USG Haiti Strategic Overview by Component
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Strategy Component |
Strategy Objective |
Revised 5-year Goal
(as of November 2012 unless otherwise indicated) |
Status of 5-year Goal
(as of September 30, 2017) |
Status
(as of September 30, 2017) |
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PILLAR A: Infrastructure and Energy |
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Priority 1: Housing |
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Support the upgrading of up to five Port-au-Prince neighborhoods, including resources to accelerate rubble removal using heavy equipment |
Remove rubble |
Remove 2.5M cubic meters of rubble. |
Support for rubble removal is complete with no further activity in this area. |
Support for rubble removal is complete with no further activity in this area. |
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Shelter solutions for IDPs |
Provide shelter solutions
to more than 300,000 people. |
The U.S. government (USG) exceeded the goal for this area. |
USG support for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) solutions is complete, and original goals have been exceeded. |
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Upgrade neighborhoods
in Port-au-Prince |
Repair/reconstruct 5,040 homes through U.S. government contribution to HRF/WB neighborhood upgrading project. |
The USG contribution to HRF/WB neighborhood upgrading project achieved the following:
a. 877 houses built/rebuilt
b. 1,134 houses repaired
c. 15,582 households returned to their neighborhoods upon completion of housing repair and reconstruction works and support to return to safe rental units.
d. 75,035 households benefit from community-wide upgrading |
The Haiti Reconstruction Fund/World Bank (HRF/WB) Neighborhood Upgrading project has concluded with 97% of resources expended. |
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Undertake integrated investments to facilitate the establishment of up to three new communities that offer housing, jobs, and sustainable economic opportunities |
New housing settlements |
Update: September 2014
* Capacity building with community-based organizations to strengthen community management of new settlements.
* As a result of GOH-requested design changes, increases in the cost of construction materials, and delays in obtaining clear land title, the cost for the new settlements increased significantly contributing to reduced goals. The number of houses directly constructed by USAID reached 906 and is now complete. The number of houses to be constructed in partnership with other donors is 574 at Terrier Rouge, Ouanaminthe and DLA 3. |
The USAID/Haiti Mission, in partnership with other donors, built 1,332 new permanent homes in Haiti. (NOTE: This does not include housing work done under the USG Contribution to the HRF/WB, which is recorded under a different Strategy Component.)
a. Village La Difference (Caracol): 750 homes
b. Haute Damier (Cabaret/DLA 1.5): 156 homes
c. Terrier Rouge (with Inter-American Development Bank): 242 homes
d. Ouanaminthe (with Inter-American Development Bank): 184 homes |
USAID/Haiti’s work to establish new communities concluded in 2017 with the exception of sewer system upgrades at Village La Difference (Caracol). |
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Provide capacity building and policy reform to the GOH |
Provide technical assistance in urban planning, management, construction, and housing administration. |
* Technical assistance to build capacity of the GOH and improve management of housing sector. |
The USG worked closely with the GOH’s housing agencies,Unité de Construction de Logements et de Bâtiments Publics (UCLBP) &
Entreprise Publique de Promotion de Logements Sociaux (EPPLS) to improve their capacity to manage public services in newly settled communities. USAID invested in the provision of integrated services (water, sanitation, livelihoods, education, and community relations) to improve the quality of life in USAID-financed new settlements.
USAID invested in land administration and management programs aiming at increasing outreach and awareness of manuals on how to buy and sell property in Haiti and on securing land rights in Haiti through training sessions and workshops. More than 900 people (of which 600 were women) from key stakeholders of the Haitian housing sector were trained on how to buy and sell property while 836 people participated in outreach events where the issue of land and rights was raised. |
USAID will conclude most housing and community-focused capacity building programs in 2017, but plans are under consideration to continue providing policy assistance and enabling environment work for housing finance, mortgage markets, and land titling. |
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Provide policy assistance in land tenure and titling, the creation of an enabling environment for housing finance and mortgage markets, and regulation and supervision of building codes. |
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Increase access to housing finance |
Support the expansion of the housing sector through new mechanisms, exploring the use of the following: * Home improvement loans; * Construction finance; * Mortgage lending; * Subsidies/vouchers. |
Generate $20M in available housing finance through OPIC’s housing finance facility and $15M in available housing finance through new DCAs over 10 years (end of strategy, plus six years). |
Besides the OPIC mortgage facility and the DCA guarantee for housing, the Home Ownership and Mortgage Expansion (HOME) program, which began in 2015 to foster access to affordable housing through housing finance to low to mid-income households, is reporting an increase in the disbursement of loans by financial institutions partners. |
*The HOME project has partnered with six local financial institutions including banks and microcredit institutions (SOCOLAVIM, SOGESOL, KOTELAM, SOGEBEL, Capital Bank and CFP) and four local housing developers (TECINA, CHABUMA, GBCI and MC Stephenson) in order to link the supply side (housing projects) to the demand side (housing finance products) of the market. During FY 2017, the HOME project has partnered with additional local financial institutions, banks and credit unions, and affordable housing developers to create the market for affordable housing. To date, U.S. government financial institution partners have disbursed 610 loans mobilizing $4.1M in loans to support affordable housing. The partner developers have invested $1.7M in preparation of new housing sites. |
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Priority 2: Ports |
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Assist the GOH in leveraging Haiti’s proximity to the US market by increasing the efficiency of Haiti’s port sector and improving regulatory oversight |
Support the GOH in the development of a long-term ports sector strategy that addresses the need for a modern container port and increases sector efficiency and regulatory oversight. |
Update: September 2014
1. Contribute to upgrades to the port in Cap Haitien; after further due diligence, the GOH and USAID agreed that the optimal approach would be to invest in a major upgrading of the Cap Haitien Port (CHP) to meet the projected port services needs for the next 10-15 years.
2. Provide technical assistance to the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the Council for the Modernization of Public Enterprises, and the National Ports Authority to improve customs regulations and services to reduce port charges to regional levels and increase sector efficiency. |
USAID and the Government of Haiti have agreed on a master plan for the reconstruction of the Cap Haitien Port. The Ministry of Finance has agreed to a competitive process to select a private operator, while USAID will fund the reconstruction. |
For the procurement that will lead to the Design-Build Construction Contract for the major construction works, USAID completed the pre-qualification process and is evaluating final construction proposals.
A vessel tracking system and portable reefer power supplies were delivered to the Cap-Haitien Port through the agreement with the United Nation’s Office of Project Services (UNOPS) for landside improvements. Initial engineering assessments for the landside works were completed and design is underway.
Through a technical assistance contract, USAID continues to provide support to the National Port Authority to improve its regulatory, administrative, and operational capacity at the CHP; and to provide technical support to the Customs Administration to streamline customs services at the CHP.
The GOH agreed to reduce government collected port tariffs by 50%, from $310/TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) to $155/TEU. GOH collected port tariffs are a primary impediment to price competitiveness with the Dominican Republic and other regional ports.
The GOH continues its procurement process to select a firm to operate and maintain the Cap Haitien port for a 25-year period. The three preselected firms are preparing their bids. Award of an agreement is planned for late 2017. |
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Invest in the design and development of a major international container port in the Northern Corridor in partnership with other bilateral and multilateral partners and the private sector |
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Develop an integrated investment package in coordination with the GOH and other partners to spur the development of an economic growth pole anchored by the port development |
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Priority 3: Energy |
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Electricity Provision |
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Modernize the electricity sector by enhancing its commercial viability, improving sector governance, strengthening institutional capacity, and attracting the participation of the private sector |
Legal and regulatory reform |
* Reduce % of technical losses by EDH from 20% (pre-USG intervention) to 10%;
* Increase EDH cash recovery index from 22% (pre-USG intervention) to 58% by September 2015. |
The activity was not extended or renewed and originally-planned follow-on work was not undertaken due to lack of political will. |
The cash recovery index of 31.7% achieved under USAID’s work subsequently dropped to under 24%. The drop reflects a lack of political will on the part of EDH to continue the reform efforts. As a result, USAID decided not to continue this program beyond 2014. |
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Increase revenue collection by the GOH electricity provider (EDH) |
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Reduce commercial and technical losses |
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Improve and expand the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity through rehabilitation and new construction to reduce cost, increase access, and improve reliability, using micro-grids and renewable energy when feasible. |
Expand generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity |
* Expand power generation due to USG-supported power sources as follows:
* 34MW in Cap Haitien corridor
* 2MW solar in Cap Haitien corridor
* 5MW renewable in the 3 development corridors* 85K households, businesses, and industries with legal access to electricity service from USG programs. |
The Caracol 10MW plant has been operational since June 2012. Energy sales to clients operating outside of the Caracol Industrial Park has grown substantially. The plant is providing 24/7 reliable electricity to the tenants in the industrial park as well as over 8,000 residences, small businesses and government institutions outside of the park.
The earlier goal to expand generation was based on projected growth in electricity consumption by the tenants in the Caracol Industrial Park. Actual consumption has been much lower than anticipated and future generation expansion will be the responsibility of the independent operator. The earlier goal to reach 85,000 customers refers to USAID-funded rehabilitation of five sub-stations in Port-au-Prince. USAID completed its work, but the GOH did not proceed with expanding the customer base, instead they focused on providing more reliable electricity to existing customers. |
USAID owns and operates a 10 megawatt power plant at the Caracol Industrial Park (CIP). The power plant supplies reliable electricity 24 hours per day 7 days per week to all its customers.
The power plant supplies electricity for manufacturing operations inside the Caracol Industrial Park and electrifies communities in the surrounding areas that were not serviced by the Haitian government utility. The power plant supports almost 12,900 jobs (as of Q3 FY2017) within the Industrial Park, and has enabled many new small businesses to emerge in the targeted communes. USAID plans to connect 4 new buildings within the CIP in 2017, including a new company planning to move to Haiti and create thousands more jobs in the park. The power plant services over 10,000 individually metered households, businesses, and organizations in five communes in northern Haiti: Caracol, Limonade, Terrier Rouge, Trou du Nord, and St. Suzanne (this includes clients in CIP and EKAM village in Caracol). More than 3,000 new customers are planned to be added in these zones before March 2018.
