International "Development" Cooperation and Social Change from Below: Challenges to the Viability of a Social and Solidarity Economy in Haiti 2010-2020

The authors describe how, after 1986, international financial institutions and Western states shaped Haiti's development programs through conditional loans and structural adjustment, and how the January 12, 2010 earthquake brought a proliferation of non-governmental organizations. They single out the Strategic Development Plan for Haiti, adopted in May 2012, and argue that its implementation led to the taking of peasant plots for agribusiness and hotel companies.

The chapter draws on discussions held for six years in the people's university co-organized by the Institut Culturel Karl Lévêque and five other organizations, which took stock of social and solidarity economy experiences such as savings and credit associations, cooperatives and agri-food enterprises. It concludes that these initiatives are compromised by an adverse macroeconomic environment and calls for a redefinition of Haiti's economic cooperation with external partners. The chapter is published open access in the Springer volume Global Partnerships and Neocolonialism (2025).