DRAFT FOR CONSULTATION
UNOPS
Haiti Earthquake
Integrating environmental and sustainable development issues into the relief recovery and reconstruction programme
PROJECT CONCEPT NOTE
A joint submission from the Government of Haiti - Ministry of Environment, the UN Environment Programme and the UN Office for Project Services
Contact Information: UNEP: Country Programme Manager: Mr. Antonio Perera,
SUMMARY
Summary held pending consultation
INTRODUCTION
This project proposal is targeted at several of the identified top environmental priorities for the Haiti Earthquake relief, recovery and reconstruction programme.
It is the central part of a programme under development by UNEP, MDE and its partners which aims to fully integrate environmental issues into the Haiti earthquake relief, recovery and reconstruction processes.
The proposal is divided into two main sections:
- Rationale: the disaster and environmental context, lessons learned, environmental needs and immediate priorities.
- Description: scope of work, management, budget and schedule
Supporting documentation such as needs assessments and detailed budgets are available separately.
Note that the identified top priorities which are not covered in this proposal are practical action projects for relief – covering topics such as sanitation solutions for settlements via biogas and cooking energy provision via improved stoves and LPG. These subject areas are addressed by separate proposals developed by UNEP and partners.
RATIONALE AND SCOPE DEFINITION
This proposal is the culmination of a 15 month process of needs assessment and scope definition.
Before the earthquake, UNEP invested one year and substantive resources in environmental needs assessments, gap analyses and lessons learned studies as part of its design process for a major new long term programme for Haiti. The start of this proposed programme, labelled the Haiti Regeneration Initiative, has now been deferred until at least 2011 to allow UNEP to focus on recovery assistance; however the preparation work was highly relevant;
UNEP and MDE have been highly active in the relief and recovery planning processes and so have been engaged from January to March in a continuous process of need assessments and gap analysis.
The launch of the government master plan for recovery on March 31st has confirmed the government priorities and proposed framework for recovery management.
On this basis, UNEP and MDE have been able to accurately define the needs and the top priorities to be addressed from 2010 onwards.
DISASTER CONTEXT
The January 12th earthquake and the relief effort
On January 12th 2010, Haiti was struck by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, which devastated the capital city and surrounding region. Over 210,000 people were killed and 300,000 injured whilst several hundred thousand buildings were destroyed or badly damaged. The Post Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) completed in March 2010 calculated the damage and losses to the country to be in the order of US$ 7.8 billion which is 121% of the GDP of Haiti in 2009.
Over 1,200,000 people are displaced and in need of shelter and nearly 2 million are in need of food, water, medical support, protection and other services. The earthquake crippled the capital city, destroying most ministry buildings, parliament buildings, banks, utilities, prisons and commercial centres. The United Nations was also struck hard, losing 93 staff killed and nearly 200 injured and 70% of its buildings (including the UNEP office).
In response to this overwhelming disaster the international community has responded in force. Over 800 organizations are now active in supplying aid to Haiti with an estimated cost of $US2 billion for the first twelve months. It is estimated that relief activities will continue for at least 2 years. A major activity at present is the management of the 500,000 people living in unsafe and highly unsanitary conditions in crowded temporary urban camps in the midst of the rainy season.
Recovery and reconstruction planning and financing
A major recovery and reconstruction planning process has been ongoing in parallel with the relief effort and UNEP and the MDE have been deeply engaged in this. The PDNA and linked Haitian government recovery master planning process was conducted in February to March, entailing a team of over 300 internationals and nationals working full time for one month. The structure of the PDNA was highly favorable to environmental concerns and the subject was well resourced with environmental experts: UNEP seconded 3 staff to the team and provided technical support from head offices.
The government master plan and directions to the PDNA were unusual and game-changing in that there was a repeated emphasis on using the recovery window of opportunity to transform the country, rather than just reconstruct to the existing problematic baseline.
The net result at the end of March is a Haitian government authored and owned, UN endorsed master plan for recovery – (National Plan for Recovery and Development – French acronym PARDN), which in turn is based on the technical foundation of the PDNA.
On 31st March this plan was presented to the international community at the New York donors conference and received solid political endorsement and over US$3 billion in pledges for aid, credit and debt cancellation.
ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT
2009 environmental baseline
Before the 12 January earthquake, Haiti was already the poorest, least stable and most environmentally degraded country in the Caribbean. This environmental degradation had severe associated social and economic impacts, as the largely destroyed rural environment could not fully feed its population or provide adequate livelihoods. The degraded catchments had also made Haiti’s rural and urban populations very vulnerable to flooding and extreme natural adverse events.