USAID and the Government of Haiti agreed to a revised schedule of electricity charges for all customers that reflect the cost of service for the electricity. The new electricity rates were initiated from January 2017 and will gradually be increased over the next two years until they reach full cost recovery levels. USAID and the Ministry of Finance have agreed that privatizing the power plant and distribution network is the best way to ensure sustainability. USAID and the Ministry of Finance’s mutual objective is to privatize the entire utility by spring 2018. |
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Priority 4: Alternative Cooking Technology |
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Design a comprehensive transition program that encourages households, food vendors, and energy-intensive businesses to reduce their consumption of charcoal by using cleaner and more efficient cooking technologies such as improved biomass cookstoves and/or by switching to alternative fuels such as Liquefied Petroleum Gas. |
Generate incentives and awareness among
consumers of alternative cooking technologies and fuels. |
43,500 households and businesses using improved cooking technologies |
This activity was completed in 2015, with results that exceeded the goal. |
At the conclusion of this activity in 2014, 117,805 households/schools/businesses converted to LPG and improved cook stoves, reducing charcoal consumption of 120,458 metric tons (MT), CO2 emissions by 823,930 MT, and resulting in a cumulative savings of over $16.0M as a result of reduced use of charcoal. |
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Offer financing and technical assistance to
entrepreneurs to develop supply chains of cleaner fuels and cooking technologies. |
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Move consumers from the existing firewood and charcoal supply chains to the new supply chains. |
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PILLAR B: Food and Economic Security |
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Priority 1: Food Security – Agriculture and Nutrition |
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Ensure agriculture sector growth within targeted corridors |
* Within selected watersheds, target two to three value chains for domestic staples based on revenue-generating potential.
* Support export value chains in cacao and mango.
* Transform supported value chains by rehabilitating rural roads, boosting productivity, reducing post-harvest losses, creating enabling policies, improving local governance, and supporting commerce. |
Improve agricultural productivity in the USG development corridors as measured by an increased yield (kg/ha) for focus crops (corn, beans, rice, bananas, mangos and cacao) from the 2010 baseline |
In addition to FTF-North (AVANSE), USAID supports two additional agricultural projects: Chanje Lavi Plantè (CLP) and Appui à la Recherche et au Development Agricole (AREA). While AVANSE and CLP focus on productivity, watershed protection and market strengthening, AREA’s main objective is to build domestic capacity to conduct research and make available new technologies that will increase farmers’ incomes.
Recent hurricanes and flooding have negatively affected crops for local consumption, but at least one export crop (cacao) saw an increase in production and revenue. |
Over the past 12 months, Haiti has gone through hurricanes and flooding which have negatively affected indicators for focus crops for local consumption (rice, maize, plantain, beans). However, export crops (mango and cacao) saw an increase in production and revenue. Out of 2,265 tons of cacao exported out of the north of Haiti, the AVANSE project contributed 1,359 tons or 60% for a total of $4.2M in 2016. Chanje Lavi Plantè contributed to $ 1.5M of mango export. The water diversion system, built by WINNER in the Rivière Grise, protected all 10,000 hectares of agricultural field in the area as well as the crops, irrigation canals and houses, while major damage was registered outside of the protected area. Chanje Lavi Plante also focused on irrigation canal cleaning and establishment of demonstration plots to test improved seeds. In the St. Marc corridor, 30,000 meters of canal were cleaned, allowing an additional 5,000 hectares to be irrigated. As of June 2017, 21,800 hectares of land have been under improved irrigation and drainage service as a result of CLP. In the Port au Prince corridor one of the hybrid corn seeds tested had a yield 7.95 metric tons/ha in the trial plots (where average yield for non-intervention sites was 0.8 metric tons/ha), and was selected along with another high performing hybrid corn seed for a full corn campaign in March/April 2017. |
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Increase the number of households which have doubled farm income over the 2010 base year due to USG assistance to over 100,000 households by June 2015. Gross margin for base year 2010 as measured by gross margin per hectare: corn $127; beans $190; rice $350; plantains $1,337. |
The strategy was extended to 2018. Under our Feed the Future (FTF) projects, USAID investments in agriculture have benefited more than 84,000 rural households of which 78,000 reported significant increases in income. |
In 2017, FTF-North (AVANSE) and FTF-West (Chanje Lavi Plante) results indicate that more than 4,400 farmers in the North and 2,756 farmers in the West received productivity training and technical assistance which should increase their agricultural income. Income increases will be assessed based on qualitative and quantitative analysis of several proxy measures at the midterm and/or end of each program. |
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Strengthen agricultural markets in USG development corridors as measured by:
* The value in incremental sales for farmers of focus crops (corn, bean, rice, bananas), with a June 2015 goal of $26M in additional sales;
* The value of new private sector investments in the agricultural sector food chain leveraged by Feed the Future, with a June 2015 goal of $5M;
* The value of international exports of mangoes in target corridors from US-supported households, with a June 2015 goal of $4.6M. |
Recent hurricanes and flooding have negatively affected crops for local consumption, but some export crops nevertheless saw an increase in production and revenue. |
* Under FTF-North (AVANSE) FY2016 direct sales of 119,577 lbs of cacao by 675 farmers involved in a marketing agreement with the top Haitian cacao exporter yielded $105,000 (HTG 6,475,792) in sales for these farmers. Rice sales by FTF-North farmers comprised $2.2M and exceeded targets by 37%. The value of private sector investment in overall FTF programs had reached $4M (with overall FTF-Haiti goal of $5M over five years). In 2017, thanks to the FTF-West Chanje Lavi Plante program, an additional $2.7M of private investment was leveraged across three private sector agro-processing partnerships, with additional investment levels expected to be confirmed. * * In 2016, Chanje Lavi Plante trained 150 mango farmers in grafting, pruning and post harvest practices to improve production and commercialization. The project also put in place, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, a mango traceability system to assist mango farmers and exporters in responding to the new export requirement from the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) for the upcoming season. As of June 2017, the program registered more than 6,000 mango Francisque producers. An MOU was also signed with the Ministry of Agriculture to provide trainings to Ministry staff in innovative agricultural techniques. The AREA project has established a legume breeding program, a plant disease and diagnostics program, and a system of training to encourage maize seed production in Haiti; and started a human and institutional capacity development activity at the Ministry of Agriculture. |
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Improve nutritional status |
Using a multi-sectoral approach to be coordinated with the USG health strategy, the USG will address nutrition not only by encouraging income growth in rural areas, but also by expanding the GOH’s program for community management of acute malnutrition to all communities where the USG is supporting services. The USG will also support multi-donor efforts along with the GOH to establish early warning systems as part of a nutrition surveillance system, as well as to incorporate water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions into nutrition programming. |
To reduce food insecurity and vulnerability by supporting the Government of Haiti in establishing a replicable safety net system and expanding capacities to prevent child undernutrition in chronically food insecure communes of North-West, Artibonite, Central Plateau, South-East and Western Departments of Haiti. (As of 9/30/2016) |
752,049 pregnant and lactating women, extremely vulnerable people, and children under 5 have been reached by USAID-supported food assistance and nutrition interventions.
In addition, USAID supports the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor through capacity building and assistance in development of a Social Protection Policy. The USAID social safety net program has begun handover of activities to the Ministry in one pilot department. |
Child undernutrition has long been a major public health problem in Haiti, although long-term trends show an improvement. The latest Haiti Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), done in 2017, shows wasting at 3.7%, down from 5.1% in 2012 and 10.2% in 2005-6. Underweight rates for 2017 were 9.5%, down from 11.4% in 2012 and 18.1% in 2005-2006. The stunting rate held steady at 21.9% from 2012 to 2017, although there had been a significant improvement from the 2005-2006 rate of 29.4%.
The USAID Kore Lavi program is a six -year Food for Peace social protection initiative supporting the Haitian Government in creating a social safety net for food and nutrition security that prioritizes consumption of locally-grown quality products. The overall goal is to help reduce food insecurity and vulnerability in targeted communities, such as Jacmel, by establishing a replicable safety net system and expanding government capacities to prevent child undernutrition and improve maternal nutritional health among pregnant and lactating women.
The program’s safety net components consist of the distribution of food vouchers for targeted households with children aged five and younger as well as nutrition supplements provided to households with pregnant and/or lactating women. Since its inception in August 2013, the program has provided social assistance to a total of 752,049 people living in 173,557 vulnerable households. As of October 2017, more than 18,000 households are currently enrolled in the safety net program.
In addition, the program also has worked with MAST to establish a vulnerability targeting database (SIMAST) that currently lists over 154,000 households that can be used for future social protection targeting purposes. The SIMAST is hosted and managed by MAST.
The Ranfose Abitid Nitrisyon pou Fe Ogmante Sante (RANFOSE) project aims to address the micronutrient deficiencies in Haiti by using a multi-pronged, participatory approach to stimulate a sustainable national program for fortified staple foods. The project has just started this month.
AKSYON is a five year program that aims to decrease the number of women and children under age five who suffer from malnutrition, reinforcing the sustainability of these gains through knowledge and skills building around nutritional improvements, hygiene, and sanitation, and food security strategies. The project was awarded in August 2016. As of June 2017, 9,399 children under 5 were screened, including 3,337 children 0-23 months as well as 2,146 pregnant/lactating women. |
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Priority 2: Economic Security – Access to Opportunity |
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“Support for an enabling policy environment” is now named: “Attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and local investment” |
* Support GOH reform of regulatory framework. |
* Increased transparency, modernization, and improved efficiency and effectiveness in revenue collection, budget formulation, budget execution and expenditure tracking and accounting processes.
