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In Haiti, PADF helps create a more stable economic, social, and physical environment in which Haitians can live a dignified life, enjoy economic opportunities, and are empowered to participate actively in the decisions affecting their communities. We work with national and local government entities, community organizations, and national and international NGOs at our eight in-country offices. With more than twenty-five years of experience in Haiti, we work in priority areas such as employment generation; natural disaster reconstruction and community preparedness; agricultural development and natural resources management; rural and urban community-driven development and civil society strengthening; anti-trafficking in persons and human rights protection; and cross-border cooperation among Haitian and Dominican NGOs and municipalities.
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Community-Driven Development
The Participatory Development Project assists Haitian communities alleviate poverty using community-driven methods adapted by PADF and the Haitian government from an innovative model created by the World Bank. The project strengthens community organizations, assists them to implement and manage their own social services and small infrastructure activities, and builds grassroots democracy by establishing community committees that prioritize and manage local projects. The program has provided grants to more than 360 organizations in some of Haiti’s poorest areas. PADF has recently begun a pilot project in participatory development in the poorest and most violent urban slums, with the aim of laying the groundwork for local governance and lasting peace in these difficult areas.
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Trafficking in Persons and Protecting Human Rights
One of the most serious challenges confronting Haiti and the international community is the trafficking of adults and children. The Trafficking in Persons project is focused on combating this dilemma through advocacy, training of Haitian officials to intensify prosecution of traffickers, and measures to rescue and recuperate children being trafficked into servitude. Through its public awareness campaigns, the project resulted in the passage of several important pieces of anti-exploitation legislation in Haiti. In May 2007, PADF was awarded a $6.4 million USAID Protecting Human Rights program to combat trafficking in persons, torture, and organized violence in Haiti.
Funding from the U.S. State Department’s G-TIP office will allow PADF to create a cross-border awareness campaign; referral to shelters and protection services for women and children; an expansion of border area temporary shelter capacity and victim care services; and training of border-area authorities. |
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Strengthening Local Governments
Funded through the Bureau of Human Rights, Democracy, and Labor of the U.S. State Department, PADF works in 11 municipalities in Haiti to increase civic participation and strengthen the capacity of local governments. Using consultations, training workshops, seminars, and short-term technical assistance, PADF provides the tools necessary to achieve more transparent and participatory models of local governance to local municipalities, elected officials, civil society groups, and other relevant stakeholders.
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PADF is assisting the Interministerial Steering Committee (CIP), to strengthen Haitian state presence at the border, beginning with the border town of Belladère. Implemented by PADF and funded in part by the Canadian and Haitian governments, the Haiti Border Stabilization and Reconstruction Initiative (HBI) is building a new administrative complex for customs, migration, and police at the border crossing, accompanied by training for Haitian officials and local civil society groups, including the construction of a center to receive trafficked, returned, or repatriated Haitians. The new customs office will increase revenues and regularize transactions.
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Clean Streets: Intergovernmental Cooperation
Project Lari Pwòp, Haitian Creole for “Clean Streets,” engages neighborhood associations throughout Port-au-Prince to improve solid waste removal, the Haitian government to improve its management,and the private sector to facilitate disposal while creating jobs and involving local residents. Initially funded by a USAID grant to PADF, the project has been a key instrument in improving public sanitation, demonstrating public sector presence in high crime areas, providing needed jobs in poor areas, and building the foundation for long-term development with a community consultation process. To date, the project has created 3,700 ongoing jobs. Due to its success, Clean Streets is able to draw on resources from the Haitian government, the Inter-American Development Bank, and hip-hop star Wyclef Jean’s foundation, Yelé Haiti. |
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Sustainable Agriculture & Management of Natural Resources
PADF has extensive experience promoting Haiti’s agricultural development, building rural infrastructure, implementing soil conservation, and supporting agro-forestry and improved watershed management. The Hillside Agricultural Production Program, active between 2000 and 2006, offered an important model to increase farmer incomes through a combination of well targeted technology transfers, natural resource conservation, agro-forestry, and improved local and international marketing systems. PADF is currently implementing a rehabilitation of the main irritation system in Jean-Rabel, in the predominantly dry Northwest department, including replacement of existing plantain stock with disease-resistant varieties.
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Responding to Natural Disasters
PADF has a long history of assisting the Haitian people to respond to natural disasters and rebuild critical infrastructure with funding from USAID and private donors. Most recently, PADF channeled a donation from Chevron, operating in Haiti under its Texaco brand, to provide relief to nearly 1,000 people affected by Hurricane Dean.
Another important effort is the Tropical Storm Reconstruction Project (TSRP) which rehabilitates flood-damaged infrastructure, restores key public services, and improves response to future disasters.Specifically, the project repairs primary roads and bridges, reconstructs schools, and trains the communities in disaster preparedness in Haiti’s Northwestern Department.
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Natural Disaster Preparedness & Mitigation
The Emergency Response, Disaster Mitigation, and Preparedness Project (PUGRD) enhances disaster response through rehabilitation of areas affected by recent natural disasters, strengthens the Haitian government’s Office of Civil Protection, and promotes disaster management and reduction of community vulnerability. The project establishes Communal Civil Protection Committees that reduce local vulnerability to floods and other natural disasters. PUGRD builds on an earlier PADF program that proved highly effective in reducing the impact of Tropical Storm Alpha in 2005. PADF draws together many resources to assist Haitians before, during, and after natural disasters. Principle partners include the Government of Haiti, the World Bank, the American Chamber of Commerce in Haiti, the OAS, and corporate donors such as Citigroup, Chevron, Caterpillar, ExxonMobil, and others.
The Disaster Management Alliance is a collaboration between PADF, American Association of Chambers of Commerce in Latin America (AACCLA), individual American Chambers of Commerce (AmChams) in host countries and USAID to prepare governments, communities and individuals for crises before they occur. In Haiti, the Disaster Management Alliance joins the Haitian Insurers Association, the Voilá Foundation, the European Union, and the United Nations Development Program to help the national emergency management authorities establish a seismic network with at least three seismic monitoring stations in Haiti and a scholarship to train at least two Haitian technicians to manage the network.
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