Preval's January 1st Speech, in Gonaives, Haiti can be read in english at the MINUSTAH website (other source welcome!) The economy is a major theme of the speech, of course. Mid-way through the speech Preval mentions a program that is interesting for potentially meeting dual goals - reforestation and employment. It is an imagintative approach that if truly participatory could help by creating an economic incentive to plant. Such an approach could be expanded to other products as well...

Preval: After I left the Presidency, I went to live in Marmelade, my hometown. I observed that every peasant who had an orange tree in his or her yard had to walk about 14 kilometres to Carrefour Puilboro to sell the oranges. The orange price drops as the hours of the day pass. Sometimes, at the end of the day, they simply left the remaining oranges on the floor so they would not have to carry them back home. We have now established a fund to buy oranges from the peasants at a guaranteed price, and the peasants do not waste their time waiting at the market all day long. They have money in their hands, and they are interested in growing orange trees. When we see that all of the oranges are ripening at the same time, we set up a factory to put these oranges in bags. What do we do with these oranges? We sell them to the School Canteen Programme, which provides locally produced orange juice to schoolchildren. We have not yet managed to provide such juice to all schoolchildren. Therefore, I am asking the parliament to allow the government to finance a programme to set up several such factories so that - instead of giving our children imported juice that was made from powder and that has nothing in it - we can give our children local juice made by local peasants. [applause] It will put money in the peasants' hands. It will encourage the peasants to plant trees. It will create wealth in the peasant sector.

Posted by Tom Ricker in tomr's blog