* Significantly increase foreign direct investments. |
* Foreign direct investment (FDI) was $105M in 2016, continuing a steady annual decrease from $170M in 2013, according to the Haitian central bank. USG contributions to the construction of the Caracol Industrial Park and the provision of reliable electricity to the park and surrounding communities in conjunction with another multilateral donor and the GOH continue to be major factors in attracting FDI. Rehabilitation of a port to facilitate shipping for park customers will boost investment. |
The Help and Hope Legislation is encouraging garment manufacturers to relocate to Haiti. It is expected that such investment will pick up in the medium term since Haiti is likely to benefit from the US withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership. Also there have been significant increases in GOH revenue collection (28% in FY 2017) due in part to improvements in the management of the DGI’s (Direction Generale des Impots, Haiti’s national tax authority) Large Taxpayer Unit and in the software and hardware available to DGI (13 of its 24 remote units will be using the new software by December 31). Efforts to create a Treasury Single Account, which ended on the USG side in March 2017, but continue on the part of the IMF, are helping to reduce discretionary expenditure at the ministry level, a major source of corruption. |
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* Support GOH in attracting domestic and foreign direct investment. |
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Technical assistance and professional and vocational training services to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) |
Assist informal MSMEs improve their management and governance, register with regulators and tax authorities to become formal enterprises, and access new sources of capital. |
Promote the agribusiness, apparel, and construction industries by supporting larger “lead” firms in target value chains, strengthening management practices within MSME’s, and providing training for employees and job-seekers. The goal is to create 25,000 net full-time-equivalent jobs by the end of 2015, raise revenues/income within target value chains, and increase industry-specific measures of productivity. |
The strategy was extended to 2018. |
As of September 30, 2017, the LEVE project has disbursed over $3.7M (of $5.2M committed to date) to 40 subgrantees. Activities supported more than 774 MSMEs to improve their managerial skills or expand their operations through capital injection. To date, this support has contributed to the creation of 4,341 new jobs. |
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Offer professional and vocational training programs to MSMEs specializing in agriculture, agribusiness, garment assembly, and construction. |
As of September 30, 2017, the LEAD activity had awarded 47 sub-grants to SMEs for a total of $7.6M while leveraging an amount of $12.6M in matching grants. This resulted in close to $20M in capital injected in SMEs. This led to 14,032 jobs created and the partner SMEs seeing a more than $30.6M increase in sales over the life of the project. |
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Increased access to capital, where appropriate, through investments and partial guarantees |
Improve access to capital by restructuring existing loans to businesses damaged in the earthquake and extending new loans to support MSME growth and expansion. |
* Increase financing made available to MSMEs through USG-supported interventions through our Development Credit Authority (DCA) and other facilities from a baseline total of $4.05M to $60M in June 2015;
* Facilitate 10M transactions through mobile money systems developed with USG support in previous 6 months. |
No update |
As of September 30, 2017, DCA guarantee agreements since 2004 amounted to $82.5M with a total utilization of $41.6M for 12,366 loans. The OPIC/DIG Liquidity Facility reports, as of Sept 30, 2017, a $17M credit facility to two financial institutions to finance housing and business loans to SMEs. $1.5M has been disbursed to SMEs under these facilities. |
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PILLAR C: Health and Other Basic Services |
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Priority 1: Health |
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Develop comprehensive referral networks (150-250K people per network) at the communal and departmental levels within the USG development corridors |
Investment in all aspects of the network – including facilities, equipment, training, supplies, and human recourses including community health workers. |
No change. |
In order to ensure investments in infrastructure, equipment, and staffing are sustainable, the USG will continue to develop 9 referral networks in a limited capacity and focus resources to fully staff and equip 3 targeted referral networks. |
Three referral networks are fully staffed. The USG has made available referral tools/protocols–such as referral and counter-referral guidelines–and they are being used by health providers to facilitate patient referrals. The thirty-four health facilities within the three Model Referral Networks (MRN) made a total of 3,783 referrals and counter-referrals allowing these patients to access the appropriate level of care. In this reporting period, the Health Services Delivery project (SSQH) also received approval from the National Ethics Committee of Haiti and the Institutional Review Board of John Hopkins University (JHU-IRB) to conduct a study that will assess the feasibility of the MRN system and protocols from both the health provider and patient perspective. The MRN survey will start at the end of October 2017 and will inform the development of a new model to support the Ministry of Health (MOH) in documenting successes, challenges, and lessons learned. |
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Support the delivery of a “basic package” of services and targeted infectious disease prevention and management outside the US development corridors |
Support the delivery of a “basic package” of services, targeted interventions for infectious disease to address gender-based violence and child protection. |
* All USG service delivery programs will have a transition plan to either the Global Fund, GAVI, or the GOH.
* Significant reductions in pediatric HIV prevalence, TB incidence, % of underweight children, maternal mortality, and cholera fatalities.
* Significant increase in contraceptive usage and percent of children vaccinated. |
To plan for transition of programming, the USG signed the Partnership Framework (PF) with the GOH in 2012. The PF reaffirms the commitment by USG to support the GOH in coordinating, overseeing and eventually absorbing health sector activities now so often provided through development partner support. The 2012 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) indicated that since the 2006 DHS, modern contraceptive prevalence increased from 25 to 31%, the percentage of underweight children declined from 22.2 to 11.4%, vaccination coverage has increased from 41 to 45% nationally, but in the areas supported by the USG, 95% of children were vaccinated. The incidence of cholera has been reduced by over 50% since the outbreak in 2010. The newly awarded service delivery project will continue to target the areas mentioned above and will focus on reducing maternal mortality and pediatric HIV and TB incidence, among other USG priority areas. |
The USG supported the Ministry of Health in building their capacity to provide leadership in managing the country’s health system and health care services. USAID continued to assist the MOH in improving data collection and usage, upgrading internal management systems, managing diverse funding sources, improving its ability to attract, train and retain professional health workers, and improving internal governance, transparency and accountability. USAID increased its support to the MOH in the fight against both vector-borne and water-borne diseases. Part of the Agency’s investments in maternal and child health were focused on community mobilization activities to prevent and detect zika. This was done by involving community leaders, increasing the number of mobile clinics that provide family planning services, and working on behavior change and awareness. Pregnant women received mosquito repellents and community health workers conducted outreach activities to help educate families about zika prevention measures, such as eliminating standing water around households. USAID also made major investments in the area of cholera prevention through home water treatment products to ensure that families have access to clean and potable water, and the Agency, through its WASH activities, is coordinating closely with the GOH national cholera plan. USAID carried out behavior change campaigns on sanitation and hygiene practices that would help prevent disease transmission. The country’s health statistics have seen some significant improvements according to the preliminary results of the Demographic Health Survey 2016-2017. For example, the total fertility rate of 3.0 continued to trend down, declining 14% from 2012 and 38% from 1994. This is critical to Haiti’s long-term development, as the population and pressure on scarce resources has doubled since 1980. Childhood mortality (deaths between age 1 and 5 per 1,000 live births in the last five years) declined by 23% from 2012 (down from 31.0% in 2012 to 24.0% in 2017). Improvements were observed in the proportion of children who are severely underweight (weight-for-age), which declined by 30% from 2012 levels, from 3% to 2.1% in 2017. CDC provides co-financing for routine childhood vaccinations. |
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Establish disability care to support GOH and civil society capacity to provide care and rehabilitation services for people with disabilities |
Establishment of service centers to provide surgical interventions, mobility aids, physical rehabilitation, psychosocial and social service support, and vocational programs for persons with disabilities. Provision of technical assistance to the MOH, Social Affairs and organizations of disabled people to build capacity in developing clear standards, furthering rights and opportunities, and the enforcement of building codes for accessibility to persons with disabilities. |
No change. |
Through the Spinal Cord Injury project, the USG has strengthened the quality and integration of disability services provided by the Haitian medical system and associated partners. We continue to strengthen referral practices within Haiti for persons with a spinal cord related disability who are in need of clinical care and rehabilitation support. Through the project, the USG has mobilized international medical professionals and project staff to provide fundamental training to enhance local institutions’ and medical professionals’ ability to attend to the needs of persons with a spinal cord injury. The USG has continued to strengthen its mutually beneficial working relationship with three key offices of the Government of Haiti including the Haitian Ministry of Health (MSPP), Ministry of Social Affairs and Work (MAST), and the Secretary of State for the Inclusion of Persons with Handicaps (SEIPH). By means of this coordination, the USG has been able to provide input toward the development of national initiatives aimed at facilitating income generation and social/community inclusion among persons with a disability, and contribute to raising community awareness through ongoing radio sessions, newsletters, and ad-hoc events. |
Through the Spinal Cord Injury project implemented by St. Boniface Hospital in Fonds des Blancs, 446 patients benefited from clinical and/or rehabilitation care. Additionally, the project conducted 8,356 physical therapy sessions for spinal cord injury inpatients. Project beneficiaries self-reported a 65% increase in community reintegration after participation in project community reintegration and mobile clinic services. Handicap International reached 204 children with disabilities through awareness sessions on prevention of HIV, violence and abuse. Fifty one (51) teachers, supervisors, medical and educational staff including IBESR (Institut du Bien être Social et de la Recherche) staff were sensitized through training modules on non-discrimination, protection, detection and care for orphans and vulnerable children including disabled children in the context of HIV. Service Chretien worked with over 600 people with disabilities and trained 250 people (religious leaders, local authorities, members of civil society) on reintegration. Twelve organizations of people with disabilities (DPOs) were trained to ensure people with disabilities know their rights based on the Haitian Constitution, laws and the UN Convention. And a key partner organization successfully engaged the Haitian Parliament to vote on legislation for increased support to disabled persons. USAID also continued to support the Haitian Society for Assistance to Blind Persons (SHAA) to create braille reading materials for blind and visually impaired students. |
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Increase support to the Ministry of Health in strengthening systems and governance |
Strengthen MOH systems for information management, disease surveillance, laboratory testing, procurement, maintenance of health supply chain, management of services, and budgeting; assess opportunities to use technology to improve health system performance; improve and expand the capacity of the existing health workforce; recruit and retain health workers; and develop health financing mechanisms. |
* MOH exercises primary oversight of health service delivery by providing additional USG service delivery through a GOH entity;
* Unified national supply chain and active distribution strategy with a focus on pilot departments and the development corridors;
* Unified and comprehensive platform for data management;
* Integrated MOH budget with GOH and donor funds; and
* A health workforce better aligned to needs. |
*Support for service delivery includes introducing the MOH to results-based financing, enabling accountable MOH governance of future projects. The USG is also providing technical assistance to strengthen the MOH contracting function to ensure the effective implementation of the results-based financing model. * Progress continues towards a unified national supply chain through technical assistance. In January 2016, the plan for the creation of the system (in French, Système National d’Approvisionnement et de Distribution des Intrants de santé (SNADI) was validated by the Health Minister. Based on a USG-funded Supply Chain System Option Analysis, a specific distribution system was selected for the SNADI. The USG is financially supporting the MOH for the hiring and on-the-job training of local consultants who will constitute the SNADI Coordination Unit. This Unit will oversee SNADI implementation and coordinate the management and active distribution of health commodities within the public health sector countrywide. * To improve health data, the USG is supporting a comprehensive information system in the health sector. * USAID has supported the first data quality assessment of the information system used to monitor Haiti’s human resources for health leading to the availability of up-to-date, accurate information that can be used to identify gaps so that evidence-based retention and redistribution policies can be developed to address these issues. *USAID continues to provide leadership, management and governance support to the MOH. USAID is actively engaged in strengthening governance and impact of Global Fund resources in Haiti, one third of which are provided globally by the USG. |
Results-based financing is ongoing within 29 health facilities. To date, two rounds of payments have been made following verification of results and the third quarter payment request is being finalized by the Ministry of Health. With the support of the Health Finance and Governance project, the Ministry of Health finalized the Human Resources for Health (HRH) Situational Analysis, a preliminary step towards the drafting of the HRH Strategy. The updates to the health workforce database that USAID supported in prior performance periods were critical to conducting the Analysis. Strengthening the accreditation system, known as Reconnaissance, continued in the performance period. With the support of the Health Finance and Governance project, the GOH has been completing National Health Accounts for 2013-2014, allowing for a centralized collection and analysis of health data. The GOH also completed the joint costing exercise of the Justinian Hospital to cost its services and is now moving into business planning. This initiative is crucial to the Ministry’s management of key facilities and negotiations with the Executive and Parliament for additional domestic resources for health. However, the development of the Health Finance Strategy has been slowed by the change in administrations within the GOH.