The total forest cover was estimated to be 2-4% and 75% of energy demands were satisfied by wood fuel (firewood and charcoal). The demand for charcoal had outstripped supply to the extent that smuggling of illegally extracted charcoal from Dominican Republic to Haiti had become a significant business and a source of cross-border tension. Within Haiti the remaining timber in the national parks was also in the process of being illegally extracted.
Within the urban areas environmental health was and still is a constant concern due to a lack of solid waste management and limited access to clean water and sanitation.
Earthquake relief environmental issues and impacts
The ongoing and anticipated environmental impacts of the disaster and the associated relief effort are now clear: both UNEP and USAID have issued Rapid Environmental Assessments of the disaster and UNEP is now issuing a progress report every 2 months. The plethora of issues noted includes:
- Insufficient coordination and monitoring of environmental issues;
- Flood and landslide vulnerability, particularly for the displaced;
- Insufficient and substandard sanitation – not enough and unclean toilets;
- Environmentally damaging and unhealthy sewage disposal – discharged straight to rivers or open pits with public access;
- Importation of chemical toilets- exacerbating the damage caused by uncontrolled sewage dumping;
- Massive building debris management issues;
- Overloaded municipal waste systems and extensive uncontrolled dumping of wastes into canals;
- Overloaded and under-resourced health care waste systems;
- Shallow mass graves and anticipated health and long term groundwater problems;
- Limited but unmanaged hazardous waste issues – principally transformers and oil product spills;
- Noted significant increases in disease vectors due to waste, waste water and drainage issues – rats, flies, mosquitoes;
- Dramatic increase in demand for timber for shelter construction;
- Increase in charcoal demand and fire safety issues for crowded camps;
- Quality issues in cash for work schemes directed at waste management and drainage works.
Environment in the Recovery and reconstruction plans
UNEP conducted a rapid review of the Haitian Government master plan for recovery , the PARDN, with the following results and concepts for the way forward:
- Overall the plan is positive with respect to environmental impacts, risks and opportunities
- Explicit high level policy statements on environment are missing, which is an anomaly as the document otherwise provides extensive evidence of a policy of integrating environmental concerns.
- The total investment and credit requested is $4.65 billion of which $700 million/15 % is considered highly relevant for environment investments and $1005 million/ 23 % important in terms of potential negative environmental impacts.
- The proposed implementation strategy is also considered favourable for environment.
- Major challenges on implementation are noted, including fundraising for the requested US$700 million. The government will require substantial support to achieve its objectives in this area.
- Two main themes are noted for the way forward:
- Safeguarding against negative environmental impacts, with a focus on building coordination, monitoring and control mechanisms into the government and fund management and master planning processes such as the Multi-Donor Trust Fund and the Commission for Recovery.
- Opportunities and investments which need to be driven by a proactive strategy of communications, advocacy, partnership development, fast track design, capacity importation and building and most of all major efforts on resource mobilisation.
Hence in summary, at least in the initial planning stage, environmental concerns have been integrated into the disaster recovery process. A key additional positive is that the recovery plan is also targeting long term chronic environmental issues such as reforestation.
However it is still only a plan. The central challenge now for environment and recovery, is to make this plan (the PARDN) a reality – thus securing the early gains achieved to date.
LESSONS LEARNED
Introduction
Haiti has a reputation as a difficult country for achievement of lasting impacts through foreign aid. Accordingly UNEP and MDE, both before and after the earthquake, have placed substantive emphasis on learning the lessons of the past as an early part of the programme design process. In the context of the disaster, lessons can be drawn from three main sources:
- Disaster recovery programmes in other countries
- Pre-disaster programmes in Haiti;
- Early observations and lessons from the relief programme in Jan-March 2010;
International lessons learned on environment in recovery
UNEP has participated in numerous recovery programmes for disasters in developing countries including the SE Asia tsunami and this has culminated in a number of lessons learned and associated reports. Most recently it participated in the stalled recovery process from the Haiti hurricanes of 2008. A number of lessons have been learned in terms of critical issues and success factors for integrating environment into recovery programmes:
-Deficiencies in coordination translate to increased negative environmental impacts and missed opportunities.
-The early and continuous input of technical expertise is paramount;
-Negative impacts need to be avoided wherever possible through integration into the financing and project approval processes;
-Opportunities for improvement via green technology are commonly missed in the rush for reconstruction.
Haitilessons learned on aid effectiveness in the environment sector
Haiti is widely acknowledged as a country where the positive impacts of foreign aid are difficult to see relative to the scale of the investment over the last 30 or so years. Accordingly Haiti has a chronic problem of limited aid effectiveness.
In response to this a number of international and bilateral organisations have conducted studies on the root causes of the problem. In 2009 to March 20101 UNEP conducted its own major study on the effectiveness and lessons learned for environmental programmes in Haiti – investigating and analysing 43 projects dating from 1990 to 2009 (16 completed and 27 ongoing). The summary of the key findings from that report provides useful guidance for designing for effectiveness in the recovery programme.
