The Economic Development for a Sustainable Environment project (DEED) in Haiti began in January 2008 and is planned to be implemented for five years. The project’s primary focus is on hillside farmers where soil and environmental degradation is most critical, but it also targets lowland farmers of the floodplain. DEED aims to create livelihood options for both hillside and lowland farmers currently trapped in a cycle of poverty by linking the management of natural resources to sound conservation.
DEED introduces environmentally friendly, technically feasible, economically viable, and socially acceptable agricultural practices. The project works across six integrated technical components, including strengthening community-based producer groups, promoting alternatives to hillside farming, and promoting and improving community-based natural resources management. The key project results include a 20 percent increase in household income in target areas, at least 50,000 hectares of fragile land under environmentally sound management, and at least 15,000 households deriving improved livelihoods from sound natural resource management.
During the extension of the base period, the contract objectives have been adjusted to account for the broader scope of the project. The objectives now seek to initiate broad-scale investment in sustainable natural resource management at the scale and density needed to produce positive landscape-level changes in environmental sustainability and economic productivity in the selected intervention zones. DEED interventions will serve as a replicable example for future projects that will expand into other watersheds country-wide.
In Fiscal Year 2011, DEED concluded nearly four years of activities, with the final closedown of activities in the Montrouis watershed and the continuation of activities in the Limbé watershed. The project provided technical and enterprise development support to farmers’ associations and producer groups in the fertile lowlands, mainly irrigated rice producers. Activities were carried out primarily through the use of grants and public-private partnerships to local Haitian businesses and producer groups.
The three most notable projects for 2011 focused on the cacao value chain, the rice value chain, and a pineapple processing plant. The Cacao PPA was extended to 128 new farmer field schools in collaboration with NOVELLA for 2,500 cacao farmers across seven communes in the Departement du Nord. The strengthening of the rice production value chain in the valley bottoms was carried out through extension services centered around the re-introduction of an improved rice variety in two large irrigation systems. Significant progress was made in the implementation of an improved business plan for a pineapple processing plant in collaboration with a private partner, Federation des Associations Cafeieres Natives (FACN).
DEED’s approach to project implementation is participatory and inclusive, promoting multi-sectoral partnerships where the private sector is considered as one of the driving forces for sound economic development. The project employs innovative approaches to mobilizing target communities and producer groups, helping them develop land-use and business plans that not only help protect fragile natural resources but also create employment and business opportunities.