While the situation in Haiti is still dire after January’s devastating earthquake, many efforts are underway to rebuild and improve people’s lives with access to food, water, shelter, and health care. But there’s one equally important, though often overlooked, need facing Haitians now: getting access to money and managing their cash.

We think the solution to these problems can be found in devices already in the palms of many Haitians: mobile phones.

Today’s announcement by the foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) explains our support for a $10 million incentive fund to jumpstart financial services by mobile phone in Haiti.

In Haiti, 72 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty, surviving on less than $2 a day, and many depend on money sent by their families living overseas or by local humanitarian organizations. Ensuring that people actually get the cash in their hands is already a big challenge here, but the earthquake made it even worse: More than one-third of all banks, ATMs, and money transfer stations were destroyed. 

We were just in Haiti last week, and it was distressing to see that nearly five months after the earthquake, people still wait in long queues outside some banks and money transfer stations. On a recent Monday morning, a sea of people was waiting to pick up money transfers. Many had traveled from far away. This is a high price for the Haitian people to pay in time and lost wages to simply collect money.

Many nongovernmental organizations running cash-for-work programs also struggle with this cash problem. Their cash-for-work programs aim to put money in the pockets of Haitians and encourage commerce to resume. But distributing wages in cash is time-consuming, inefficient, and expensive for humanitarian agencies, as well as frustrating for recipients.

Getting access to cash is just one part of the story. Once you have it, how do you keep it safe when you live in a tent, like those we saw during our visit, pitched on every available corner of busy Port-au-Prince or on the steep hills of Canapé Vert?

What if banks, money transfer houses, and humanitarian agencies could send money electronically using mobile phones? Mobile money, as it is often called, is a safer, cheaper, and much faster way to distribute money than through cash. Haitians could use their mobile phones like electronic wallets, enabling them to send money to each other across distances; make purchases; and access safe, affordable financial services that can dramatically improve their lives.

This isn’t just a dream. This is the goal of the foundation’s Financial Services for the Poor initiative.

Mobile money services are already expanding in Africa and Asia. Why not in Haiti too?