WASHINGTON – The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) said it will focus on projects that will provide employment for Haitians outside of the capital as the country recovers from the devastating earthquake that killed an estimated 200,000 people and left more than one million homeless last month.

The Multilateral Investment Fund of the IBD (FOMIN) said it has established a three US$3 million line of financing to help its executing agency partners reopen for business as soon as possible.

It said it had also developed a shortened set of approval procedures for its projects in Haiti during the next 12 months.

The projects will focus on microfinance, remittances, housing, training for job insertion, and small business productive activities

"Although 75 per cent of FOMIN’s projects in Haiti are being implemented outside of Port-au-Prince and were largely unharmed by the 12 Jan., earthquake, most of the entities in charge of the projects are headquartered in the city. They have all suffered substantial losses and needed additional support to restart operations and keep the projects running to benefit their 340,000 participants," FOMIN said.

FOMIN’s actions are being taken in co-ordination with those of the IDB Group as a whole, under a new Bank-wide IDB task force created to help plan and co-ordinate the reconstruction in Haiti along with the Haitian government, other multilateral organisations, and donors.

The IDB is Haiti’s biggest source of financing and debt relief. The Bank’s portfolio in the country consists of programmes totalling over US$700 million, of which US$122 million worth of grants were approved in 2009.