and a history of poor-quality construction methods
that make it extremely vulnerable to common environmental hazards. For instance, the 2010 earthquake devastated the nation in large part because
of poor building design standards.
“Haiti is trying to play catch-up with its infrastructure development,” says Tracy Kijewski-Correa, associate professor of civil engineering
at University of Notre Dame and co-founder of
Engineering2Empower (E2E), a nonprofit group
of faculty and students from Notre Dame working
across Latin America. Factors including a lack of
formal training, insufficient government oversight
and a weak supply chain create significant barriers
for private development.
“The biggest challenge is that there is no rule of
law,” says Ms. Kijewski-Correa, who is based in Notre
Dame, Indiana, USA. Without strong courts and
building requirements, investors can’t be sure that
contracts are being honored. “Something as simple as
a person claiming land rights to a project site can shut
it down, because there is no judicial system to address
the complaint,” she says. That leads to corruption and
a culture of bribery, which adds time, cost and risk to
every project. “It scares most investors away.”
As a result, Haiti relies primarily on global non-
profit agencies to help it finance, build and upgrade its
woefully inadequate infrastructure. Still, these groups
must adapt to the culture if they want to get anything
accomplished. The best way to start is by talking to
the locals, Ms. Kijewski-Correa says. “We refer to this
as human-centered project management.”
Rather than forcing local contractors to follow
global project management practices developed in
other countries, E2E encourages companies to try
to understand the obstacles local project teams face.
They need to determine how locals typically deal
with these obstacles and collaboratively brainstorm
other possible solutions. One of the results of this
collaboration was the recommendation to have
Haitian contractors take an oath to protect Haiti’s
children—which meant building durable struc-
tures. Contractors that took the oath have earned
Over the past 20 years, the Caribbean
has drawn more than US$8.5 billion from
private investors to support 95 infrastructure development projects in the region’s
11 countries, with the Dominican Republic
and Jamaica taking the lion’s share. While
some of these projects follow a public-private partnership (PPP) model, the investment structure also includes privatizations
of public utilities, regulated green-field
private investments and joint ventures.
The PPP models are predominantly used
for power and transport projects, including
roads, airports and ports. There also have
been private investments in telecommunications networks, clean water systems and
wastewater treatment plants.
“Ten years ago, we had a
lot of issues finding project
management talent. But
now people are a lot more
interested.”
—Bryan Henriquez, PMP, AES Dominicana,
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
PPPs across the Caribbean
Source: Caribbean Infrastructure PPP Roadmap, March 2014, PPIAF, The World Bank Group
Dominican RepublicJamaica HaitiSaintKitts andNevis Antiguaand Barbuda Granada
Information & communications
technology
SurinameSaintLuciaSaintVincent andthe
Grenadines Trinidadand Tobago Dominica
13
2
4
5
6
78
9
10
11
Atlantic Ocean
Caribbean Sea
Cuba
12
3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Electricity Transport Water & sanitation