The Leadership Management and Governance (LMG/Haiti) project ended in September 2017; support was transitioned to the Health Finance and Governance project. During the final quarter of the LMG/Haiti project, the project provided technical assistance to the Direction d’Organisation des Services de Santé (DOSS) to continue “Paquet Essentiel de Services” (PES) implementation by initiating the process of estimating pilot costs in three departments and identifying equipment needs within these networks, and to the HIV/TB committee by participating in technical meetings and providing tools to help them better manage the programs, such as templates for field visit reports. Strengthening these basic services will enable more families to receive appropriate care in their communities and decrease the burden on already over-taxed and more costly tertiary care facilities. LMG also assisted the Unité de Coordination des Programmes (UCP) Executive Directorate to draft the preface for the coordination manual and obtain the Minister’s signature. The project printed 200 copies of the finalized manual and gave them to the UCP for distribution and use with their staff and partners. USAID is actively engaged in strengthening governance and impact of Global Fund resources in Haiti, one third of which are provided globally by the USG. LMG/Haiti supported the Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM-Haiti) and the Principal Recipient (PR) to complete the first phase of the 2018-2020 HIV/TB grant making cycle by providing technical assistance to develop all programmatic and budgetary details for the funding request, respond to requests for clarification from the Global Fund Secretariat, and reach agreement with the Global Fund Secretariat on the final grant budget.
*Two years ago, USAID successfully consolidated its supply chain operations for HIV/AIDS and family planning, which were formerly managed by two different implementing partners. In addition, the distribution activities were sub-contracted to three local Haitian private sector organizations (“third party logistics” or 3PL). This warehousing consolidation and outsourced distribution are more efficient and cost effective. Lessons learned from the restructuring were presented to the MOH and interested partners as a model for the future integration of all existing supply chains for health commodities, a milestone in the creation of a national system for the GOH. In 2016, in the context of reinforcing the national supply chain system, USG consolidated its warehousing and distribution operations with the new Global Fund Principal Recipient for HIV/AIDS. This year, further supply chain integration is being sought with the GF-funded Tuberculosis and Malaria programs as well as UNFPA. *With USAID support, the MOH will continue to expand the Unique National Health Information System (SISNU) platform to all health facilities and covering almost aspect of the routine health statistics. An emphasis is currently being placed on the data quality and completeness ensuring that MOH has a more complete view of the status of the health facilities and clients frequenting the health systems. This includes integration of data from the community level for key areas of the portfolio, beginning with immunization and tuberculosis, into the SISNU platform.* CDC supported the MOH to establish a National Sentinel Site Surveillance (NSSS) system in 51 sites in 2010 to monitor disease trends and detect outbreaks. Since 2010, NSSS (now NESN, National Epidemiologic Surveillance Network) has expanded to 645 sites (out of approximately 1050 health facilities across the country) and produces weekly reports on the number of cases for 47 conditions, 14 of which are immediately reportable. There are ongoing efforts to improve the functioning of this system by improving software platforms and refining case definitions. In addition, CDC continues to provide technical assistance to the Directorate of Epidemiology, Laboratory, and Research (DELR) as they implement a phased expansion of NESN to include all health facilities within the surveillance system.
* Since 2011, CDC Haiti has worked with the GOH to increase the capacity of the local public health workforce through the Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP). Before the introduction of the FETP, there was no formal training in public health or epidemiology in Haiti. FETP builds the skills of the MOH staff to better prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease threats. To date, over 300 FETP residents have graduated and remain in careers with the Ministry of Health — including 181 basic-level residents, 50 frontline residents, 86 intermediate-level residents, and five advanced-level residents. Overall, the graduates continue to reinforce the country’s public health system through their activities and services to the MOH. Currently, three out of ten Regional Health Directors in Haiti are FETP graduates.
* CDC works closely with the National Public Health Laboratory (LNSP) to build and expand laboratory capacity in Haiti. Diagnostic capacity for TB and MDR-TB continues to grow — additional GeneXpert sites were operationalized in 2017, bringing the current number of sites to 28, and the rollout of fluorescence microscopy (FM) has steadily increased from six sites at the beginning of FY14 to 55 sites today. LNSP has assumed training and management of the GeneXpert and FM networks from international NGOs. The National Specimen Referral Network (NSRN), which transports specimen collected from the ten departments to LNSP for testing, has expanded to 208 sites across all ten departments and includes PRESEPI (a laboratory-enhanced surveillance system) samples, sputum samples for GeneXpert testing, and dried blood spot samples for viral load testing. |
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Rebuild and reform management of public health infrastructure |
Renovate earthquake-damaged structures in the PaP metropolitan area as well as filling critical facility gaps within communal referral networks in the development corridors. |
No change. |
*Construction of the pediatric ward of Justinien hospital is complete and has been transferred to the GOH. *Work on the National Campus of Health Sciences is substantially complete and has been officially transferred to the GOH. *Construction at The State University Hospital (HUEH) is underway. As of September 30, 2017, the project was about 75% complete. The earliest expected end date is mid-2018. |
*Construction of the pediatric ward of Justinien hospital is complete and has been transferred to the GOH. *Work on the National Campus of Health Sciences is substantially complete and has been officially transferred to the GOH. *Construction at The State University Hospital (HUEH) is underway. As of September 30, 2017, the project was about 75% complete. The earliest expected end date is mid-2018. *A total of nine health clinic facilities and nine schools (3 in FY17, 6 in previous FYs) have been renovated to provide better health care and universal access for disabled people. *Surveys were completed on 29 medical clinics, the design documents were also completed for eleven medical clinics and the 12th (Hinche Multi Drug Resistant Tuberculosis Medical Facility – MDRTB) will be completed in the winter of 2017. *The construction contract to renovate eleven Hurricane-damaged clinics and Hinche MDRTB will be awarded late 2017 or early 2018. |
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Priority 2: Education and Youth-Focused Services |
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Improve the GOH’s capacity to plan, coordinate, regulate, and deliver quality education services. |
Build GOH capacity and establish standards in the areas of school licensing and in-service teacher training, including through technical assistance to the Ministry of Education (MOE). |
Provide technical assistance to build the capacity of the Ministry of Education to foster public-private partnerships and to assist in the licensing and accreditation of schools. |
USAID will assist the MOE with co-design of an evidence-based, bilingual (Creole and French), scripted early grade reading and writing curriculum for grades one through four, suitable for lesser-trained teachers to successfully implement. The program will also assist with in-service training for teachers and other educational personnel to implement these new materials and ongoing coaching to improve teacher skills. Many other donor programs and non-public school networks have expressed strong interest in adopting this approach and classroom materials, based on initial assessments of reading progress among children. Once approved by the MOE, those other school networks are expected to roll out these materials to hundreds more schools across Haiti (mostly using their own funds), greatly multiplying the reach of USG resources. |
The early grade reading program is implemented through a combination of strategically selected “bridge” activities until the next longer-term USAID project is designed and launched. Implementers were selected for their technical strengths and ability to leverage strong working relationships with the government of Haiti. USAID has completed co-design of grade one classroom materials in close collaboration with the MOE and has begun work on the grade two curriculum. These materials are strongly evidence-based, bilingual (Creole and French), scripted early grade reading and writing curriculum for grades one through four, suitable for Haiti’s majority lesser-trained teachers to successfully implement. USAID will directly support material distribution and teacher and staff training and ongoing coaching in roughly 430 schools. Initial assessments of student progress in reading show that these materials are highly effective in Haiti, and several other donors and school networks have already begun using earlier versions of grade one materials and plan to reproduce and implement the newly revised curriculum this school year. USAID is also working to strengthen the capacity of the MOE to design and roll out curriculum materials and better supervise teachers on its own. |
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Facilitate public private partnerships to support offers of assistance for education and youth-focused projects |
To create connections for private entities interested in working in or funding education projects in Haiti through the use of tools such as the Global Development Alliance (PPP Seed Money). |
Provide more than 28,000 children and 900 teachers with innovative reading curricula that meet international standards for literacy instruction. |
USAID has established a GDA in partnership with the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and Porticus through the University of Notre Dame, engaging USAID funds as well as $6M in private resources. This partnership brings to bear the excellent academic and research capabilities of Notre Dame to validate the technical effectiveness of the scripted lesson approach to reading in the Haiti context, as well as direct implementation and monitoring of the roll-out of these materials in the network of Catholic schools across Haiti. These organizations have also raised interest among other potential private partners to co-finance early grade reading education in Haiti. |
USAID has established a GDA in partnership with the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and Porticus through the University of Notre Dame, engaging USAID funds as well as $6M in private resources. This alliance supports overall, 360 schools to utilize the early grade reading and writing curriculum co-designed by the MOE and USAID, and trains teachers and school personnel in the use of this curriculum. The alliance provides in-classroom coaching services to teachers implementing the curriculum, and provides for classroom libraries and training in differentiated instructional techniques using the libraries. USAID’s investment directly supports 160 of the 360 partner schools. Knowledge, resources, and best practices are shared across all GDA partners in the areas of curriculum implementation, teacher training and coaching, socio-emotional learning, community engagement, remedial instruction, and student performance. To date, this program has reached 21,431 children and 438 teachers. |
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Increase provision of complementary youth-focused services in targeted communities within the development corridors. |
Build on post-disaster classroom construction efforts to Non-formal basic education for out-of-school youth |
Objective 3 as envisioned in the USG Strategy is not being implemented under the Education program. Workforce development activities will be funded within Pillar B: Economic Security. |
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Objective 3 as envisioned in the USG Strategy is not being implemented under the Education program. Workforce development activities will be funded within Pillar B: Economic Security.. |
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PILLAR D: Governance and Rule of Law |
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Priority 1: Governance |
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Support Credible Electoral and Legislative Processes |
* Provide long-term technical assistance to electoral institutions, and build capacity for civic education and electoral observation;
* Provide support to Parliament to represent constituent interests, oversee GOH reconstruction efforts, and draft and enact reform legislation. |
* Permanent electoral council operational and able to execute elections with minimal international assistance;
* Electoral results returned faster and more accurately;
* Greater % of elections expenses funded by GOH;
* Parliament capable of operating transparently, according to set procedures and within budgetary limits;
* Increased level of ongoing dialogue with citizens maintained;
* Increased % of reform legislation passed. |
* The 1987 constitution introduced Haiti’s electoral administration system which mandated that transitional elections be administered by a provisional council until a permanent electoral council (CEP) could be established. Three decades later, Haiti has seen some 20 provisional CEPs come and go. Absent a permanent elections council, the GOH did name another Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) in March 2016, which successfully held long overdue Presidential and Parliamentary elections in November 2016 and January 2017, respectively. In mid-2017, each of the three branches of Haiti’s national government – Executive, Legislative, and Judicial – began the process of nominating members to the country’s first permanent CEP. As of November 2017, the nominating process is still on-going, so the 2016 provisional CEP continues in place.
