Monday, Elizabeth Littlefield, President and CEO of Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), is arrived in Haiti at the head of a delegation to launch an important mortgage finance project developed in partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. Development Innovations Group (DIG), a U.S.-based housing finance and urban development firm, will manage the project.

This new project will combine loans from OPIC with grants from USAID and the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund to support microlending in amounts as small as $1,000 for micro-mortgages and home repairs for low-income borrowers. More than 4,000 Haitian families stand to benefit from this effort.

OPIC will also meet with business leaders and Haitian government officials to gauge investment prospects in sectors including infrastructure and energy; food and economic security; health and other basic services. OPIC is actively reaching out to U.S. companies present in Haiti, as well as diaspora businesses and other investors in the U.S., to partner in projects that foster sustainable economic development by strengthening Haiti’s physical and financial infrastructure, and create jobs.

The delegation will also visit current OPIC project sites. OPIC’s current portfolio in Haiti totals more than $76 million across six projects. A projet, involves insurance for the expansion and reconstruction of a key flourmill (95% of the flour consumed in Haiti) that had been destroyed in the 2010 earthquake. Restarting the mill has increased the capacity of food production and national food security of the country.

This Tuesday, OPIC will proceed to the signing of an agreement with the DIG (Development Innovation Group) for a new mortgage financing program through which Haitian financial institutions will be able to provide home mortgages. Officials from both U.S. and Haitian Governments including the OPIC’s President, Ms. Elizabeth Littlefield, the DIG’s President, Mr. Franck Daphnis and other project partners will attend this ceremony.

HL/ HaitiLibre