Empowering Local Governments? The LOKAL+ Project in Haiti

LOKAL+ (Limiyè ak Òganizasyon pou Kolektivite yo Ale Lwen Plus) was a project financed by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) that ran from January 2013 to January 2018 to help Haitian communes plan, collect taxes, manage finance and programs, set priorities for services and raise community awareness. It followed the PACTE project (1995-1999) and LOKAL (2007-2012). The implementer was Tetra Tech, which bought the earlier implementer ARD, and a Tetra Tech contact gave a budget of $30 million. The project covered ten communes: Acul-du-Nord, Cap-Haïtien, Caracol, Carrefour, Delmas, Kenscoff, Limonade, Ouanaminthe, Saint-Marc and Tabarre, the last added late at the mayor's request.

This Oxfam America research backgrounder by Tonny Joseph, a Haitian political scientist and former Oxfam advocacy and research coordinator, studies three of the ten communes: Kenscoff (Ouest), Saint-Marc (Artibonite) and Limonade (Nord). Fieldwork in September and October 2017 included more than 200 interviews and separate focus groups for men and women. Property tax (CFPB) and patent revenue rose over the project in all three communes: from 3,864,000 to 7,004,238 gourdes in Kenscoff (81 percent), from 184,000 to 881,584 in Limonade (379 percent) and from 7,130,000 to 15,679,518 in Saint-Marc (120 percent). Among the initiatives with potential beyond the project are the CIVITAX tax software, built by the Haitian firm Solutions S.A., whose rights passed to the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government (MICT) on September 25, 2014, and the training of local officials.

The report finds that interviewees saw no clear improvement in services for taxpayers. It lists limits: beneficiaries did not take part in the design, managers in two communes sometimes waited up to six months to be paid, financial oversight was weak, only 30 to 40 percent of projected revenue was collected in some communes, gender issues were little taken into account (two of the ten mayors were women), and corruption was perceived within the project. It recommends progressive fiscal reform, fewer customs exemptions, the decentralized budget that the 1987 Constitution requires, wider use of CIVITAX, passage of decentralization bills, and gender and sustainability planning in future projects.