Executive summary -- USAID's Haiti hillside strategy : an assessment of an approach, volume I of II

Evaluation covers the period 1971-6/90. The Hillside Strategy is not succeeding. Nowhere in the Haitian hillside is the use of fertilizer, soil conservation devices, or other techniques or intervention packages promoted by USAID/H projects having a significant impact on the quality of life and well-being of farmers and their families. In most areas, the standard of living is worsening. There are several factors underlying USAID/H's lack of success. None of its projects have successfully integrated the many elements necessary for successful hillside agriculture -- a combination of forests and woodlands, permanent pasture with controlled grazing, intercropping with permanent tree crops, and intensive agriculture. The strategy has also failed to recognize that erosion control measures need to be subsumed to existing agricultural patterns; that small kitchen gardens producing calorie, protein, and vitamin-based crops are requisite even on hillsides; and that most of the country's food will ultimately have to be grown on the plains. The strategy also seems dissociated from the harsh realities of Haiti's peasant farmers, who barely eke out a living with no margin for risk and no effective cash flow, and it is constrained by a lack both of investments in hillside farming and of planning to secure such investments, especially from the private sector. Beyond resolving these problems, the strategy needs to be strengthened by adding three more components: (1) achieving a gradual decline in the hillside population, (2) promoting off- farm and non-agricultural employment, and (3) developing markets for permanent crop and livestock products and perishables. Despite these shortcomings, there is no doubt that the Haitian peasant is in need of the services offered by the projects. However, it is critical that the projects be redesigned and reformulated immediately so that the benefits of the overall program can be realized in this decade. In rethinking the strategy, the following considerations should be paramount. (1) Local experts can often adapt new methods to local conditions better than outsiders. (2) Local people may need time and a series of small successful changes in order to develop the will and the capability for further change. (3) It is usually preferable to build upon and branch from existing technologies rather than to introduce entirely new ones. (4) The purpose of joint participation is to establish trust and shared goals, not to reach a facile compromise on conflicting or unrelated objectives. (5) Dialogue must take place within communities as well as between the community members and outsiders. (6) External constraints can often block local initiatives.