Miles Voakes in Haiti
1. Please describe what the organization/company you work with does, how it is set up and where it is located?
I worked at the Hopital Albert Schweitzer in Haiti. The hospital is located in a very small community – Deschapells - in the Artibonite Valley in central Haiti. Its location is a proximally 3½ hours from the capital city Port Au Prince.
The hospital is very important to the community and is the main employer in the area and employs some 700 people. The hospital has been running for over 50 years and functions as a fully service hospital that can perform semi-complex operations and has a fully functioning lab and x-ray facilities. The purpose of the hospital is to provide health care to people that otherwise could not afford it and the Artibonite Valley is the poorest region in Haiti and one of the poorest areas in the world. The work they do there is very much needed and appreciated by the people in the valley.
2. What is the organization/company doing well?
Obviously as a hospital with over 50 years of experience HAS delivers health care very effectively. HAS has a very dedicated staff and work with multiple NGOs and funding agencies so as to supply the best medical care possible.
HAS is also involved in community development everything from drilling water wells to managing micro financing programs. The staff works very diligence to deliver these programs.
3. Where could the organization/company improve?
With a dedicated staff focused on delivering health care some business functions do not get the attention they should. Two areas that could use small improvements are in the budget management and material management. There are several departments and programs at HAS that are only monitored after the fact, if you will, which creates a reactive rather than a proactive environment. As we say they are “putting out fires” instead of “fire control”.
4. What are some aspects of the local cultural that should be understood when foreigners consider doing business in this country?
So many things effect the situation in Haiti, I guess a strong understanding of the history would help put things in perspective; also, knowledge of how other countries in the region operate would pigeon hole the style of support structures available. The country is located in a tourist belt that is already well developed and strongly supported by foreign companies in those neighboring countries. Haiti is currently way too risky for foreign investment, that is, Haiti has a very fundamental judicial system, the army has been disbanded and there is very little access to capital to name a few. On that point, limited access to capital and poorly developed infrastructure – roads, power - severely limits business growth.
5. What are some aspects of the local business environment (e.g. registration of company, government’s role in business, business items unique to this country) that should be understood when foreigners and locals consider doing business in this country?
The first thing that I noticed is that every big ticket item is sold in American Dollars; the local currency is too volatile for companies to do business in the Haitian Gourd. There are two very strong class systems one for the Haitians and one for the foreign. The average Haitian can earn about $200.00 USD per month contrast this to the fact that a hotel is about $225.00 USD per night. Automobiles are ball parked at $75,000.00 USD. Haiti has the super rich and the super poor. There are very little public services, such as, 12 hours of electricity per day, no postal service, no garbage and so on, but most importantly the transportation system is nonexistent.
6. What were the direct and indirect results/deliverables as a result of your placement? Please be as specific as possible. Please provide both soft and hard examples. Hard examples include number of clients/people trained, dollars raised, people impacted, etc)
My position was very diversified. I worked in several areas, the finance office, the administrative office, the IT office and with the Medical Director. My duties ranged from working on policy and procedure to help develop a cost management program. The deliverable that will make the most impact on the organization will be the development of a costing and pricing model that will enable the hospital to manage their expenses and capture income from patients and funding agencies. I played a strong influence in having HAS adopt and implement a centralized hospital management system called OpenMRS. This system is developed and maintained by Harvard University. The system was developed in conjunction with Partners in Health and was created for 3rd world hospitals that deliver third party programs like the HIV Global program. The hospital will be extending this to function as its primary file management program.
7. Are there opportunities in this field (e.g… health, agriculture or finance) for local and international entrepreneurs?
The health care field in Haiti is full of opportunities and is in the mid development stage. The industry needs everything from medical equipment dealers/importers to business support. The only drawback is that there is very little access to capital and therefore it is very hard for locals to create support businesses for a large cap type venture.
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Question about Personal Experience
1. Why are you interested in international development and private sector development?
As the world quickly becomes “connected via the internet” the smaller it gets, I believe it is important to help those communities that are struggling with developing businesses in depressed economies to gain access to the world. As Europe recognized, countries need to participate in world trade and developing economies are just starting to form those relationships and explore different trade avenues.
2. Originally, why did you want to participate in this program?
I am very interested in seeing how different cultures develop economies, that is, their business structures. I am familiar with the Asian model, I have worked with the Northern economies and seen some development there, and I have watched/studied the eastern block countries and how they are developing global strategies. The Caribbean offers unique challenges and I wanted to get a feel for the issues for these struggling economies.
3. Why would you recommend others to participate on MWB programs?
What could be more rewarding than sharing your experience with people that desperately need and appreciate the time you can share? Other than the direct personal benefits their professional experience will be expanded to a much wider and deeper knowledge of international experiences where they will come in contact with business professionals from all corners of the world. In my placement I worked with people from Australia, India, Europe, Great Britain and South America, as well as the local group. We had to come together a form teams to complete complicated tasks while being constrained on several levels, that is, financial, regulatory, supply chain and so on.
4. What are some of your goals and aspirations (i.e. job, personal, etc), that you are planning for once this placement has concluded.
I would like to continue to participate in working with programs that support 3rd world or developing nations. This could be on any level, the front lines, to working as administrative support here in Canada. My wish list would be to start working with MBAs Without Borders to help place people from our Artic regions into mainstream business with privately owned companies in lower Canada or USA and let them gain very much needed experience
5. What were your main challenges, both personally and professionally?
The challenges were not very significant. Basically there was just learning the pace of business and how the people functioned; as most have heard the term “Island time” I guess you don’t understand it until you want to get something done and have a bit of a wait. Next was the language issue but that was resolved by me learning some of the fundamentals. Professionally I had to understand what the focus of the hospital was, which is, delivering health care to the people in which some of the basics office processes get lost.
6. Was the monthly stipend of $1,000US/month sufficient and how, if needed, would you change the way and what MBAs Without Borders financially covers?
For the situation I was in where my housing did not cost much the $1,000 just covered the in-country expenses, so it worked out nicely. In retrospect it may have been more cost efficient if there was a cost-of-living budget with a small top up amount of say 30% over and above the cost of the budget, I only suggest this because, every country is different: in Haiti the cost of living is very cheep but the cost of going to beach (or somewhere) is very expensive. I guess what I am suggesting is that each placement would have its own special circumstances that should be factored in.
7. What would have made this experience even better for you?
In the beginning the situation was somewhat disorganized. What it was that the admin of HAS Haiti wanted me to do was not communicated very well. The only reason that I moved forward was because I have some consulting experience and have been thrown into situations where I had to take the lead and give the company direction. Basically I was there for 3 months so I had to focus on something that would contribute in that 3 month time. It would have been nice if I would have had a clearer plan on what was to be accomplished.
8. What advice would you like to offer future MBAs who work abroad for MBAs Without Borders?
The only thing I could offer is “Keep you expectations within reason”. I was placed in an organization that had a very strong support system for volunteers, even so, there were still many issues with respect to getting access to every day services that we take for granted in Canada, for instance, at HAS we had no phone lines – thus no phones or internet -; we only had water for two hours per day – 6am to 7am and 6pm to 7pm – but, at least we had water to the house and did not have to carry it; I was located at a small town the interior of the country and transportation to the main city or nearest town was very hard to arrange. As you can see; most of my “Wants” were not readily available, that said, my “needs” were well looked after.