A social safety net to halt the downward spiral

Since November 2019, Switzerland has supported over 30,000 of Haiti's most vulnerable households. There seems to be no rest for this crisis-stricken island nation: the devastating earthquake in 2010, which claimed around 250,000 lives, was followed by a cholera epidemic, several destructive hurricanes and another earthquake in 2018. The country has also been mired in a deep political crisis for years.

Most recently, the youthful population launched a general strike in defiance of the government, demanding fresh elections and the resignation of President Jovenel Moïse, who has been ruling by decree since early 2020. Over 6 million people are living in poverty in Haiti, with many having to survive on less than two dollars a day. According to the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), 3.7 million people were in need of urgent food assistance at the start of this year, roughly a third of the population. Currently, more than one in five children are chronically undernourished.

"Many Haitians feel abandoned by their government and the world," says Fabrizio Poretti, Head of the SDC Cooperation Office in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince. "They are becoming fatalistic and depressed." The psychological aspect of even a moderate social safety net is therefore hugely important, he says. The aim of the Programme d'Appui à la Promotion et à la Protection Sociales (Support Programme for Social Promotion and Protection, or Promes), launched in 2019, is thus to create a foundation on which individuals – particularly young single mothers, who are the focus of the project – can start to rebuild their self-esteem. Poretti gives a simple example: a woman who has lost everything but knows how to milk goats can, with some support and training, carve out a new livelihood selling milk. Having her own goat could therefore change her life in a lasting way.

"We want to spot potential like this and take targeted action to develop it," says Poretti. "However, to do that we need a solid information base." His team is therefore working closely with the WFP and the Haitian NGO Fonkoze. According to Poretti, Fonkoze enjoys a lot of trust among the population and its work is appreciated. Among other things, it has developed a national vulnerability index, which will subsequently be used by the government as the basis for any social security contributions. The NGO's staff go from door to door conducting interviews and recording how people are doing and what their most urgent needs are. Meanwhile, the WFP, as the second major implementation partner, is helping the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour to develop a digital platform that will enable social indicators about the population to be recorded more efficiently.

"Our goal is to better link humanitarian aid in Haiti with social protection tools," explains Poretti. To that end, his team, as the basis for Promes, has come up with a blueprint for establishing a social security system in Haiti. Parts of this have already been incorporated into the national strategy, under which the government's long-term objective is to develop tools and institutions comparable with the social assistance, old-age and survivors’ insurance and unemployment insurance that exist in Switzerland. "One of the great strengths of Promes is that our activities are directly embedded in the national strategy," says Poretti.

By the time the project ends in 2024, the system should be sufficiently developed that people have better social protection in the event of future political or climate shocks and can be given more targeted support. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic last year was the first big test for the system. As part of Promes, Switzerland pledged additional funds to enable the WFP to mobilise Haiti's population in the fight against the pandemic.

The new database was used to identify affected groups and their needs. "Unfortunately, it wasn't yet working quite as well as we'd hoped," admits Poretti. Among the problems were differences in data format and the lack of harmonisation between the systems of Fonkoze and the WFP. "We've learnt lessons from this and are now continually working to refine the system." Fortunately, the health crisis initially feared from the pandemic did not materialise, and so far Haiti has been less severely impacted by COVID-19 than other Caribbean countries.

The project is currently being evaluated. In the future, Poretti would like to further enhance private-sector involvement in the activities. For example, companies could create much-needed apprenticeships and new jobs, or provide loans to microenterprises. In so doing, they would be making a major contribution to mobilising the human potential that, owing to poverty and desperation, is currently not being tapped. This is key to ensuring that Haiti's humanitarian crisis does not become a permanent reality.