Biography

Image via Open Society Foundations

Michèle Pierre-Louis served as the Prime Minister of Haiti from 2008 to 2009, and is the second woman to hold this position.

Michèle Pierre-Louis was born in 1947 and  studied Economics at the University of New York where she finally got her MA in 1976. She holds honorary degrees in the humanities from Saint Michael College, Vermont, and the University of San Francisco.

She worked as a clerk in Bank and as Assistant Director General in the National Airport Authority of Port-au-Prince. She also owned and directed a small Business for several years.  In 1985 she started working as a Consultant Manager of the Fondation Haïtienne de Développement. She then became a National Trainer with the Misyion Alfa, the national programme of alphabetisation of the Catholic Church of Haiti. From 1989 until 1991 she was appointed Research Director of the Cultural Institute Karl Lévêque, which enabled her to participate actively in the construction of the civil society. In 1991, she became a Member of the Presidential Cabinet of Aristide and was put in charge, i. a., for the redefinition of missions of the State. In 1995, she started working as the Director Executive for the Fondation Connaissance et Liberté – FOKAL until she was appointed as the Prime Minister of the Republic of Haiti.

Pierre-Louis was also a University teacher prior to becoming Prime Minister. Her courses focused on “Culture and society in the Caribbean” and “The History of the Great Civilizations.” She was a member of a review “Chemins Critiques” which published several issues on politics, economics, arts and culture, from 1989 through 2006.

​Currently, she acts as the President of the Fondation Connaissance et Liberté – FOKAL and is the Director of the Reconstruction and Development Programme of the Open Society Institute in New York. She has also been working as a Professor at the Department of Educational Sciences of the University of Quisqueya since 2004.

​In 2010, President Zapatero of Spain nominated her as a member of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty, based in Spain. In 2014, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon nominated her as a member of a High Level Panel on a Technology Bank for the Least Developed Countries. In 2017, UN Secretary General Antonio Guteres nominated her as a member of the High Level Advisory Board on Mediation.

Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis is a member of a Review “Chemins Critiques” in which she wrote several articles along with other Haitian and Caribbean writers, on politics, economics, arts and culture.