Integrating Climate Change Risks into National Development Planning Processes in Haiti

Funded by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) Readiness Programme, the "Integrating climate change risks into national development planning processes in Haiti" project supported the Government of Haiti in strengthening institutional and technical capacities for iterative development of the National Adaptation Plan (NAP). This included integrating climate change adaptation into national planning and budgeting processes. 

The project built on lessons from the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) implementation, as well as complementary activities currently underway in Haiti to avoid duplication of efforts. By integrating climate change adaptation into development plans, the project sought to align inclusive climate change adaptation priorities with the country’s visionary Strategic Development Plan (PSDH), National Land Use Plan (SNAT) and Disaster Risk Reduction Plan and Strategy. 

As the only Least Developed Country (LDC) in the Caribbean region, Haiti’s primary economic sectors (i.e., agriculture, forestry, and fishing) are heavily affected by climatic events. As of 2023, nearly 59 percent of Haiti’s population lives below the poverty line, many of those people living in extreme poverty. According to the World Bank’s Climate Change Overview Country Summary (2022), political violence, economic imbalance, and population pressure have led to extreme environmental degradation in Haiti, with an estimated 98 percent of forests cleared for fuel. These destabilizing forces have left most Haitians extremely vulnerable to natural hazards. 

Haiti has embarked on many initiatives to strengthen its resilience to climate change. However, fragmented policies and data, weak technical capacity, and inadequate climate financing, among others, have hampered the country’s efforts to plan effectively and iteratively for medium-to-long-term climate risks in its development planning and budgeting.   

The project was informed by stakeholder consultations and stocktaking of existing initiatives, policies, and strategies in Haiti that were conducted by the National Adaptation Plan Global Support Programme in 2017, which resulted in an action plan to implement the NAP. The Stocktaking Report highlighted limitations and gaps, including insufficient technical and institutional capacity to effectively coordinate and implement climate change adaptation measures, scattered data and information-sharing on climate change impacts and adaptation interventions, limited capacity to monitor climate change adaptation and inform policies, and inadequate budget allocations. These served as the basis for the project activities that were later confirmed by stakeholders.

The project is expected to deliver the following results under the three key outcomes:

• Capacities of the Technical Working Group, particularly MDE (Ministry of Environment) and MCPE (Ministry of Planning), to steer the climate change coordination and integration process are developed;
• Institutional barriers to the integration of climate change into development planning and policies are reviewed and key stakeholders are sensitized to climate change adaptation and development linkages;
• Mechanisms for regularly updating and reviewing adaptation are strengthened and feed into the iterative adaptation planning process;
• Haiti's National Adaptation Plan is developed;
• A system for economic analysis and appraisal of adaptation options is established and adaptation priority interventions are integrated into the SNAT, PSDH and PNGRD;
• Universities and educational institutions are capacitated to support adaptation initiatives and the NAP process;
• Financing and Investment Strategy for the NAP is developed through a gender responsive consultative process;
• Private sector engagement in climate change adaptation is strengthened.