Ongoing programs are working to build greater confidence in the electoral process by supporting Haitian-led efforts to strengthen electoral institutions, political parties, and civil society to advocate for and institute much-needed electoral and political reforms. |
* Haiti finally passed two important milestones, holding a series of credible elections in November 2016 and January 2017 that allowed a newly elected President and one-third of the Senate and more that 5,000 local government officials to be seated in early 2017. The elections brought to an end the electoral gridlock that had lasted for years, during which citizens grew weary of repeated electoral crises and sometimes violent demonstrations.
* The United States contributed more than $36M for Haiti’s most recent extended elections cycle (August 2015 – January 2017), predominantly to support operations and logistics. Of this amount, over $33M was programmed by USAID and was used to: provide technical assistance to Haitian electoral institutions; support election observations; build capacity for political parties and civic education; and support election process logistics and security. With USAID support: more than 200 election officials received training to strengthen their ability to effectively manage the electoral process; a civil society coalition deployed over 1,500 domestic observers for each round of elections; nearly 5.6M individuals received civic and voter education training.
* The current Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) made strides during the latest set of elections to improve the transparency and effectiveness of the process, and observers noted improved organization from poll workers. The elections also saw relatively few incidences of violence or voter intimidation. Haitian analysts view CEP’s management of the recent elections as the most transparent and effective in years. Critics who alleged the “massive fraud” that fatally discredited the October 2015 presidential elections have endorsed or at least agreed in principle that the 2016 process was acceptable. CEP leaders have also expressed interest in moving electoral reforms, including establishing a permanent electoral council, by mobilizing popular support, educating key political decision-makers, and contributing to legislative reform proposals. Still, the current CEP faces significant obstacles in building its technical capacity and overcoming a pervasive lack of trust in elections. Despite the procedural success of the vote, only 10% of eligible voters cast ballots in the final presidential race, suggesting widespread disillusionment with the country’s institutions and leaders and highlighting the deep challenges facing Haiti’s fragile democracy.
* The recent elections also underscored the weakness and fragmentation of Haitian political parties, as evidenced by the dozens of presidential candidates who ran in the failed 2015 elections and the 2016 repeat of presidential elections. Many parties lack a grassroots base and youth and women generally participate only marginally. Despite the 30% constitutional quota, only four of 121 seats in the parliament are held by women, a decrease from the previous legislature. Fragmentation has also created parties that lack clear ideologies or policy platforms. Moreover, candidates are often self-financed and have weak or no party loyalties once elected. |
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Strengthen Public Administration and Financial Accountability |
* Provide technical assistance, staff, training and capacity building to key GOH institutions;
* Create a Fellows Program to contribute to transparent, effective public administration in key GOH Ministries. |
* Financial Management Systems functioning across 41 GOH entities and expanding to regional and municipal levels, with at least 50% of GOH revenues and expenditures tracked by the system.
* Improvement in World Bank Effectiveness and Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index scores.
* GOH financial management systems meet USG direct funding qualifications.
* Targeted GOH institutions demonstrate improved capacity to plan, strategize and measure results of operations.
* Information-based tax administration increases domestic tax revenue by 3% of GDP.
*Support efforts to raise the low revenue productivity of the tax system by procurement of an integrated tax administration IT system, promotion of voluntary compliance, and improved capability in taxpayer audit.
*Support the development of strengthened budget process and Treasury Single Account.
* Assist in developing legal and regulatory framework for effective insurance sector oversight.
* Improve MEF’s ability to manage its cash and debt issuance needs. |
*As of November 2014, the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) activity was being used in 48 offices throughout the Government of Haiti, primarily at the ministerial level in Port-au-Prince. A new IFMS activity involving installation of an interface to allow connectivity between the GOH revenue and expenditures systems and expansion to regional and municipal levels was awarded in September 2014. *USAID supports the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) to improve public financial management, procurement systems, access controls, and file management for its internal network, which is used by more than 300 MEF employees.
* USAID supports the Office of Management and Human Resources (OMRH) to improve technical expertise and human resource management within national government ministries and agencies.
* Haiti’s score on TI’s Corruption Perception Index improved slightly from 2011 to 2016 from a score of 18 to 20, and from a rank of 175th to 159th worldwide. Haiti’s score on the World Bank’s governance indicators similarly saw a slight improvement over five of six key governance indicators over that time frame; the index of government effectiveness, however, declined after 2013.
*The Large Taxpayer Office implemented an audit plan resulting in increased audit assessments. *From October 2016 through March 2017, the General Directorate of Taxes increased its revenue collections by 10.7% over the same six-month period in the previous year, equivalent to approximately US$25 million.
* Haiti made progress toward implementing a Treasury Single Account by identifying and closing bank accounts (in process) under the control of the Treasury, creating a database for all TSA accounts, and developing a TSA banking structure for implementation by the Bank of the Republic of Haiti (BRH). Further progress is impeded by BRH banking system inadequacies and inability to acquire prior actual data from BRH for cash flow projections.
* Preliminary work has been completed with respect to the establishment of a basic regulatory and prudential framework for insurance sector oversight, but legislation needs to be enacted detailing MEF’s oversight responsibilities and providing the legal basis for the establishment of the new Supervisory Agency for Insurance. In the interim, progress has been made on capacity building and training of newly hired staff.
*The Debt Department is nearly staffed, staff assignments and responsibilities are in place, and a Debt Department procedures manual has been drafted. The BRH has reduced its issuance by more than 50% to accommodate MEF issues. |
* In 2017, the USAID funded IFMS project completed the renovation of the Ministry of Finance (MEF) Network Operation Center (NOC) and equipped it with state of the art servers; repaired 20 IFMS network sites and started installing new communication equipment; developed two Unified Exchange Platform (UXP) web services for five institutions to allow for the exchange of information more efficiently and securely; connected ten municipalities’ tax collection operations with the central Tax Authority Office (DGI) office; connected two regional Supreme Audit Institutions (CSCCA) offices with the DGI central office to facilitate the audit of municipal finances; provided IT equipment to thirteen regional DGI sites to connect them to the central office; and developed new functionalities for the Human Resources Management System (SIGRH) including the on-boarding of new civil servants, monthly affirmation, career management, and a payroll interface with the Treasury.
*USAID supported OMRH to develop human resource management tools, including a computer database to keep track of government employees and their movements within Civil Service, a recruitment guide for the government of Haiti to ensure the transparent recruitment of highly-qualified civil servants, a recruitment platform for the GOH, and a finger print time and attendance system at the OMRH. During the fourth quarter of FY 2017, in line with the Government of Haiti’s (GOH) new roadmap and envisioned results, USAID’s KONEKTE project continued to support activities related to the GOH’s objectives including the extension of contracts for certain KONEKTE supported Technical Advisors’(TAs’). This assistance was tailored to reinforce the OMRH, selected GOH Ministries, and Public-Sector Organizations’ capacities to effectively carry out their current mandates. |
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Improving Local Governance Capacity |
* Provide technical assistance to support local government planning, budgeting and management capacity.
* Develop synergies between existing long-term USAID local government programs and community stabilization projects implemented by USAID/OTI. |
* Increased levels of citizen confidence in local government within the development corridors.
* Emergence of capable local governments that sustainably collect increased tax revenue and re-invest those funds in citizen-prioritized public services.
* Local governments demonstrate improved disaster planning.
* Legislative framework for decentralization drafted, passed and implementation begun. |
* USAID continued support to the GOH to deliver services to citizens, as well as the ability of local governments to generate revenue.
* USAID and the Department of Defense have worked closely with the Civil Protection Directorate (DPC)—to build capacity of the network of departmental and municipal emergency committees through training and technical assistance, provision of equipment, and related interventions. The DPC now better performs its coordination role at both central and departmental levels. Ten SOUTHCOM-constructed Emergency Operation Centers (EOC) (one in each Department) were completed during FY 2013 and transferred to the DPC, or will be completed soon.
