to local communities. In Haiti’s present circumstances, this goal is exceptionally difficult for many families who are under difficult times. The country faces deep insecurity, disrupted transport, inflationary pressure, displacement, fragile public services, and a prolonged economic decline which makes hard to plan their financial future. The 2026 Haiti country report notes that the economy had experienced six consecutive years of negative growth, while basic consumer prices continued to strain household budgets. The Haiti's Bank Central needs to work on allocating capital to independent financial institutions and private sector to make capital more attractive and available for people to start new businesses at zero interest rate and 1-3 percent to existing businesses so they can hire more people and won’t pay any of interest rates if they buy from local producers and farmers and hire local workers from municipalities and cities where they live so the program can be expanded nationwide to benefit all municipalities.

This is why economic policy must be judged by a simple question: does it increase the real purchasing power of Haitian households?nbsp;Policies that help answer “yes” include support for local production, access to reasonably priced credit, stable currency and inflation management, safer transport corridors, lower barriers for small businesses, reliable electricity, agricultural investment, and transparent public procurement. That is where we can see a macroeconomic recovery to our national economy as more businesses are being built, financial institutions will allocate more resources and capital more strategically to improve their operations and improve the market access and operations so they can deploy their capital accordingly to meet their financial obligations so they can these loans and expand their businesses.

A middle-class strategy must also protect people from losing their gains whenever a political crisis, natural disaster, health emergency, or wave of violence occurs. That’s why national security policy should always remain a priority to help citizens to avoid falling victim of predatory spending and lending , people can only pay based on their total income earned or business expenses to avoid being exposed into bankruptcy or financial distress.

Trust is the missing infrastructure Paret’s emphasis on market design and institutional rigor is especially important apect for self-regulation and business regulation by states, and corporate governance is the ideal way to achieve the trust for both public and private institutions and civil society. Investors do not invest simply because opportunities exist, but they must make the wise decision to support long term investments and business decisions as they see a great opportunity. They invest when they believe rules will be followed, contracts will be respected, information will be available, and their money will not disappear through fraud, corruption, or political favoritism. If they set the institutional standard higher, businesses that have a strong financial stake and reporting standards are the ones that will benefit from investment decisions, get mentorship, and advisory services to increase their business value, development, and supplier contracts.

In Haiti, rebuilding trust must happen at every level: between citizens and banks, entrepreneurs and investors, the diaspora and local institutions, taxpayers and public authorities, and communities and the state. This is why institutional frameworks need to be established by corporate enterprises and established institutions that have built the trust in the marketplace like Groupe Profin to ensure they can only attract businesses that are doing the right things in the national economy, chambers of commerce to issue licensing to businesses that show they operate within some structured and regulated markets to perform under their rules or else they won’t get the membership. As more businesses sign up to compete with their local businesses, they will do it better and avoid personal conflict and increase more chambers by municipalities so they can operate within their own boundaries and territories.

That requires transparent financial institutions, independent oversight, credible audits, investor protections, accessible financial education, and investment opportunities that are understandable to ordinary people. It also requires leaders to recognize that the formal economy cannot thrive where insecurity and impunity dominate daily life.Haiti Executive Board continues to hold the organizational leadership and standards to support credible governance and accountability, while ensuring Haitian excellence is at the core of every aspect of our business.

Strategies for A National Security Agenda and Long-Term Economic Development in Haiti.

1-Security is not separate from economic development, it is the crucial pillar that drives Haiti’s long-term economic growth and business development. There is no way to promote business growth without increasing security measures in Haiti, it is utopia to believe otherwise. Businesses will get the loans, investors will fund the business development, yet the creditors won’t get the payback on the loans as they won't reach enough users, consumers, and clients to sell their goods and market their services to more consumers of varied teritorries because of these security risks as the mismanagement of human capital weighs heavily on the total resources to be deployed and allocated more effectivley and more appropriately.

2-A merchant who cannot transport products, a parent who is afraid to send a child to school, or an entrepreneur who is facing extortion cannot participate fully in an economy. The restoration of public safety is therefore a precondition for the growth of a confident and productive middle class economy. So, before demanding for investing to flow into the economy, it is wiser to have a national security strategy and framework to propose to governments to reduce environmental risks, public insecurity, and political instability in Haiti by paying the premiums on Haiti's Business ReInsurance Fund to pay for losses and damages on businesses. Without this national security plan, foreign capital or funding would be limited to develop a broader urban plan to make Haiti more investable and bankable.

3-A political stability roadmap and a national security plan would serve as guarantee for safety and sovereignty to protect Haitian citizens and to have more human capital resources to integrate the military forces to strengthen and support an overhaul program to combat banditism among metropolitan areas specially in Port-Au-Prince. For instance, all young Men aged between 18-45 that can be averaged into 35k people will be automatically eligible to register on the Haiti’s armed forces and registration will begin immediately after the public announcement and those aged between 15-17 that can be a total 15K people will be automatically accepted into vocational schools nationwide that will be free of charge with a contract guarantee to start technical service firm or work for an existing firms with a salaried position that the national government will pay upfront to secure the normalcy and protect against the unemployment gap of young adults being recruited by mismanaged individuals.

4-No longer they will have access to guns on the streets, Haiti's Armed Forces and PNH Administration will be patrolling across towns and cities to question young individuals and arrest them with sanctions if they are found any illicit acitivities. If anyone is met without registration after that announcement and a valid ID of military personnel, he/she will face $50k monthly penalty, and that money will go the Haiti National Reconstruction Fund to better better social programs like public housing units, educational centers, and business centers. At this point, the government will strategically take a stance against misuse of power, resources, talent, and banditism in Haiti with a more proactive role against the insecurity.

5- Business accreditation should be another strategy as a priority to all Haitian citizens and leaders to ensure the businesses are accredited and equipped to deliver great service, value , and performance in their respective sectors, districts, and markets. This business ranking will service as barometer to measure those businesses with good report and each business will be issued consumer trust certification for commercial enterprises. Haiti Executive Board is pleased to offfer a broader range of services to commercial enterprises and Haitian entrepreneurs to help distinguish themselves and increase their competitive, acquire more credentials and ethical standards, and accelerate their productivity within Haiti's economic environment. Our Business accreditation program will cover many sectors and industries in Haiti and the Global South and will help evaluate consumer-led companies, commercial enterprises, and instutions ( public and private ) on ethical standards, transparent practices, and customer complaint histories, and third party audits on transfers and transactions histories.

A stronger, better educated, and socioeconomically capable middle class would not solve every crisis Haiti faces. But it would create a constituency for stability, competent public institutions, entrepreneurship, better schools, and national renewal.More importantly, a security system will be the best strategy for ensuring Haiti can lead its people into a more prosperous and secure future where businesses are created, developed and managed to support the national economy.

Haiti’s future should not be built around survival alone. It should be built around the right of Haitian families to earn, save, learn, invest, consume with dignity, and pass greater opportunity to the next generation.

Dr. Guerda Nicolas l Nicolas Paul l Widline N. Daniel, MBA l Beatrice Louissaint l Beatrice Duret Gentil l Carl-Henry PETIT-FRERE l Guetet Theo Simeon l Marvena St. Agathe l

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