MINUSTAH FY 2009-10 Quick Impact Project Guidelines

According to the Post Conflict Project Blog, the MINUSTAH Quick Impact Projects (QIPs) program has been approved for a sixth year with a budget of USD 3 million.  The intent is to set in place small, high impact projects throughout the country that will improve confidence in MINUSTAH and its mission.  Priorities include infastructure rehabilitation, education, health, and agriculture.  Please feel feel to reach out to MINUSTAH if you know of organizations that would be strong candidates.  Guidance and contact information is both attached and copied below. 

The MINUSTAH Quick Impact Projects (QIPs) programme has been approved for a sixth year with a budget of USD 3 million to reinforce MINUSTAH’s renewed drive to win the hearts and minds of the Haitian population.

The deterioration of living conditions, due to a rise in food and energy costs on the world markets, has been further exacerbated by the 2008 hurricanes which wiped out an estimated three to four years of economic growth. While public opinion has often been negative in reaction to MINUSTAH’s perceived inaction towards these challenges, the Mission is now all the more exposed to criticism that it is not in a position to provide adequate support. Such criticism risks undermining MINUSTAH’s relations with the population and official counterparts.

Therefore, the Mission is continuing its outreach and communication to clarify the Mission’s limited role with regards to humanitarian and development issues, and at the same time increasing its coordination with relevant actors, including the UNCT. QIPs, even though they are too limited in scope to lastingly change the challenging situation in the country, would help to significantly improve the environment for effective mandate implementation and help ameliorate security conditions for MINUSTAH personnel. Owing to their popularity and high visibility, QIPs can make a difference in boosting and maintaining public confidence in the Mission, its activities and the democratic process. 

Three major areas of support have been sought by the Government – the rehabilitation of infrastructure, the resumption of the school year and sector emergencies such as agriculture and health.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1780 (2007) “underlines the need for the quick implementation of highly effective and visible labour intensive projects that help create jobs and deliver basic social services.” In light of the April 2008 mass demonstrations against the extreme poverty exacerbated by the hurricanes that left masses of lost/damaged lives and properties, the Mission now faces a renewed requirement to address the real and apparent needs of the population if MINUSTAH is to continue winning the greater support of the population towards the Mission mandate and if it is to provide support to the security and stabilisation in the country.

In highly inaccessible areas of the country, MINUSTAH continues to serve as the main linkage between the population and their governmental authorities. QIPs have allowed MINUSTAH peacekeepers to build confidence especially in areas where they have been previously perceived as “invading forces”. QIPs have also provided the senior management with the opportunity and the means to concretely address the needs of the local population where governmental or other resources are lacking or limited.

The constant evolution in the scope and intensity of MINUSTAH’s mandated tasks has made QIPs and their direct and highly-visible benefit to Haitians, indispensable to sustaining the local population’s confidence in MINUSTAH and in the stabilization process.  Since 2004, MINUSTAH has financed 695 QIPs nationwide with a total budget of US$ 8.5 million with infrastructure, training/capacity building, basic delivery of public services and social mobilisation as the main areas of intervention.

Several years of QIPs implementation have demonstrated that certain projects created and retain the potential to create higher and quicker impact as compared to others. These projects should form the basis of this fiscal year’s selections.

To efficiently implement QIPs, the Mission will favour implementing partners that already have extensive experience with QIPs and, if possible, also have the capacity to execute the same project/s in various locations nationwide. This will facilitate financial reporting and induce greater accountability.

In facilitating a change of popular view of the military, i.e., from being “invading forces” to “winning hearts and minds” and to be able to draw on the military contingents’ capacities and assets, due emphasis shall be given to military proposals as long as they fall within the scope of this year’s overall QIPs strategy.

Identification and approval of QIPs will be based heavily on well-identified needs. As in the past fiscal year, all proposals will first be reviewed by the OPDSRSG and the Civil Affairs HQ prior to being presented to the regional Project Review Committees.

To facilitate timely commitment of funds, regional allocations may be reassigned at any given time within the fiscal year should additional monies be required in other regions.  With the above major tenets in mind, the proposed QIPs target categories for the fiscal year 2009-2010 are as delineated below.

Livelihood/Employment Generation
Projects that create immediate and visible benefits for the population, i.e. small scale, community-based income-generating/job creating projects that sustain people and are renewable, would go a long way in winning the hearts and minds of the local population. This comes at an opportune time when MINUSTAH has been perceived as being too tied to the GOH and not directly connected to the people. Whilst limited in scope, several quick impact projects such as those below would be well worth replicating in the coming fiscal year.

--Support to small agriculture projects (e.g. communal plantation, farmers' cooperative, fruit and vegetable processing, etc.);

--Fish farming projects (e.g. QIP “Bassin Piscicole” in Fort-Liberte);
--Livestock/poultry raising (Central Plateau, North East);
--Tailoring, dressmaking, other skills training;
--Waste and water management project (e.g. Dame Marie, Grande Anse modelled after UNDP Carrefour Feuilles project);
--Brick and tile factory (Artibonite case)

Cost and quantity estimate: 57 QIPs worth a total of USD 1.14 million with an average of USD 20,000 per QIP.

Delivery of Basic Public Services and Infrastructure
While UN agencies and the rest of the international community attend to urgent humanitarian relief and long-term development projects, the weakness of basic public services and infrastructure provides an opportunity in which MINUSTAH can, without duplication of efforts by other actors, win “hearts and minds” through small, quick impact, labour-intensive projects. These QIPs will not only facilitate the delivery of basic public services but also feed people, be sustainable, and directly benefit the population. Such projects include, amongst others:

--Labour intensive projects to rehabilitate agricultural roads or access roads to markets;

--Construction/rehabilitation of mairies, courts of justice, schools, public markets, public transport stops, canals, water wells and pumps, basic electrification and solar-powered village lighting;

--Shore protection projects aimed at protecting water sources, preventing flooding of fields and increasing local production;

--Solar-powered street lighting

Cost and quantity estimate:  88 QIPs worth USD 1,775,000 averaging USD 20,000 per QIP.

Training / Capacity Building
The strengthening of key government institutions at the central, departmental, municipal and communal-section levels remains a crucial issue to ensuring long-term stability.  Essential capacity-building projects (trainings, forums, seminars) in areas such as basic local administration, budget and fiscal decentralization, office management and project management, transparency/accountability mechanisms, and border management, are essential to the Haitian civil service, as well as to civil society representatives.

Cost and quantity estimate: 14 QIPs worth a total of USD85,000 averaging USD 6,000 per QIP.

Rodelito Juan (juan@un.org) (minustah-qips@un.org)
MINUSTAH Bureau des Affaires civiles/QIPs&Projects
http://minustah.org/?page_id=11022
Tél: +509 2244 2050 poste 6394 / +509 3724 8929