Financial Growth and Resilience of Savings and Credit Cooperatives in the South-East of Haiti

The article, drawn from the author's doctoral thesis, asks how savings and credit cooperatives in the South-East department adapt to crises. It reviews balance sheets and income statements for 2010 to 2020 of three cooperatives in the Jacmel arrondissement, coded CPU1, CPU2 and CPU3, and interviews their leaders. It uses surpluses, reserves, credit portfolios and assets as measures of financial growth.

All three cooperatives show rising surpluses, credit portfolios and reserves over the period. For CPU2, the surplus rose from 1,441,854 gourdes in 2010 to 22,713,533 gourdes in 2020 and the credit portfolio from 19,851,623 to 556,537,287 gourdes. The author also finds that the 10 percent legal reserve was not calculated correctly in the reports of CPU1 and CPU3 although the Banque de la République d'Haïti validated them, and that CPU1 has an archiving problem. Leaders say financial growth matches their expectations. The article concludes that the cooperatives are resilient to the 2010 earthquake, the "pays lock" shutdowns, COVID-19 and insecurity.