* Since FY 2011, USG-supported disaster simulation exercises took place in several departments and Port-au-Prince annually, reinforcing disaster response capacity in preparation for hurricane seasons. The USG supports GOH partners and donors to continue to test and improve response capacity at the national, departmental, and communal levels. Thirty-two communities in FY 2013 were fitted with Early Warning systems linked to a response system in place as a result of USG assistance. |
Through its governance activity, LOKAL+, USAID helped increase transparency, oversight, and accountability of local government offices by strengthening the capacity of nine target municipalities. LOKAL+ helped increase local tax collection through property surveys of small and medium enterprises, training of fiscal services personnel in the partner communes, and communication campaigns. In addition, LOKAL+ worked to increase local and central government coordination, and the Ministry of Interior is now capable, through a task force of 19 people, to install the innovative tax and budget management software CIVITAX in local governments. LOKAL+ also initiated a study to assess the number of communes that can increase revenue from fees, permits and license, as well as strengthen civil society in six targeted municipalities through consultative committees. These committees hold local governments accountable through public hearings on the allocation of local revenues, the prioritization and implementation of community projects, and the presentation of the municipal budget and plans.
*With USAID assistance, nine targeted municipalities conducted tax censuses and launched a “Pay Your Taxes” public information campaign. As a result, the municipalities collected a total of 652,042,037 Haitian gourdes from October 1, 2016 – August 31, 2017, which represents a 28% increase from the revenues collected during the previous fiscal year.
* In spite of these achievements, municipalities faced significant challenges. As FY 2016 began without a functioning Haitian parliament, Haiti’s national budget was passed by presidential decree. Provisions included two articles that negatively impacted revenue collection from the two principal taxes upon which Haiti’s communes largely depend: the business tax and the property tax. Both articles in the decree were included without consultation with the Tax Authority (DGI in French). In 2017, the first two meetings between Members of Parliament (MPs) and mayors (held the last day of June and the first day of July), as well as regular LOKAL+ contact with individual parliamentarians, have together begun to improve the understanding of the different roles mayors and MPs play. There is now a growing percentage of MPs who recognize that as decentralization advances development in Haiti, there will be ample opportunity to reap political credit for the change. With the emergent political will that LOKAL+ is helping to evoke, the project is facing an unprecedented window of opportunity. A decentralization framework law and a law creating a local Civil Service are currently on this year’s legislative agenda. |
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Priority 2: Rule of Law |
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Strengthen judicial independence and operational capacity of the courts |
* Support with other donors the rebuilding and supply of equipment to the Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJPS) and courts;
* Support the re-implementation of manual case registry systems;* Support with other donors the development of civil registries and a national criminal database, and training to implement the system. |
* Rebuild Ministry of Justice and Public Security offices, and Haitian judicial system functions efficiently and independently over time;
* Train judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and other justice sector personnel on using the new criminal codes, once passed;
* Maintain and expand existing legal aid centers to new localities;
* Reduce the average number of days for a case to go to trial;
* Reduce pretrial detention in targeted jurisdictions by 20%;
* Increase the number of land tenure cases resolved through the court system;
* Increased citizen confidence in the criminal and civil justice systems as measured by public opinion surveys. |
* Through its Rule of Law program, USAID continued to support the High Judicial Council (CSPJ), which administers, controls, and disciplines the court system, including vetting and assigning judges. CSPJ also monitors judicial corruption, defines standards of conduct, and penalizes judges who are not in compliance. USAID’s assistance was provided to the CSPJ’s Vetting Commission through an embedded adviser and the logistical support to help conduct on-site vetting missions in selected jurisdictions. As a result, the vetting commission was able to investigate 52 files that were submitted to the CSPJ for final review and vetting. USAID also supported the first electronic case management system in the court and prosecutor’s office of Cap Haitian, which will enable more transparent processing of criminal cases by allowing judicial officers to track the status of pending cases and will enable better oversight of movement or lack of movement on cases, which might be related to alleged bribery or other corruption. *With technical support from USAID, final drafts of the new criminal procedure code and penal code were submitted to the Council of Ministers in 2012, and with continued USG support, revised code drafts were completed in February 2016. In April 2017, the Ministry of Justice presented the draft codes to Parliament, where the codes are now under review by the Senate Justice Committee before coming up for a vote in both Chambers. The new President, Jovenel Moise, has stated his support for their approval by parliament. In August 2017, the USAID-funded Judicial Sector Strengthening Project (JSSP) provided assistance to the Professional Association of Judges (APM) for a workshop to provide judges from around the country an opportunity to provide comments on the draft penal code and draft penal procedural code, which are still before Parliament.
USAID also continued its support to the CSPJ through technical and logistical support to the CSPJ’s Judicial Inspection Unit (JIU). This support enabled the JIU to conduct two disciplinary inspections, two routine inspections, and courtesy visits to eight District Courts. This effort will be continued and institutionalized so that it is sustained over time. Moreover, in FY2017 USAID’s technical assistance to the MOJ led to the adoption of the draft Council of Ministers bill on legal assistance and the vote of that bill by the Senate a few months later. That legal assistance bill defines a GoH legal aid system similar to a public defender’s office to help provide free legal assistance to people who can’t afford the high cost of legal services. * INL assistance enhanced oversight and professionalization of Haiti’s justice sector through a grant program intended to support and bolster a Judicial Inspection Unit to ensure proper oversight of judges. INL completed a partially-existing security wall around the Magistrate’s School, Haiti’s training facility for judges. This grant ended on March 31, 2017.
* INL awarded a grant to support the Judicial Inspection Unit (JIU) within the CSPJ, which is responsible for overseeing judges and addressing their misconduct. The project increased the transparency, quality, and number of adjudicated cases in Haiti by holding judges accountable for their professional conduct, integrity, and quality of work. The grant ended on March 31, 2017.
• An ongoing INL program provides cross-sector training to the police and justice sector actors on basic and specialized skills, including evidence collection, proper investigative techniques, reporting, case preparation, sexual- and gender-based violence, trafficking in persons, kidnapping, anti-corruption, and money laundering. INL has trained more than 2,259 justice sector actors since the earthquake. |
* Prolonged pre-trial detention and severe overcrowding in inadequate facilities have created a human rights problem for Haitian prison inmates. In FY 2016 in the justice sector, the USAID-funded project continued to support local judicial authorities to reduce illegal and prolonged pretrial detention at the Pétionville Women’s Prison, the National Prison, and the prisons of Croix des Bouquets, St. Marc, Cap Haitien, and Fort Liberté. These prisons saw a reduction in the level of illegal pre-trial detention due to improved capacity to review and prioritize cases, to procedurally advance cases, to obtain the release of illegally detained individuals before trial, and to achieve the release of convicted detainees held illegally beyond their court-ordered release dates. In FY2017 USAID supported special intensive hearings at the Port-au-Prince District Court in conjunction with the new Minister of Justice’s “Prevention of Pre-Trial Detention Plan”. Through that initiative, 130 detainees who were in prolonged pre-trial detention were convicted, 51 were acquitted, including one individual detained since 2006 (129 months), 132 were released (without a trial, following assistance at the police station or at the Peace Court), and the cases of 172 others were moved toward final disposition. The average time spent in pretrial detention for these individuals is 57 months (4.7 years). USAID also provided a sub-grant to the Federation of Haitian Bar Associations to support a special legal assistance program in areas affected by Hurricane Matthew. The grant enables citizens to obtain or replace civic registry documents such as national identification cards, birth and death certificates, and land property titles. During this reporting period 1,872 (884 men/988 women) beneficiaries have requested assistance through this special program.
*Alongside the important support USAID provided to judicial actors to improve legal services to prisoners, USAID’s Health through Walls (HTW) activity provided lifesaving health services to prisoners in the National Penitentiary, the Women’s prison, and the prisons of Cap Haitian, Central Plateau and the Les Cayes. HTW supported voluntary HIV counseling, testing, care and treatment; tuberculosis screenings; and training and support for peer education on health promotion and sanitation practices. In FY 2016, the program tested over 20,821 prisoners and families of prisoners for HIV/AIDS, resulting in the treatment of more than 700 prisoners for HIV/AIDS, as well as the detection and treatment of seven cases of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).
* The period of performance for the Judicial Inspection Unit (JIU)-related project grant ended on 3/31/17. The program implemented the following key activities from its inception in 2013 until March 2017: (a) provided extensive assistance to the High Judicial Council (CSPJ) towards the establishment of a functional and sustainable Judicial Inspection Unit (JIU); (b) helped draft a code of ethics for the judiciary; (c) helped design all of the inspection toolkits that the JIU needed to conduct inspection visits; (d) trained eleven inspectors through the program; (e) provided on-site mentoring to inspectors during inspection missions and supported the JIU with a total of 10 routine inspections and two follow-up inspections across the country; and (f) provided material support to the JIU with the purchase of equipment for all JIU members.
