Strategies of rural poverty reduction in Haiti

I share this wonderful thought of President Bill Clinton, namely “Almost everyone can do something useful for others, and in the process, strengthen the fabric of our shared humanity”.

I am very happy to present you the experiences of my organization in the process of rural poverty reduction in Haiti. I am the executive Director of a NGO “Initiative Group for sustainable Development”, GID.

Our mission is:

- Reduce poverty and injustice
- Advance human achievement

The main objectives of GID is to help people help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources their improve their quality of live and that their generation future, programming activities center around the common vision of a world in which each person has a sense of worth, accept responsibility for self, family, community and societal well-being and has the capacity to be productive and to help create nurturing families, responsive institutions and healthy communities.

We believe all people have the inherent capacity to effect change in their lives, in their organizations and in their communities. We respect individuals and value their collective interests, strengths, and culture.

We believe innovation of thought and action leads to enduring and positive change in both formal and informal systems. We value integrity of purpose and action and believe it is essential to all of our affairs.

A fundamental challenge is facing every society is to create political, economic, and social systems that promote peace, human welfare and the sustainability of the environment on which life depends. We believe that the best way to meet this change is to encourage initiatives by those living and working closest to where people problems are located to promote collaboration among the non-profit, government and business sector and to ensure participation by men and women from diverse communities and at all levels of society. In our experience, such activities help build common understanding, enhance excellence, enable people to improve their lives and reinforce commitment to society.

GID works mainly by making activities that build knowledge and strengthen organizations. We focus our intervention on a large number of problems that communities in rural areas in Haiti are facing.

We implement since two (2) years the Participatory Community Development Project (PCDP), which scale-up the direct transfer of resources to local community organization in poor rural and peri-urban communities in the Northeast Department of Haiti. This, by: (i) improving their access to basic social and economic infrastructure and support income-generating activities by financing small-scale investments proposed, implemented and managed by community organizations, and (ii) improving governance and building social capital of communities by increasing citizen participation and transparency in open decision-making process.

Key indicators for the project are: (i) Change in access to basic services as a function of subprojects implemented by community based organization, (ii) cost-effectiveness of infrastructure investments, compared with traditional service delivery mechanisms, and (iii) cost benefits of productive subprojects.

Our approach is based upon these principles:

 Participation;

 Transparency;

 Equality men and women;

 Sustainability

We give control of decisions and resources to community groups. Our methodology treats poor people as assets and partners in the development process, building on their institutions and resources. Our support usually includes strengthening and financing inclusive community groups, facilitating community access to information and promoting an enabling environment through policy and institutional reform. By directly relying on poor people to drive development activities, our project has the potential to make poverty reduction efforts more responsive to demands, more inclusive, more sustainable, and more cost-effective than traditional centrally led programs. Our project fills a critical gap in poverty reduction efforts, achieving immediate and lasting results at the grassroots level and complementing market economy and government –run programs. With these powerful attributes, our project can play an important role in strategies to reduce poverty.

For the time being, the results are acceptable. After two years, three (3) subprojects were implementing by communitarian based organizations, in the field of basic education, basic infrastructure, water and sanitation.

The most successful case is the school of Chambellan. This community is located in the neighborhood of the Commune of Capotille in the northeast Department. Like all others communities in the rural zone, basic social service and infrastructure are severely lacking in Chambellan. Therefore, with the help of our group, GID, population through grassroots organizations has built a primary school for four (400) hundred children in the community. Before, the situation was very worrisome. Children from six to twelve sat on everything (stone, piece of wood) when they arrive at school, no chairs, no shoals. Now they live a new life with this new school. There are many others things to do, because the school needs furniture and equipment for good working order.

GID has good plan in order to accomplish his achievement for the school:

 Install a library with internet system
 Open a cafeteria, it is very important because many children are undernourished;
 Build a mini sport yard to initiate schoolboy and girl in the sport activities.

To reach these objectives, we need help and support from others organizations. Alone, it will be very difficult for us. We are ready to collaborate or establish partnership with all institutions interested in rural and urban poverty reduction programs in HAITI.

HAITI is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and one of the most disadvantaged in the world. The causes of this situation are complex and long-standing. For the past twenty years, Haiti has struggled to emerge from a cycle of political instability and internal conflicts that has devastated his economy, further weakened state institutions, multiplied poor governance practice , augmented levels of poverty and, at times, prompted the withdrawal of external assistance to the government.

Poverty strikes hardest in rural areas, where education and economic opportunities are exceptionally limited, and basic social services and infrastructure are severely lacking. 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. These conditions compel rural –urban migration, especially into the capital, Port-au-Prince, and further work to transport many of the rural development challenges to the peri-urban context.