标签： Haiti

Against the backdrop of over 20 years of incremental but uneven efforts to overhaul Haiti’s public financial and economic management systems, a high-stakes working session was convened this week to assess progress, address persistent bottlenecks, and map out the next phase of reform. Hosted by Sandra Paulemon, Haiti’s Minister of Planning and External Cooperation, the gathering brought together senior members of the country’s Commission for Public Finance Reform and Economic Governance (CRFP-GE) to align stakeholders around a renewed push for systemic change.

Opening the session, CRFP-GE coordinator Charles Cadet offered a retrospective on the decades-long reform trajectory that Haiti has pursued in the public finance and economic governance space. He walked attendees through the commission’s core priority areas, and summarized the outcomes of years of implementation efforts, which he characterized as mixed — acknowledging incremental gains while noting major unmet goals that have held back broader progress.

Much of the session was dedicated to technical, in-depth discussions centered on the reform initiative’s six foundational pillars. These pillars cover critical domains of public financial management: boosting domestic revenue mobilization to reduce reliance on external funding; upgrading integrated systems for statistics collection, strategic planning, program development, and public budgeting; modernizing public treasury operations and standardizing public accounting practices; strengthening governance and oversight of local public finances; enhancing regulatory control, increasing government transparency, and expanding anti-corruption enforcement; and advancing the development of the national State Finance Information System.

In addition to progress updates on each pillar, technical leads outlined an ongoing comprehensive review of the entire national reform strategy, a process that is being carried out with targeted technical and financial support from the European Union. This review is intended to address existing gaps in the current framework and align the reform agenda with Haiti’s pressing economic and governance challenges.

In her closing remarks to the working group, Minister Paulemon outlined clear expectations for accelerated, tangible outcomes from the reform process. She emphasized that a well-defined, structured, and impact-focused action plan is non-negotiable for driving meaningful change, and called for far stronger coordination across all public and private stakeholders involved in the initiative.

Paulemon specifically advocated for improved synchronization across all public institutions that play a role in public finance management, stressing that systemic reform depends on enhanced connectivity and interoperability between agency systems and workflows. “Sustainable, long-lasting results from this reform simply cannot be achieved without effective alignment across all actors,” she noted, pushing for the creation of integrated institutional mechanisms that streamline information sharing, unify policy action, and create a more cohesive, harmonized governance framework for Haiti’s entire public finance system.

The working session concluded with concrete next steps to advance the reform agenda, most notably the announcement that the first statutory meeting of the reform’s Strategic Steering Committee (COPIL) will be held in the near term to formalize the revised strategy and approve the new action plan.

Scheduled across four days from April 7 to 10 2026, the annual Limbé agroforestry fair, hosted at twin venues in Camp-Coq and Acul Jeannot, has fully met all pre-event expectations, emerging as a key milestone for Haiti’s national push to cut household food insecurity and strengthen smallholder agricultural productivity.

The second day of the event drew a high-profile guest of honor: Aubourg Marcelin, Haiti’s Minister of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Rural Development, whose presence underscored the Haitian government’s commitment to advancing rural development across the country’s northern and northeastern regions. Opening his remarks at the Camp-Coq venue, Minister Marcelin paid public tribute to small-scale agricultural producers across Limbé and Camp-Coq, framing them as core collaborative partners for the Ministry in advancing national food security goals.

This public-private partnership between the state and local farming communities takes tangible form on two fronts: the government provides targeted support to registered smallholders, including subsidized agricultural inputs and on-the-ground technical guidance, while local producers have turned out in high numbers and with clear enthusiasm to engage with the fair’s programming. Unlike many top-down agricultural initiatives, this event puts choice directly in the hands of farmers: beneficiaries can select their preferred inputs from a roster of 12 independent local suppliers operating at the venue.

Initial turnout data from the fair’s opening day confirms strong community buy-in, with roughly 250 registered farmers traveling to Camp-Coq to collect inputs allocated based on the size of their working farm plots. Under the current allocation scheme, a farmer working a 0.5-hectare plot is eligible to receive 500 yam seedlings, 400 banana suckers, and 250 sugarcane cuttings. Across the full four-day event, organizers project 1,093 registered beneficiaries will access subsidized inputs across both venues. For Camp-Coq participants alone, that adds up to a total distribution of 8,500 yam tubers, 3,500 banana suckers, and 4,000 sugarcane cuttings, sourced from 49 verified local agricultural suppliers. All inputs are reserved for pre-registered smallholders who hold active agricultural land to plant the received materials.

Beyond distributing critical growing materials, Minister Marcelin used the event to articulate the government’s core vision for the initiative: encouraging smallholders to ramp up production both to meet their own household food needs and to generate surplus for commercial sale, building long-term economic stability for rural families across the region. This aligned directly with the Haitian government’s official national mission to reduce widespread household food insecurity across the country.

The fair also served as a platform to highlight broader ongoing rural development work under the government’s Program to Support Agricultural and Fisheries Productivity and the Improvement of Rural Infrastructure for Market Access (PAPAIR), a multi-component initiative designed to remove systemic barriers to smallholder success. One of PAPAIR’s flagship projects is the rehabilitation of 75 kilometers of rural roads across Haiti’s North and Northeast departments, which will dramatically improve smallholders’ ability to transport harvested crops to regional markets in Limbé municipality. Currently, construction work on the road network is ongoing under the oversight of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), with full project funding provided by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

Marcelin also outlined two additional critical components of the PAPAIR program targeted at reducing systemic waste and boosting year-round productivity. The initiative is currently addressing widespread post-harvest losses, which the Ministry estimates reach 25% of total annual production across the region, as well as persistent gaps in consistent food stock availability after harvest seasons. To tackle these challenges, the government is already rolling out targeted support including the distribution of crop drying racks to help farmers preserve harvests, as well as water pumps to expand reliable irrigation for commercial plantations.

As the fair concludes, organizers and government officials report that the event has delivered on all its core commitments, providing tangible support to smallholders while advancing long-term goals for Haitian agricultural development and food security.

Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) has issued a formal public warning that ongoing adjustments to national election regulations will cause substantial delays to the country’s upcoming electoral timeline, forcing the postponement of two critical pre-voting processes.

In an official statement released Wednesday, April 8, 2026, the CEP drew public and political stakeholder attention to a March 24, 2026 Ministerial Order that revises Article 3 of an earlier September 18, 2024 order. That original legislation established the CEP’s membership structure and outlined the terms of service for its council members.

Under the terms of the updated Ministerial Order, the CEP is mandated to execute all necessary actions within its authority to put into effect the rules laid out in Articles 12 and 14 of the National Pact for Stability and the Organization of Elections, a national framework designed to guide the country’s democratic transition. Currently, the electoral body is working through the technical process of aligning the December 1, 2025 Electoral Decree with the requirements specified in those two articles of the stability pact.

“This harmonization process significantly impacts the electoral calendar,” the CEP emphasized in its statement. As a direct consequence of the ongoing alignment work, the council has formally delayed two key steps that were already on the schedule: voter registration, which was originally set to launch on April 1, 2026, and candidate registration, which was scheduled to begin April 13, 2026. The CEP confirmed that revised timelines for both processes will be shared with the public as soon as the harmonization work reaches a key milestone, without providing an exact date for the new announcement.

In closing, the CEP reaffirmed its longstanding commitment to overseeing Haiti’s upcoming electoral process in full alignment with its status as an independent institution. The body pledged to uphold international democratic standards throughout the process, committing to run inclusive, impartial, and fully transparent elections for the Haitian people.