Haiti: USAID and State Should Improve Management and Assessment of Reconstruction Activities
Fast Facts
Pour la version française de cette page, voir GAO-23-106250.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provided $2 billion to support reconstruction and development in Haiti during FYs 2010-2020.
It completed half of the infrastructure projects we reviewed—such as constructing a power plant—but most projects were delayed, cost more than planned, or had to be scaled back. USAID developed unrealistic estimates of costs and timeframes. For example, USAID planned to build 4,000 houses but only built 906 due to higher-than-expected building costs.
We recommended that USAID use sound technical information and expertise, like accurate cost estimates, in future strategic infrastructure plans.
Completed Renovation at Labiche Clinic in Haiti in May 2021
Highlights
Pour la version française de cette page, voir GAO-23-106250.
What GAO Found
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) completed four of the eight major post-earthquake infrastructure activities that GAO reviewed. Key results included constructing a power plant, building 906 homes, and improving 24 health and public facilities. Two activities are ongoing, including upgrading a port and two health facilities. Two other activities were canceled because costs were higher than initially anticipated. USAID's completed infrastructure activities supported Haiti's recovery—providing shelter, reliable electricity, and improved access to health services. However, due in part to unrealistic initial plans, most infrastructure activities experienced delays, budget increases, and scope reductions. GAO also found gaps in strategic planning and tracking and assessing the results of these activities, affecting management and oversight.
Progress in Constructing the State University Hospital from June 2014 and May 2021
GAO reviewed 29 evaluations, each of which discussed multiple results for USAID development activities. GAO found that across key sectors—economic and food security, governance, and health—at least half of the results were successful and at least one-third were unsuccessful. For example, under governance, evaluations indicated that an activity improved property tax systems and another activity fell short in strengthening judicial oversight.
The Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs activities to develop the Haitian National Police achieved mixed results. The results that implementers reported for these activities usually focused on outputs, such as the number of trainings provided. However, State has not evaluated the outcomes of these activities, such as improvements to investigative capacity, limiting information about their overall effectiveness.
USAID has taken steps to strengthen the organizational capacity of local organizations in Haiti so that they can manage USAID awards. However, local entities secure limited USAID funding, due in part to capacity limitations, according to officials. The USAID mission in Haiti does not fully track data on its local partnerships, or its activities to strengthen local organizational capacity, which limits institutional knowledge about these efforts and understanding of results and lessons learned to inform future activities.
Why GAO Did This Study
In January 2010, a catastrophic earthquake in Haiti caused physical, social, and economic devastation. More than a decade later, Haiti continues to experience political and social unrest and natural disasters, including another large earthquake that struck the country in August 2021.
USAID provided nearly $2.3 billion to support reconstruction and development activities in Haiti from fiscal years 2010 through 2020. State funded activities to develop the Haitian National Police.
GAO was asked to examine U.S. reconstruction activities in Haiti since 2010. GAO examined the extent to which: (1) USAID infrastructure and development activities achieved intended results; (2) State met its goals to develop the police; and (3) USAID undertook efforts to help build the capacity of Haitian entities to implement reconstruction activities.
GAO reviewed results from evaluations, agency documents, and implementer reports for a nongeneralizable sample of activities selected based on funding. GAO interviewed officials, implementers, and beneficiaries.
Recommendations
GAO recommends that USAID improve its infrastructure planning, tracking, and assessment of results; and better track data on its local partnerships in Haiti and activities to strengthen local organizational capacity. GAO also recommends that State evaluate the effectiveness of its activities to develop the Haitian National Police. USAID and State concurred with the recommendations.
