Foreign Affairs committee  I've been struggling with that for a while now, because it is important that we partner on the ground. At the end of the day, it's not about being Desjardins or being Fonkoze; it's about the Haitian people and giving them access to finance. One of the things I think it is very important to look into is microinsurance.

Foreign Affairs committee  No, I think you summarized it well. I do have the social impact report here, and we talk about it a bit in that report.

Foreign Affairs committee  I'd be glad for you to take a copy of it. I think that summarizes it. It's a great tool. We killed some products that we thought were great. An example is the housing credit. We thought people would take a credit to build, let's say, a roof or a latrine or a cement floor, but after doing that survey, we realized they were too poor to repay.

Foreign Affairs committee  We do co-op financing. More recently it's through Zafèn,which is our loan for social projects for SMEs, so we do have a more cooperative approach--Fonkoze through Zafèn. At the moment it's an interest-free loan for 14 months. That might change, because it depends on the source of funding.

Foreign Affairs committee  At the business development level you do see more men getting loans, because they already have collateral and are organized. They might have inherited some assets from their parents. Poverty in Haiti is more feminized. When you go through rural areas, you'll most likely find women with five or six children and no husbands around.

Foreign Affairs committee  Let me go back to my little table. In the area of microfinance, as I said a bit earlier, when we did a comparative study of various programs to determine which ones were a success and which ones were not, we realized that it is very important to know our clients, to know what their situation is.

Foreign Affairs committee  I would like to thank you for inviting us to appear before you today to talk about the role of the private sector. My presentation is going to be in French. I am a francophone from Montreal. I grew up in Montreal and I studied at HEC Montréal. It is a great honour for me to be here today and to be able to share our experience in Haiti with you.