Institution Les Freres Aristild (Note all photos were taken pre COVID-19)
HOPE IN HAITI
THROUGH MICROFINANCE As the pandemic takes hold in the developing world, devastating consequences for the world’s poor are becoming more apparent by the week. When markets contract, society’s poorest members, especially women, are the most vulnerable to job and income loss. 58
Research suggests up to 60% of small businesses, the backbone of local economies employing millions of people, will require support to survive mandatory business closures. FINCA alone projects that 120,000 small and microbusinesses of its female entrepreneurs that we
support with micro-loans will be destroyed without assistance. The World Bank estimates that COVID-19 will push 71 million to 100 million people into extreme poverty, wiping out the last 5-10 years of progress and signalling the first increase in extreme poverty since 1998.
