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KOFIP (Kolektif Finansman Popilè) is a Haitian NGO set up in 1997 to organize grassroots financing initiatives. KOFIP is a Social and Solidarity Economy institution that works with Mutuelles de Solidarité (MUSO), providing training, management documents and credit, and is made up of some 80 organizations involved in financing, representing all regions of the country.
“The structure of Haiti’s economic sectors is that of a developing country: agriculture, which accounts for 18% of GDP but must generate income for almost 2/3 of the working population; a more efficient industrial sector (58% of GDP), geared towards exports but concentrated in the capital; and a service sector that has benefited (long ago) from the development of tourism, which contributes 26% of GDP. Remittances from the Haitian diaspora account for around 25% of GDP.
Financial services do exist, and some have existed for a long time (savings and credit cooperatives known as Caisses Populaires), but are concentrated in urban areas (Port-au-Prince in particular) without being open to the most remote populations (geographically and socially). THE SITUATION TODAY”
KOFIP currently supports 1,398 MUSOs in Haiti’s 10 departments, representing some 37,500 members. These Mutuelles de solidarité have been organised by region into groups of MUSOs (known as block committees).
