Institutional State-of-Play Report for the Urban Planning Sector, Including Housing and Urban Development, in Haiti
- The PARAQ totals EUR 74.5 million for 2011 to 2016, with EU financing raised from EUR 23 million to EUR 55.8 million through two amendments.
- EUR 500,000 is available for institutional support in 2015 and 2016, to be committed before October 29, 2015, and the choice of uses is meant to prepare the urban development component of the 11th European Development Fund.
- Institutions often work outside their theoretical mandate for lack of resources, and competences overlap in the texts and in practice.
- The MTPTC Urban Planning Service has 17 staff of whom only 2 are active professionals, and its study functions were taken over by the Urban Engineering Service (37 staff).
- The technical committee that validates neighborhood plans, chaired by the CIAT, is the dialogue mechanism the report says deserves to be continued.
- Most actors agree on the need to restructure the MTPTC Urban Planning Service and to strengthen municipal powers, while land tenure security and housing finance are discussed less.
- The report consulted only institutional actors; civil society and the private sector are outside its scope.
The report is the first deliverable of a mission by two experts of the Particip consortium for the European Union. It supports the institutional component of the PARAQ, a partnership between Haiti and the European Union whose total amount is EUR 74.5 million for 2011 to 2016: the EU financing rose from EUR 23 million in the November 2011 financing agreement to EUR 46.5 million in October 2012 and EUR 55.8 million in June 2013. The report says EUR 500,000 is available for institutional support in 2015 and 2016, to be committed before October 29, 2015, and that the support will also inform the urban development component of the 11th European Development Fund.
The report reviews the mandates, legal basis, organization, activities and external support of the Mayors' offices and of the MTPTC Public Works Directorate, the CIAT, the UCLBP, the EPPLS, the MICT, the MPCE and the Ministry of Environment. It finds a gap between theoretical mandates and practice, mostly for lack of means, and overlaps of competence in texts and in practice. For example, the MTPTC Urban Planning Service (SPU) has 17 staff of whom only 2 are active professionals, and its study functions have passed to the Urban Engineering Service (SGU), which has 37 staff. The Ministry of Environment has about 600 employees. A chapter describes how the program operators (the AFD and its partners, seven NGOs and UN-Habitat) dealt with these institutions, including the technical validation committee for neighborhood plans chaired by the CIAT.
The last chapter sets out the sector issues: an unclear organization that favors conflicts of competence, institutional memory made short by staff rotation, technical issues around building permits and urban planning tools, and less discussed subjects such as land tenure security and housing finance. It lists three directions for the support: continued coordination and validation of neighborhood plans, deeper work on building permits, housing finance and land, and targeted support to a few institutions, named as the Public Works Directorate and possibly the municipalities. Annexes give the terms of reference, the mission agenda, sheets for the nine PARAQ neighborhood projects and an inventory of external support.
How to cite
European Union, 2014, Institutional State-of-Play Report for the Urban Planning Sector, Including Housing and Urban Development, in Haiti, https://capacity4dev.europa.eu/library/rapport-de-letat-des-lieux-sectoriel_en
- Rights holder
- European Union