2.2 Poverty reduction

Outcome: The population, particularly the most vulnerable, have equitable access to livelihoods, decent green jobs and productive resources to reduce poverty in all its forms, within a favourable and inclusive socio-economic and cultural environment

Corresponding outputs:

OUTPUT 2.1: The available options for inclusive and sustainable social protection are operational and supported. OUTPUT 2.2: Women and youth benefited from facilitated access to economic opportunities, including in the formal job market. OUTPUT 2.3: National and territorial agricultural institutions are operational in order to carry out in-depth transformation of agricultural production methods, which would be both sustainable and employment- and income-generating.

In the area of poverty reduction, UNDP works on three themes: i) social inclusion; ii) inclusive growth; and iii) strengthening of the agricultural sector. In coordination with the ‘resilience’ component (outcome 3 of the country programme), UNDP’s intervention strategy for poverty reduction seeks to link poverty reduction with vulnerabilities, and responsible management of natural resources, as well as the adoption of sustainable agricultural production methods. To ensure social inclusion, UNDP has worked to help the MPCE, the Haitian Institute of Statistics and Informatics (IHSI) and the National Observatory of Poverty and Social Exclusion (ONPES77) to better orient public policies towards the most vulnerable people, with an emphasis on social protection, in accordance with the SDGs. To promote inclusive growth, UNDP has opted to collaborate with the ministries of trade, economy, finance, agriculture, and women affairs, in order to promote employment and support policies for SMEs. In addition, the country programme was to prioritize Haitian products having a positive environmental and social impact and high growth potential. Women and young people are the main target beneficiaries of the country programme’s poverty reduction component. In order to strengthen the agricultural sector, UNDP, with the support of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), intended to continue building the capacity of the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development (MARNDR) in order to transform the sector through, among others, initiatives to improve access to small-scale irrigation.

In general, capacity-building is a strategy applied to all projects in the country programme poverty reduction portfolio. Each of the projects includes training and technical assistance activities aimed at developing the capacities of the actors concerned. UNDP has also tried to capitalize on South-South and triangular cooperation as part of this institutional capacity-building.

The poverty reduction component includes 15 projects of varying sizes78 for a global envelope of more than $46 million mobilized through the core resources of UNDP and those of other partners-donors including the Haitian Government, Japan, Canada, and IFAD. These projects touch upon different sectors of the economy that can contribute to reducing poverty such as agriculture and small commerce, alongside cross-cutting factors that need to be addressed such as capacity-building, empowerment of women and youth, and natural disaster recovery.

77 In 2016, ONPES became a unit of the MPCE. This unit is called the Poverty and Social Exclusion Observation Unit (UOPES) 78 The budget ranges from less than $70,000 to almost $9,700,000