* The project grant that provided cross-sector training to police and justice sector actors ended on 3/31/17. The program implemented the following key activities from March 2011 until March 2017: (a) conducted a total of 74 trainings for a total of 3,442 participants over the life of the program, (b) supported ongoing code reforms by working with key stakeholders in socializing, gathering feedback, providing comparative examples, ultimately updating and finalizing drafts of new penal and penal procedure codes; (c) created and supported three specialized mentoring groups on TIP, Financial crimes and pre-trial detention leading to the first ever conviction in a corruption case as well as first ever TIP conviction in Haiti; (d) created a pilot program to decrease pretrial detention in the Petionville and Delmas police stations and decreased pretrial detention by 95% and 90%; (e) helped the Ministry of Justice and Public Security improve its oversight capacity. |
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Enhance the efficiency of the criminal justice system |
* Support the implementation of reformed criminal and procedure codes, contingent upon meaningful GOH justice sector reform;
* Support citizen access to legal services through support for legal assistance centers for low-income and marginalized communities. |
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Enhance the efficiency of the civil justice system |
* Support GOH to improve access to key civil justice services for most vulnerable populations;
* Support efforts to resolve land tenure disputes. |
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Increase protection of human rights and vulnerable persons |
* Partner with GOH and civil society organizations to provide for procedures and capacity to protect vulnerable populations and civil liberties. * Support human rights training for GOH law enforcement and justice sector agencies and personnel. * Support the development and implementation of human rights monitoring and tracking systems, assistance to victims of abuse, and reformed legal frameworks. * Train and support the Haitian National Police’s Minors Protection Brigade. * Support mechanisms to report abuses and public information campaigns on prevention of violence against vulnerable populations. * Support projects that strengthen GOH capacity to identify and respond to human trafficking. |
* Reduce the number of children being sent from target areas to become restaveks and increase public awareness of the plight of restavek children and the number who are rescued. * Increase capacity of law enforcement officials to investigate and prosecute human trafficking cases. * Reduce the number of at risk children and youth who participate in organized crime. * Increased citizen confidence in human rights institutions and protections as measured by Americas Barometer. * Enable the Haitian National Police’s Minors Protection Brigade to cover more than 50% of Haiti’s population. * Expand network of vulnerable population service providers that offer services in major development corridors of the country. * GOH ratifies international protocols on trafficking and child protection and creates a framework for their practical implementation to reduce trafficking and protect vulnerable populations. |
* Ensuring the meaningful participation and protection of women and girls in Haiti is critical to achieving long-term development objectives. The 2010 earthquake exposed and exacerbated vulnerabilities among many segments of the Haitian population particularly for women, children, and youth. In a context defined by government incapacity and limited resources, the threat of forced labor, sexual exploitation, gender-based violence and other forms of abuse increases for at-risk women, children, and youth. To date, the GOH has been unable to respond adequately to these threats. * While the GOH has signed a number of international human rights conventions aimed at combating these forms of abuse, and has also criminalized rape and sexual assault through a 2005 amendment to the criminal code, the ability to enforce such conventions and laws remains limited, due to the absence of implementing regulations and policy and limited government capacity. * The disability law passed in 2012 caused the GOH to evaluate and close orphanages not meeting minimum care standards; a compilation of laws related to protection of minors was published; and a hotline to report abuse or trafficking of minors was created. USAID has supported several trainings for various actors including judges, social agents from IBESR and the Ministry of women conditions on the application of the 2012 law. Also IBESR has developed an interim care guidelines for handicapped children in residential care centers. USAID welcomes the fact that the the State Secretary for integration of Disabled people was reappointed by the new government. His dynamism and leadership are key to the sector. * In FY 2013, the USG worked with GOH law enforcement officials through modules addressing gender-based violence (GBV) included in the USG’s training program for HNP and judiciary personnel, and prioritization recruitment of female police cadets in INL’s HNP training programs and funded overseas training for ten female cadets. * Public trust in the Haitian National Police (HNP) registered a small but significant increase from 2010 to 2012 (America’s Barometer), from 51.5% to 55.2%. Thirty-eight HNP officers graduated from Community Policing pilot training, instructed by NYPD mentors, and the HNP community policing unit has grown to more than 80 officers. This technique has enabled the HNP to form better relations with local communities. * In August 2014, the GOH enacted Haiti’s first legislation specifically outlawing trafficking in persons. The Department of State trained judicial personnel on trafficking issues and provided technical expertise to the parliamentary staff drafting the law. • INL funded the participation of two HNP curriculum developers in the International Police and Education and Training Program (IPET) on improving Police Response to Crimes Against Marginalized Groups. Working with the International Association of Chiefs of Police, mentors from Washington, DC Metro Police and Miami Beach Police Department, the HNP developed a new training curriculum to raise awareness among cadets about the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender community and protection of human rights. The HNP delivered the training module to approximately 1000 recruits at the police academy. The new curriculum has been incorporated into basic training for all HNP school classes. *INL assistance supported an embedded mentor in the HNP’s Women’s Affairs department on combatting gender-based violence. |
The Haitian government and international community made limited progress in addressing human rights in 2017. Political stalemates, resource constraints, and weak government institutions continued to hinder GOH efforts to meet the basic needs of its people and address long-standing huma rights problems. Conditions of extreme vulnerability persist among many citizens, especially women, children; the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community; and persons with disabilities. A number of USAID-funded activities supported awareness raising and advocacy on human rights issues, including improving protection of vulnerable populations targeting civil society organizations and marginalized populations. * Haiti’s primary challenge associated with the protection of children in adversity is overcoming a legacy of ineffective legal institutions with inadequate resources and a disregard for protection of the most vulnerable. In FY 2017, the U.S. Government (USG) continued to support activities that contributed to advancing the implementation of the USG Action Plan for Children in Adversity (APCA) in Haiti. However, state institutions, international partners, and local organizations involved in child protection continue to face a severe lack of resources and inadequate capacity to establish proper prevention and response mechanisms to address the needs of Haiti’s most vulnerable children. To help reduce pretrial detention and prison overcrowding in FY2017 USAID supported a series of special intensive hearings at the Port-au-Prince District Court in conjunction with the new Minister of Justice’s “Prevention of Pre-Trial Detention Plan”. Through that initiative, 130 detainees who were in prolonged pre-trial detention were convicted, 51 were acquitted, including one individual detained since 2006 (129 months), 132 were released (without a trial, following assistance at the police station or at the Peace Court), and the cases of 172 others were moved toward final disposition. The average time spent in pretrial detention for these individuals is 57 months (4.7 years). Unfortunately this activity could not achieve more results due to the various strikes in the justice system. These judicial strikes started since July 2017 and have yet stopped as this report is being written. USAID also provided a sub-grant to the Federation of Haitian Bar Associations to support a special legal assistance program in areas affected by Hurricane Matthew. The grant enables citizens to obtain or replace civic registry documents such as national identification cards, birth and death certificates, and land property titles. In FY2017 1,872 (884 men/988 women) beneficiaries have requested assistance through this special program. * In an effort to address APCA’s Objective 4, ‘Strengthen Child Welfare and Protection Systems’ and Objective 5, ‘Promote Evidence-based Policies and Programs’, in 2016 USAID awarded support for an innovative three-year Alliance for the Protection of Children (APC) project implemented by American Institutes for Research (AIR). The project supports implementation of the Haitian National Child Protection Strategy (SNPE) and works in partnership with the Haitian government child welfare agency the Institut du Bien-Être Social et de Recherches (IBESR). It also works closely with key local partners, including the Université d’Etat d’Haiti (UEH), Zanmi Lasante, Combite pour la paix et le développement, and Restavek Freedom, other government ministries, strategic United Nations agencies such as UNICEF and UNHCR, and community-based and local non-governmental organizations in Haiti. The project will advance child protection to reduce violence against children, mitigate trafficking and forced labor of children, protect unaccompanied and separated migrants, stateless and refugee children, integrate street children into safer learning and care spaces, and prevent the separation of children from their families and explore alternative care and protection services. * USAID supported the local organization Initiative for Equitable Development in Haiti (IDEH) to help LGBT organizations to better advocate for and assert their rights, including building awareness of the various forms of sexual and gender-based violence and developing support mechanisms for survivors. IDEH implements activities to promote women’s rights and empowerment and advance the rights of sexual minorities, including training on gender discrimination and sexual harassment. Through an INL developed police school curriculum, Haitian police cadets continued to receive specific instruction on LGBTI issues, hate crimes, and the protection of vulnerable populations |
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Renovate the Corrections Sector |
Build and refurbish correction facilities |
No Changes |
• INL assistance supported the award of construction contracts to build three new prison facilities to contribute to a reduction in overcrowding and resultant security and disease threats to detainees.
• INL funds supported equipment and training for Haitian prison personnel to more effectively manage prisons, vocational training for some of the inmate population, and supported an embedded mentor with the Director of HNP Corrections (DAP). |
INL is supporting the GOH’s efforts to create a more humane and efficient correctional system. To alleviate overcrowding, INL completed construction of new facilities in Cabaret and Fort Liberte, and were turned over to the Haitian government in FY16. INL is completing a prison in Petit-Goave and it will be turned over to the Haitian Government in 2017. INL completed a prison in Hinche jointly with the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS). INL is working with the HNP to increase the number of officers assigned to the Prison Service. The HNP’s leadership has committed to assigning 10% of the graduating officers from each promotion to the Prison Service. Nearly 50 Department of Prison Administration (DAP) officers visited the U.S. on INL-supported training with the Maryland Corrections Department, receiving instruction on defensive tactics, transportation of prisoners, and disturbance control. Learning from prison escapes in 2013 and 2014, INL will work with MINUJUSTH and other donors to address weaknesses in the prisons through enhanced training and mentoring of DAP officers. INL continued to provide an embedded expert with the head of the corrections department (DAP). INL completed a 300-bed prison in Fort Liberte in August 2016 and will finish construction of the prison at Petit Goave in 2017. INL completed a prison in Hinche jointly with the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS). INL continued to provide an embedded expert with the head of the corrections department (DAP). |
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Develop a sustainable HNP |
Provide assistance to GOH’s HNP in training, communication systems, forensic equipment, computers, police equipment, boats, and other vehicles. Support rebuilding the Haitian Coast Guard via maintaining and sustaining the capacity of its fleet and personnel to carry out its core missions of maritime interdiction and security operations while disrupting the flow of illegal drugs to the US. |
No Changes |
• INL assistance supported the HNP’s recruitment, selection, and training of qualified officers, and growth in the Police Academy’s incoming cadet classes. Since the earthquake, INL has supported the training of 5,713 new police officers, 556 of them female. The School’s 27th promotion graduated in March 2017, bringing the number of HNP officers to over 14,600 officers.
• INL funds supported the development of specialized units including forensics and anti-kidnapping, embedded mentors to strengthen the offices of the Director General and Inspector General, and an expert within the HNP to combat Gender Based Violence.
• INL assistance provided training and subject matter expert advisors to support development of management, administrative, and logistics functions within the HNP.
• INL, partnered with the New York Police Department, developed a community policing program that has grown to more than 100 officers.
• INL completed construction of the presidential security barracks and six police stations. INL awarded a contract for the refurbishment of the HNP Academy to accommodate and sustain larger recruitment classes with additional toilets, classrooms, a kitchen, and a power plant.
