Where we work
UNICEF has been present in Haiti since 1983. Today, it has a country office in the capital Port-au-Prince, with a presence in Cap-Haïtien in the north and Les Cayes in the south of the country.
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UNICEF serves the most vulnerable in Haiti
The 2017-2021 country programme of UNICEF Haiti will target the most excluded and disadvantaged children to ensure their survival, development, participation, and protection. To this end, UNICEF will focus on programmatic and geographic areas of convergence between the needs of the most deprived children and several sectoral programme components. In support of the Strategic Plan for the Development of Haiti, the country programme will help the Government to address key bottlenecks that impede the realization of children’s rights.
A gender-focused review of the previous country programme identified priorities and strategies for achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment in the period 2017-2021. While gender will be mainstreamed in the country programme, targeted gender priorities include gender-based violence in families and communities, HIV prevention and adolescent empowerment.
UNICEF will continue its efforts to coordinate with national stakeholders to ensure that government programmes and activities are focused on gender and equity. Since the multiple deprivations affecting the most excluded children tend to have common barriers and bottlenecks, the programme will have a multisectoral approach.
The programme builds on six mutually reinforcing approaches:
(a) a greater emphasis on multisectoral convergence in priority districts, including several affected by natural disasters and cholera, in particular border communities;
(b) an integrated, environmentally friendly and climate-sensitive approach, such as the combination of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) interventions and efforts in cholera elimination to enhance the continuum between humanitarian and development activities;
(c) the integration of HIV/AIDS interventions across the programme;
(d) the mainstreaming of gender and adolescent programming, with a particular emphasis on addressing violence against women and children as well as HIV prevention;
(e) the inclusion of risk mitigation, emergency preparedness and response in each country programme component; and
(f) an integrated approach for social and child protection in order to reach the most excluded children.
South-South and horizontal cooperation with countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and other regions is promoted, especially with regard to juvenile justice, violence prevention, the deinstitutionalization of children and birth registration.
UNICEF Haiti is tackling climate change
In every crisis, children are the most vulnerable. Climate change is no exception. In October 2016, Hurricane Matthew hit Haiti and disrupted the lives of more than two million people. More than 716 schools and many other health and sanitation facilities were damaged. 1.4 million people in Haiti, including 600,000 children, needed humanitarian aid. In 2018, a severe drought left 2.3 million people facing food insecurity. With Haiti increasingly exposed to the impacts of climate change, much remains to be done to secure the future of Haiti's children.
In Haiti, UNICEF has chosen to use solar energy to boost immunisation. From 2012 to 2018, routine vaccination rates fell from 44 per cent to 41 per cent. Infant and maternal mortality rates in Haiti remain very high compared to other countries in the Caribbean and Latin America. Over the last five years, for every 1,000 live births, 59 children died before their first birthday, 32 of them in the first month of life. In Haiti, access to basic social services remains poor. To reach the most vulnerable communities, UNICEF and its partners are supporting the Reach Every District approach in 70 communes with low immunisation coverage and are strengthening the cold chain with renewable energy to ensure that vaccines are properly stored and handled. To date, 351 solar refrigerators have been distributed and installed throughout the country for this purpose.
The UNICEF country office in Haiti has set an example by "greening the blue". The UNICEF office in Port-au-Prince is the first UNICEF country office in the world to rely entirely on solar energy. As part of a global movement to increase the use of renewable energy and combat climate change, the UNICEF Haiti team has inaugurated an energy-efficient solar panel system at its headquarters in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The use of solar energy in Haiti contributes to UNICEF's global efforts to combat climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 10,000 tons by 2021.
The solar project aims to reduce UNICEF Haiti's carbon footprint. 221 tons of CO2 were emitted each year, which had a considerable negative impact on the environment. Thanks to the solar energy used since August 2018, the Port-au-Prince office has reduced its electricity costs to zero and cut its fuel costs, utility costs and CO2 emissions by 70 per cent.
Photovoltaic and solar thermal panels generate free electricity by converting sunlight into electricity or by transferring the sun's heat to heating and ventilation systems. There are many advantages to using solar energy. Solar energy is non-polluting, clean, reliable and cost-effective.
The solar equipment complies with international environmental management standards. By silencing the generators, it also reduces operational diesel costs by 360 barrels per year, while reducing noise pollution affecting staff and neighbours. In addition to this project, general measures have been taken to reduce UNICEF Haiti's carbon footprint. Energy-efficient LED lighting has been installed and the number of printers has been reduced by 40 per cent, with the office switching to a smaller diesel generator during off-peak hours and weekends to reduce fuel consumption and gas emissions. An energy audit was carried out to assess current and accumulated energy consumption levels.
The switch from electricity to solar energy was inclusive from start to finish, with the staff association involved throughout the process to defend the right of staff to work in a safer and more conducive environment. In order to increase women's interest in solar technology, the Haiti office involved 15 female students in technology as interns during the solar power project implementation process, resulting in a transfer of technical skills. In addition, the office has also banned plastic! Single-use plastic cups and bottles are banned from meetings and staff are encouraged to use paper cups and carry their own reusable bottles.
The second decade of life
In 2019, Haiti had a population of more than 11 million (World Population Review estimate). Haiti is a very young country, with more than half of its population (around 54 per cent) being under 25, and almost 31 per cent aged between 10 and 24. UNICEF is focusing on the second decade of life, on young people aged between 10 and 19, in order to strengthen their learning and prepare them for employability.
In conjunction with the Generation Unlimited partnership, which brings together the United Nations, governments and the private sector, UNICEF is seeking to focus its programming on adolescents and young people, to strengthen employability, which is directly linked to access to secondary education, non-formal education, training and internships, as well as citizenship, project development, etc. Through approaches such as Generation Unlimited Youth Challenge, Concausa or Upshift, projects will be developed that can strengthen the resilience of young people or that of a community, or that will contribute to advancing children's rights because they are linked to health, education, water, hygiene and sanitation, protection, nutrition, etc., or technological or social innovation projects aimed at reducing the effects of climate change. The project development process will encourage entrepreneurship among young people.
Young people as agents of change
Because of their dynamism, adolescents and young people are a major asset to lead a profound transformation within their communities, particularly for the adoption of good practices (health, nutrition, education, vaccinations, sanitation, etc.). They will be able to involve other young people (through peer education) and turn them into agents of change. To achieve this, the stakeholders will be trained on gender issues, on good practices related to positive masculinity and femininity, on equity and inclusion (of people living with disabilities and the most vulnerable as well), but also and above all on accountability and good governance, so that no legitimate beneficiary is left behind.
Young people will be able to:
- Make the voices of adolescents and young people heard on the serious issues they face and participate in solutions;
- Ensure that adolescents and young people avoid risky behaviour in relation to HIV/AIDS and make increasing use of health services;
- Advocate for quality secondary education that will help young people reach their full potential;
- Empower adolescents and young people to play a positive role in their society and prepare them for employability by 2030;
- Provide equal opportunities to adolescent girls and boys.
