International seminar Haiti: The challenges of implementing the National Policy for Social Protection and Promotion (PNPPS) in the light of Latin America and the Caribbean experiences

BACKGROUND

The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor (MAST) of Haiti, has been engaged for nearly a decade in a continuous effort to establish the strategic framework of a national social policy aimed at responding to Haiti’s major challenges in this area. Indeed, it should be remembered that the indicators of access to basic social services in education and health, provision of social care and attention to early childhood, the elderly or the disabled, and so many others, reflect again and again not only a structural deficit in these issues but also alarming and persistent results in poverty, inequality and social exclusion for large sections of the Haitian population, in a context of meager economic growth. In this respect, the adoption of the National Policy for Social Protection and Promotion (PNPPS) in 2020 is a major political and institutional advance, because this instrument was intended first and foremost to define the strategic framework for necessary interventions to remedy it, based on a participatory approach and the broad consensus of many national actors, but also of the collaboration of a set of international partners, including the World Food Programme (WFP), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) of the United Nations and the Embassy of Switzerland in Haiti.

Over the past two years, as a result of the decree that promulgates the PNPPS, the MAST has been involved, through the Social Protection Sector Board (TSPS) and the Drafting Sub-Committee (SCR), in an exercise aimed at the implementation of the PNPPS, first through the prioritization of its multiple mechanisms, and today in the process of developing Action Plans (at the national and departmental levels). It is at this crossroads that we are today, where the operationalization and institutionalization of the prioritized mechanisms, as well as their feasibility and financing, are first-order issues.

OBJECTIVES

Following the development by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor of a National Policy for Social Protection and Promotion in Haiti, this seminar proposes to present the main axes of this Policy to various national and international actors, and above all, to analyze the challenges of its implementation in the context of exchanges between Haitian officials, program operators implemented by international partners in Haiti and experts and officials from countries in the Latin America and Caribbean region. The seminar should constitute a tool, in particular, for the members of the SCR for the finalization of the prioritization of the mechanisms for the national action plan. In addition, it is expected that these exchanges between MAST and the invited countries will lead to further collaboration between the countries.

MODALITY: the seminar will take place over two effective days, in a hybrid format, around thematic panels addressing subjects such as the challenges of the implementation of the PNPPS, both at the level of the general institutional framework, and specific management and policy instruments such as cash transfers and social registries. The six working groups of the action plans already identified by the SCR will also be addressed: 1. Exemption from payment for essential health services; 2. Cash transfers for the fight against poverty; 3. Pre-school and primary education; 4. Employment, training and labour inclusion; 5. Social assistance and 6. Institutional reforms. The focus will be on cash transfers, social assistance, and social information systems and registration of destinataries.

The exchanges during these various panels aim to present and discuss, considering regional experiences (Latin America and the Caribbean), the challenges in terms of the operationalization and institutionalization prioritized mechanisms in the Action Plans of the PNPPS, both in terms of its feasibility and its financing.

(*) Participants:

(a) MAST officials and officials from various agencies in Haiti

(b) Regional guests: Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.

(c) ECLAC and WFP officials.