Playing digital catch-up: Finding opportunities for Haiti

Haiti is behind the rest of the world in the digital revolution. Internet coverage remains limited and expensive. Just four percent of households have access, and fewer than 1% of Haitians have mobile Internet. Some government processes that are digitized elsewhere are still done here in the old-fashioned way. This reduces opportunities for Haitians and slows down economic growth. Haiti could be richer with faster Internet and more digitization.

The research project Haiti Priorise is releasing two research papers that examine different ways to get more from the digital revolution.

The first paper is by Dr Pantelis Koutroumpis, Research Fellow at Imperial College Business School. He says what Haiti really needs is a holistic National Broadband Plan with targets for coverage, capacity, and competition. In its absence, he proposes improving the infrastructure that powers Haiti’s Internet, along with the government’s processes.