It is said that the economy is the lung of a country. Yet, in Haiti, this lung is severely affected. If the lung allows you to breathe, feed the whole body with oxygen, then Haiti, without functional economic lung, slowly chokes. When a person has no more lungs, they no longer breathe. And a country that no longer breathes is a country in agony, deprived of breath, prospects and life.
In the streets of Haiti, at every crossroads, on every sidewalk, the informal economy stands as a cry of survival. Travellers, fry vendors, telephone repairers, young shoe shiners; They are the ones who make the heart of the real economy beat. Not because they chose this way of life, but because they were abandoned by a state unable to supervise, protect or accompany them.
Today, in Haiti, engaging in informal activity is no longer an alternative choice: it has become the only livelihood for millions of citizens. The lack of clear public policies, access to credit, social security and appropriate training has relegated a whole population to permanent resourcefulness. Working without security, without rights, without future.
And yet it is the same population that the state arbitrarily taxes, which it sometimes brutally hunts, which it ignores in its programmes and budgets. A glaring contradiction: the poorest pay the high price of state incompetence, while they should be the first beneficiaries.
There is an urgent need to rethink the role of the State. Not as a haughty spectator, but as a facilitator of progress. Haiti will not be able to develop by leaving 80 per cent of its labour force in the shadows (World Bank). Formalizing informal means recognizing the dignity of those who struggle every day to survive. It is to create a bridge between poverty and hope, between troubleshooting and autonomy.
This country will not recover without its citizens. But its citizens can no longer move forward without a state that finally assumes its responsibilities.
Isemelia Jean Baptiste