• INL assistance supported a high of 100 police officer advisors and ten corrections advisors to MINUSTAH until its departure from Haiti in October 2017. INL now supports five police officer advisors and one correction advisor in the MINUJUSTH mission. U.S. officers provided expertise in the areas of academy training, field training, patrols, community policing, investigations, traffic, crime analysis, forensics, police management, supervisory skills, police administration, and other specialized skills. |
INL acted as the Mission’s overall lead for coordinating the training, equipping, and overall development of the Haitian National Police. In terms of infrastructure, INL completed the construction of three HNP Commissariats and initiated new projects, including major improvements to the HNP Cadet School. INL also continued to support the police’s recruitment efforts by providing food supplements and supplies to cadets at the school and financing medical exams for upcoming training classes. These efforts are crucial to maintaining law and order in Haiti, now that the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) has departed and been replaced by the smaller United Nations for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH). These investments will help the HNP reach its goal of 15,000 officers by the end of 2017, as expressed in its five-year development plan. Intensive training increased the HNP’s capacity in community policing and anti-kidnapping. The sustained reduction of kidnappings in Haiti is due in part to INL’s funding of the New York City Police Department’s support to the HNP’s anti-kidnapping unit, as well as cross-trainings on anti-kidnapping by the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative (ABA/ROLI). The HNP’s Community Policing training program conducted by NYPD mentors brought the unit to over 100 officers. This technique has enabled the HNP to form better relations with local communities. In addition to increasing the capacity of the HNP in other areas, In 2016, INL expanded an SGVB module created in 2014 which continues to serve as a fundamental part of the USG’s training program for HNP and judiciary personnel. INL also continues to prioritize the recruitment of female police cadets in the HNP.
The School’s 27th promotion graduated in March 2017, bringing the number of HNP officers to approximately 14,650. INL assistance supported the HNP’s recruitment, selection, and medical exams of 1,050 cadets who started training in May 2017 and are expected to graduate in December 2017, bringing the total number of HNP officers to over 15,000, a long anticipated goal of the HNP. INL funds continued to support the development of specialized units and provide mentors to strengthen the offices of the Director General and Inspector General. INL assistance continued to provide training and subject matter expert advisors to support development of management, administrative, and logistics functions within the HNP. INL is funding the refurbishment of two police stations in Hinche and Tabarre through the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS). INL assistance supports a U.S. contribution to MINUJUSTH of six police and corrections advisors. U.S. officers provided expertise in the areas of crowd control, corrections, gender based violence, counternarcotics, aerial reconnaissance, and SWAT. |
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Assist the HNP to develop an effective counternarcotics strategy |
Support the reconstruction and capacity building of the HNP Counternarcotics forces to combat the corrosive effects of narcotics trafficking and corruption of the government and its officials while disrupting the flow of illegal drugs to the US. |
No Changes |
• INL assistance grew the K-9 Unit to 19 dogs with drug, explosive, and currency detection capabilities. The BLTS uses the K-9 unit daily at Port-au-Prince and Cap Haitien airport to screen arrivals, and routinely in boat and house searches conducted by the BLTS. Infrastructure has been completed for a K-9 facility at the Haitian Coast Guard/BLTS facility in Les Cayes. • INL supported five phases of beginning and advanced-level trainings conducted by the Miami-Dade Police Department for BLTS officers. • Assistance expanded BLTS infrastructure through the procurement of modular units, being installed at strategic points throughout Haiti, including two airports. • The BLTS has carried out several successful operations yielding drug and cash asset seizures, as well as several significant arrests including high-priority U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) targets, and the unit is expanding its presence in affected areas throughout the country. • INL supported the restoration of port security and maritime interdiction operations by the Haitian Coast Guard (HCG). • INL supported the HNP by providing a communication network which will interconnect rule of law activities, including law enforcement operations, investigations, case management, and information sharing. |
INL worked with the HNP to enhance its effectiveness in counter-narcotics. BLTS agents attended a range of courses, including the INL-supported Jungla Commando course in Colombia and ILEA courses in San Salvador, which helped prepare them to assume more responsibility as they deploy to satellite offices throughout the country. In 2016, INL supplied two Boston Whalers which are being used to form a joint task force between BLTS and the Coast Guard to support maritime narcotics interdictions and provide humanitarian support. In addition, INL continued to fund the BLTS satellite office in Les Cayes. This office expands BLTS’ reach in its fight against narcotics trafficking in Southern Haiti. In 2017, the BLTS has executed several successful operations that resulted in the seizure of approximately 1.02 metric tons of marijuana and 47.58 kg of cocaine during the first ten months of the year. At total of 110 suspects were arrested for drug related crimes during this period, and one high value target was surrendered to U.S. authorities and prosecuted on drug related charges. DEA and the US Coast Guard (USCG) routinely conduct joing operations with the BLTS and provide assistance in operational planning and intelligence gathering. INL continued to fund a subject matter expert to support the counter narcotics division of the HNP (BLTS) and the Haitian Coast Guard. The BLTS force has grown to 229 officers through INL support at the police school. INL completed the installation of BLTS modular office space around the country, co-locating with the Coast Guard where possible. |
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Enhance transparency in GOH institutions |
Support the GOH to reform the l’Unité de Lutte Contre la Corruption (ULCC) to make it an independent unit capable of preventing, detecting, and prosecution corruption cases. Assist the GOH in developing and implementing a comprehensive anti-corruption strategy focusing on financial crime issues including money laundering and procurement fraud, education, prevention, prosecution and enforcement operations. |
* ULCC and BAFE effectively investigate and prosecute corruption and financial crime;
* Criminal law reforms are implemented. A national strategy to combat corruption is implemented resulting in increased transparency among government organizations. Anti-money laundering training and services are expanded to increase investigations, arrests, and revenue generation through the seizing of funds used in illegal activities. Passage of legal reform results in the establishment of an undercover unit to investigate allegations of corruption within the GOH. Prosecutors are selected and vetted by the Ministry of Justice. Investigations and prosecutions of corruption cases are increased. USG is able to increasingly reduce its investment support. |
Since 2012, INL partnered with the Department of the Treasury to strengthen Haiti’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regime. Working with the government of Haiti, INL and Treasury aim to improve the efficiency and effective ness of the financial intelligence unit (French acronym UCREF) to operate in compliance with international standards, institutionalize a financial crimes task force, develop the central bank, and establish controls to protect the financial sector. INL supports upgrades to UCREF’s facilities, hardware, and software for electronic reporting, file databasing, user access, and security access protocols to improve the unit’s functionality and connection with external financial institutions. To improve HNP accountability and reform, INL supports the Inspector General’s (IG’s) office with direct mentorship to enhance HNP capacity to perform internal police investigations, exercise effective command and control over the force, and ensure adherence to policies and procedures. The IG office made progress in combating corruption and police abuse, working with the INL embedded mentor and MINUSTAH (also collocated in the office). The Inspector General’s office meets frequently with various human rights groups in Haiti and initiated weekly press conferences to inform the public of the role of the IG office, resulting in increased visibility and transparency. The IG office dismissed over 800 police officers and recommended termination of more than 100 more in 2014 as a result of investigations for absence from post, other infractions, abuses, and criminal conduct.
In September 2014, OTA concluded its engagement to assist in development of an effective anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing regime compliant with international standards.
* INL’s and Treasury’s work is complemented by USAID technical assistance and capacity-building of the GOH anti-corruption unit and support for civil society efforts to increase transparency. |
* The USAID KONEKTE program helped strengthen the investigative capacities of the GOH’s Anti-corruption Unit (ULCC) so it can more effectively investigate corruption cases through information gathered via a GOH database that the Ministry of Finance (MOF) uses to process budget requisitions made by GOH agencies. KONEKTE’s advisors also trained ULCC’s electronic surveillance staff and supported the installation of these databases at the ULCC, enabling ULCC staff to access GOH’s payroll accounts. KONEKTE’s advisors also helped to create a call center for anonymous reporting of corruption cases; training call centers operators and developing questionnaires to collect complaints. The call center received 300 calls, collecting the information and then sharing it with the ULCC to be investigated and turned over to the prosecutor for penal processing. With USAID’s support, ULCC also developed GOH email accounts for ULCC employees, enabling the ULCC to preserve the institutional memory which is crucial to case monitoring. Prior to the creation of this platform, ULCC employees used their own personal email to perform official business and upon their departure all exchanges and important information were systematically lost. KONEKTE also helped to create ULCC’s online public library center, which contains over 300 documents on corruption and offers training modules on the topic.
* To help improve budget transparency and allow citizen to access comprehensive info pertaining to the national budget, a USAID civil society grantee created a website which provides details on the 2016 national budget. As of FY 2016, 3,297 people had visited the website, and have benefited from the additional tools and guidance provided to improve citizen’s knowledge of the budgeting process. The organization also published special sections in Haiti’s main newspaper that discusses specific national budget figures. They also produced four documentary films and published on their website and Facebook page (as of FY 2016, 2,268 visitors visited the page). Leaders also participated in radio and TV shows to help increase understanding of the national budget.
* USAID supported the local chapter of Transparency International, Heritage Foundation of Haiti (LFHH), to raise public awareness and engage in advocacy to reduce corruption. The organization continued to work with local civil society and private sector organizations and hosted two workshops for the Young Haitians Against Corruption network on the progress of anti-corruption efforts within the framework of the International Anti-Corruption Day. The participants produced an Open Letter to Political Candidates and it was published in the newspaper the week before the October 2015 elections. LFHH also conducted a workshop for journalists on the importance of access to information in the fight against corruption, and the advocacy efforts needed to bolster the adoption of the Access to Information bill by the legislature. Thirteen journalists participated in the workshop and signed an Open Letter petitioning parliament to adopt the draft legislation. * INL continues to fund a subject matter expert in the Office of the Inspector General’s office. The Office of the Inspector General (IG) continued to take an activist approach to imposing internal HNP discipline. IN 2017, the HNP took steps toward imposing systematic discipline on officers found to have committed abuses or fraud. The IG continued to hold monthly press conferences and regular meetings with regional and religious authorities to update the public on police internal affairs and remind citizens how to submit complaints. The IG’s office maintained a 24-hour hotline to receive public reports of police corruption or misconduct. As of August 2017, the IG’s office had recommended eleven officers for dismissal in 2017, compared to 27 such recommendations during the same period in 2016. |
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