Yunus Social Business, Virgin Unite and Clinton Foundation

Haiti Forest An innovative social venture by

PaRTNERING pROUdLY WITh

Degraded hill Gonaives region

Vision, Objectives & Context

A SOCIaL BUSINESS is a company created for social benefit rather than private profit. Like an NGO, it has a social mission, but like a business, it generates its own revenues to cover its costs. AgRO-FORESTRY combines trees and shrubs with crops and use their interactive benefits. It generates revenues from year one, while trees continue to grow. It combines agricultural and forestry technologies to create more diverse, productive, profitable, healthy, and sustainable land-use systems.

A bold initiative for regenerating Haiti tree cover

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus and Yunus Social Business Haiti are delighted to join hands with Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Unite, Former US President Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation to set up a new social business joint venture: Haiti Forest. The two main objectives of the Haiti Forest initiative are: To increase tree cover and regenerate the environmental benets of trees; To improve livelihoods of smallholder farmers who are the key to breaking the deforestation cycle, and igniting a reforestation dynamic. Haiti Forest will be composed of agroforestry Social Businesses, with a strong market-orientation.

Deforestation has dramatic consequences on rural livelihoods

Haiti is one of the most environmentally degraded countries. A few centuries ago almost all of the country was forested, but today less than 2% cover is left. As a consequence, from 1950-1990, the amount of arable land fell by more than 40% due to soil erosion, in a country where less than 30% of land is arable. Much of the remaining trees are being felled to produce charcoal or burned to clear new land to cultivate. Wood is the main source of energy as well as house building material. Today the burning of charcoal and wood accounts for 75% of Haitis total energy consumption, requiring the cutting of around 30 million trees per year. Deforestation has both environmental and social dramatic consequences. It reduces the surface of arable lands, affects the natural cycle of water, damages rivers and coastal ecosystems, and leaves inhabited

areas unprotected from ooding. As rural livelihoods are directly impacted, regular sources of revenues from agriculture are weakened, often leading the poorest population to chop more trees for making and selling charcoal. To stop the destructive cycle it is critical to address deforestation and its root causes. Environmental services and rural livelihoods all depend on the development of sustainable mechanisms to reverse the deforestation cycle. These would ultimately enable rehabilitating key watersheds and their environmental and economic functions. Moringa Pods

Approach | Creating market value for trees

A new approach must be developed
Experience of previous initiatives shows that reforestation cant based on free trees handouts or programs relying on traditional charitable funding, inevitably limited in time. We believe that the key to break the destructive deforestation cycle is to create mechanisms where the trees bring more value when grown and protected than when cut.

A market-based ecosystem that create market value for trees and increases tree cover
Haiti Forests innovative approach is to create market value around trees by creating agroforestry social businesses. These social businesses target high-value local and international markets such as fresh and transformed fruits, cosmetic products, perfume ingredients, construction materials, and energy sources. The businesses will be nancially self-sustainable. By improving livelihoods of smallholders, they will directly contribute to alleviating pressure on trees, making the tree cutting for charcoal less necessary. The social businesses of the Haiti Forest ecosystem will be complementary to each other and form a coherent value chain (e.g. production of agro-forestry products, transformation into value-added products, marketing and sales). In very degraded areas on the hillsides, soil fertility, environmental risks and logistical access are strong challenges to be overcome, and a fully commercial approach might not be adapted. However this is where the impact of reforestation would be the strongest, with environmental benets cascading to the lower altitudes. This is why a protected forest area will be designed and implemented. It can be based on carbon nance to support part of its setup and maintenance costs. In the rst two-year phase, Haiti Forest aims at kickstarting the whole ecosystem on a small scale, with up to 8 social businesses. Once the model has been validated, Haiti Forest will be scaled to signicantly increase its impact, and potentially replicated in other parts of Haiti.

YUNUS SOcIaL BUSINESS GLObaL INITIaTIvES Niddastrae 63 60329 Frankfurt, Germany

EMAIL: info@yunussb.com WEB: www.yunussb.com TEL:

YUNUS SOcIaL BUSINESS HaITI 5 Rue Goulard Ption Ville, Hati

TEL 1: TEL 2:

+49 69 90559030

+509 29 44 64 22 +1 305 320 9455

Getting concrete | A call to entrepreneurs, buyers, and investors

St-Michel-de-lAttalaye in the Artibonite department
The Haiti Forest team has studied nine sites in Haiti to conrm the above diagnosis and identify the region with the most potential for developing such an approach. We chose to start in the region of St-Michel-de-lAttalaye in the Plateau Central, department of Artibonite. It includes both plains and hillsides with potential commercial productions, degraded slopes with an intense need for reforestation, and a supportive socio-economic context.

Moringa Pods

Potential social businesses in the Haiti Forest ecosystem (non exhaustive)

Agro-excellence center Supply seeds, tools and technical training to the smallholder farmers. Manage a nursery Coffee production schemes In addition to coffee, produce marketable fruits and food with intercropped cultures Producers cooperatives Purchase smallholders productions to facilitate the link with value-added transformation and marketing Marketing and distribution Secure market outlets for agro-forestry products, design and implement quality standards and labels Fruit-tree based agroforestry Plant marketable fruits trees, intercropped with yearly crops Fuel/Timber forests Enable the production of sustainable charcoal and timber while increasing the tree cover Valued-added transformation Transform local production and add value, for example: oil, essences, juices, construction wood Protected forest area Increase tree cover and regenerate environmental benets, potentially based on carbon-nance

High potential products have been identified

Haiti Forest and its partners have identied the following products with signicant market potential and adaptation to local conditions and agro-forestry schemes: For export: mango franique, edible avocado oil, citrus essences, moringa powder, coffee... For domestic market: tamarin, banana plantain, orange, grapefruit, sorghum, peanut, sustainable charcoal and timber... The region of St-Michel-de-lAttalaye is extremely rich in many of the products above, and presents a high potential to grow others.

YUNUS SOcIaL BUSINESS GLObaL INITIaTIvES Niddastrae 63 60329 Frankfurt, Germany

EMAIL: info@yunussb.com WEB: www.yunussb.com TEL:

YUNUS SOcIaL BUSINESS HaITI 5 Rue Goulard Ption Ville, Hati

TEL 1: TEL 2:

+49 69 90559030

+509 29 44 64 22 +1 305 320 9455

How can you contribute?

With the support of expert partner organizations, Haiti Forest is willing to coach and nance local entrepreneurs who are willing to be part of this bold initiative. Haiti Forest is actively looking for: Committed entrepreneurs with business backgrounds in food processing, agro-forestry or forestry eld, and a great drive! Potential buyers with whom Haiti Forest will co-design local production that raises the most commercial interest, and work together on quality, supply and transformation requirements. Patient capital investors willing to support Haiti Forests mission and invest in our social businesses. All interested parties, individuals and organizations are welcome to contact Clmentine Lalande, Head of investments at YSB Haiti (clementine.lalande@yunussb.com).

YUNUS SOcIaL BUSINESS GLObaL INITIaTIvES Niddastrae 63 60329 Frankfurt, Germany

EMAIL: info@yunussb.com WEB: www.yunussb.com TEL:

YUNUS SOcIaL BUSINESS HaITI 5 Rue Goulard Ption Ville, Hati

TEL 1: TEL 2:

+49 69 90559030

+509 29 44 64 22 +1 305 320 9455