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National level findings and lessons learned
- Highly variable quality and lasting impact. In summary the quality and lasting impact of the projects examined differed greatly; ranging from projects with no remaining evidence of impact or even adequate project records through to ongoing successful locally owned initiatives. It was important to note a plethora of approaches – many different ways of tackling environmental challenges have already been attempted in Haiti. The recurrent features of the more successful projects are described below.
- Weak central coordination and support. The ad hoc nature of so many projects indicated a chronic lack of coordination at the national level. Capacity is also lacking at the national level to assist the many projects under development or implementation, resulting in an over-dependence on international staff and consultants and a lack of retained knowledge.
- Poor national scale data management. A lack of systematic national level data management indicates that actually most lessons learned from prior projects are either lost or very difficult to obtain. A major investment was required to find and obtain the material required for the report.
- Continued emphasis on small scale and short duration projects. Despite the high stakes and difficult challenges at play in the field of environmental rehabilitation, the majority of projects/programmes reviewed had small or mid-range budgets (only 10 projects exceeded US$10,000,000) and timelines (around 80% of the operations spanned 5 years or less). This phenomenon of small scale and short term projects is considered problematic – it is clearly difficult to achieve a national scale lasting impact with such an approach.
- Funding gaps and instability. Virtually all projects suffered from unstable funding to some extent, with a chronic lack of continuity in funding being an important source of failure, scope cutting or early closure for many projects.
- Welcome improvements in targeting and coordination Despite all the negative findings,in recent years, it has been found that projects/programmes are becoming more geographically concentrated and that the distribution between players on the ground is better coordinated. The major donors now give special attention to the management/rehabilitation of watersheds, often targeting the most vulnerable zones. In general, the projects/programmes now tend to follow a more integrated approach than in the past.
Project level findings and key lessons learned
The analysis of individual projects revealed a number of features and issues that are quite transferable and so should be considered key lessons learned:
- Extended duration. Longer term (>5 years) projects were more successful than shorter projects;
- Local ownership Community participation in all phases of the project cycle, from identification through monitoring/evaluation greatly improved the impact of the project;
- Integrating environmental concerns into a rural livelihood framework. Environmental protection initiatives worked best when they were integrated into a larger strategy for local development and land-use planning. Specifically it was found necessary to combine the protection of natural resources with the generation of an economic interest for the beneficiaries, for example via the sustainable development of profitable forestry or agro-forestry product supply chains, the development of profitable vegetative soil conservation structures, and well-defined cash-for-work projects;
- Capacity building. Local capacity was a universal and major constraint to success so the more successful projects incorporated capacity building in institutions and organizations;
- Organisational clarity. Tied to local ownership was the need for organizational clarity. One of the major causes of performance problems was variable commitment at the national and local levels and a lack of clarity on the roles and responsibilities of the various institutions participating in the project/programme;
- Communications. Properly-conducted awareness-raising and communication activities improved the impact of natural resource protection projects/programmes.
Early observations from the 2010 relief effort
From January to March UNEP was highly active in the environmental aspects of relief and recovery planning. A number of observations and early lessons have been drawn from this experience:
- A moderate to high level of enthusiasm for environmental issues is not yet translating into full integration;
- The profile of existing mechanisms and authorities responsible for environmental governance was low before the earthquake and has been further reduced;
- The influx of new personnel and organisation is exacerbating prior problems in not learning the lessons of the past or even acknowledging existing solutions and processes. A particular issue is the lack of French language skills and short visits by foreign experts;
- Allocation of investment on environmental issues to date has been highly erratic and overall very low compared to the needs;
- In the absence of visible government and multi-lateral efforts on coordination, bilateral organisations are attempting to developing solutions in isolation – however such efforts are commonly duplicating or do not reach a critical mass, particularly for complex subjects such as energy provision and sewage treatment.
- Vendor driven solutions, often inappropriate are being imported at the expense of more appropriate local needs driven solutions.
NEEDS AND PRIORITIES FOR THE ENVIRONMENTAL SECTOR
The needs
The overall needs in the environmental sector for relief and recovery are listed in some detail in the PARDN, the Flash Appeal and the Post Disaster Needs Assessment and associated technical reports. The longer term needs are not summarised in any single document but are listed in several documents, such as the previous national poverty reduction strategy paper, the UNEP Haiti GEO report and the USAID Environmental Vulnerability report. In total they indicate both urgent and long term needs of several US$ billion.
The needs are summarised below by category:
Relief
All needs in this field are urgent by definition – if not they are deferred to recovery. At present the needs for ad hoc environmental assessments and general technical advice are being met, albeit with insufficient resources.