Haiti is by far the poorest country in the Latin America and Caribbean region, with 54 percent of the population living on less than US$1 a day. Poverty strikes hardest in rural areas: nearly 90 percent of poor households and 67 percent of extremely poor households live in the rural areas. Basic rural infrastructure (e.g., water and irrigation, feeder roads, electricity, and sanitation) is virtually absent or severely depleted, reinforcing isolation and exclusion.
An ongoing community-driven development (CDD) project seeks to address this problem by transferring public resources directly to local community organizations in poor rural and peri-urban communities so as to improve their access to basic social and economic infrastructure and income-generating opportunities. Communities select priority investments which typically receive an average grant of $17,500. They also implement, operate and maintain their new assets. Greater citizen participation in decision-making processes in turn helps improve local outcomes, fosters social cohesion and promotes good governance.
At this early stage, the project has established robust foundations for a healthy cohort of community-driven development projects, ranging from installing water pumps, to soil conservation, to building schools.
Highlights:
- Activities have been launched in 32 communes with over 1.5 million people aware of the project through proactive information and communication campaigns.
- In Carice, for example, a remote commune in northeast Haiti, a grant and training have allowed women to install a water pump providing potable water for 250 families.
- A fruit processing center at Gens-de-Nantes, near Carice, has provided jobs for local women and increased financial independence. More examples of tangible impact here.
- Some 1,432 community-based organizations (CBO) organized and participating actively in 22 democratically-constituted project communal councils (COPRODEP).
- Over 730 capacity building and training sessions conducted and having benefited to more than 124,400 participants.
- 95 sub-projects already prioritized in accordance to the MOP and at various stages of final preparation and/or execution.
- Extensive global experience with CDD operations.
- Thanks to a timely mobilization of Post Conflict Fund and LICUS Trust Fund resources, IDA was able to finance two CDD pilot projects to lay a solid foundation even before the formal re-engagement made this scaling-up possible. Such sequenced approach and reliance on global experience allowed the project to move ahead despite an extremely challenging political and economic environment.
- Total project cost is US$43 million, of which IDA grant provides US$38 million and community based organizations provide US$2.3 million.
Over five years, the project will finance approximately 1,300 small-scale investments benefiting 42 percent of all communes in Haiti. Even after this project is completed, Haiti will continue to face enormous challenges in providing its population with universal access to basic services. IDA will continue supporting Haiti’s efforts in this area through new financing and technical assistance services. At the end of 2007, IDA will undertake a midterm review of this operation, at which time decision will be made on a possible follow up operation. However, given the severe limitations of IDA allocation to Haiti for the foreseeable future, it is expected that Haiti, with IDA’s help, will need to attract additional resources from other sources, including the national budget and other donors, to continue building on the CDD approach supported by this project.
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