Macy's does well by doing good in Haiti

THE GAZETTE SEPTEMBER 23, 2010 They might still be living in tents, but 235 of Haiti's most expert handicraft artists have been busy producing 20,000 vases, quilts, ceramics, wood carvings, paintings, and jewelry for Macy's, the largest department store in the United States.
Haitian artists praise the deal -in which they are paid in advance -telling the Globe and Mail it has given them financial stability at a time when Haiti is still reeling from last January's deadly earthquake.
The deal between Macy's and the artists provides a timely illustration of why the private sector should be more involved in foreign aid than it is. Without an external market, the Haitian artists would have had to wait for the island country's tourist trade to start up again -a distant hope given how devastated Haiti's infrastructure is. Aid alone would have kept them alive, but without a future.
How big a role the private sector should play is under discussion this week at the United Nations as countries from around the world meet to assess progress on the 2015 Millennium Development Goals. These are the targets set in 2000 to help lift the world's poorest out of crippling poverty and disease.
While business people and economists might feel that only the private sector is capable of turning around the fortunes of desperately poor countries, commercial interests haven't always operated on the right set of priorities. Aid as food dumping -essentially a commercial operation on behalf of subsidized farmers in the developed world -is a notorious example.
But business, as Macy's investment in Haiti shows, can have an important bridging role in bringing to the attention of new markets goods from the developing world. Macy's has a history of success in bringing to its U.S. customers products they would never have otherwise had access to: Five years ago, it began sponsoring the Rwandan Path to Peace project in which survivors of the 1994 genocide weave baskets that retail for as much as $110 U.S. Weavers are paid an unusually high 33 per cent of the retail price.
What these small-scale business ventures seem also to show is the importance of aid organizations working with business to figure out how best to help -rather than cripple - the local economy. The Canadian aid agency, Brandaid Foundation, brought the Haitian artists and Macy's together. Aid, continued for too long as a handout, ends up being destructive to local economies. Aid working with business might be the way forward.
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