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. Agency for International Development | The Administrator of USAID should ensure USAID/Haiti updates or develops strategic infrastructure plans using quality information, such as technical information and expertise. (Recommendation 1) |
USAID concurred with the recommendation. In response to the recommendation, USAID/Haiti reviewed its planning documents for all of the mission's ongoing infrastructure projects to ensure that they included accurate and complete information, including the current project scopes and related technical requirements, current project budgets and financial information, current project time frames, and current project implementation approaches, according to USAID officials. Additionally, USAID/Haiti officials noted that the mission has developed a strategic planning document for infrastructure projects to help ensure that the mission adheres to planning and other requirements for USAID infrastructure projects, including requirements for engaging staff with the requisite technical skills for the planning, design, and management of infrastructure activities, and for maintaining proper project planning documents and reports. USAID/Haiti's Office of Infrastructure, Engineering, and Energy circulated the strategic planning document among the mission's activity managers to help ensure that the mission's current infrastructure projects complied with technical requirements and that the document included the most up-to-date information about the costs, scopes, and time frames of these projects, according to officials. We continue to monitor USAID/Haiti's efforts to ensure it has developed updated strategic infrastructure plans to include clear and realistic outcomes based on quality information.
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| U.S. Agency for International Development | The Administrator of USAID should ensure that USAID/Haiti develops a process to track and assess consistent and complete results information for infrastructure activities, such as the final outputs, outcomes, costs, time frames, and lessons learned. (Recommendation 2) |
USAID concurred with the recommendation. In response to the recommendation, officials noted that USAID/Haiti awarded a new monitoring, evaluating, and learning contract in August 2022 to assess and learn from the mission's ongoing and completed activities, including infrastructure activities. The contract supports the collection and analysis of performance data and information to support the mission's learning and adaptive management, according to officials. Officials said that the mission will use findings from the collection and analysis of the performance data and information under the contract to document the outputs, outcomes, and lessons learned from specific infrastructure activities. In addition, USAID/Haiti implemented an information system to track and assess results information for the mission's infrastructure activities. Officials noted that the USAID/Haiti mission uploaded results information for the mission's infrastructure activities into the information system in December 2023 and the mission will update the results information as necessary. We will continue to monitor USAID/Haiti's efforts to ensure that the mission develops a process to track and assess key results information that will help USAID/Haiti to measure progress toward infrastructure goals and apply lessons learned to ongoing and future infrastructure activities.
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| Department of State | The Secretary of State should ensure that the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs conducts an evaluation of the effectiveness of its activities to develop the Haitian National Police. (Recommendation 3) |
State concurred with the recommendation. In response to the recommendation, State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) plans to conduct an independent program evaluation of the effectiveness of INL activities to develop the Haitian National Police, according to State officials. Officials noted that INL's Office of Knowledge Management will employ qualitative and quantitative methods to address evaluation questions and develop findings and recommendations that will guide future program decision-making. As of July 2024, INL is in the process of conducting the evaluation. State officials expect the evaluation to be completed in 2025. We will continue to monitor INL's efforts to implement the recommendation.
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| U.S. Agency for International Development | The Administrator of USAID should ensure that USAID/Haiti establishes a process to completely and consistently track and analyze data on awards made to local organizations, such as the amount and percent of total funding awarded and the percent of total awards provided to these organizations. (Recommendation 4) |
USAID concurred with the recommendation. In July 2023, USAID/Haiti, through its Office of Acquisition and Assistance, began tracking data on its direct awards to local organizations, according to USAID officials. USAID provided GAO the spreadsheet that USAID/Haiti Office of Acquisition and Assistance used to track data on direct awards made to local Haitian organizations in fiscal year 2023. These data include the number of direct awards made to local organizations as defined by the agency; the total amount of funding per fiscal year awarded to local organizations; the percent of total funding awarded directly to local organizations; and the percent of total awards provided to local organizations. In August 2023, USAID reported that from fiscal years 2021 to 2022 USAID/Haiti increased the percentage of its funding to local partners from 10 percent to 22 percent. In addition, USAID reported that USAID/Haiti had 50 awards, of which 13 (26 percent) were made to local organizations as of August 2023. According to USAID officials, USAID/Haiti will continue to track information on its direct awards to local organizations and will analyze this information to inform the agency's work in Haiti and to support the achievement of the agency's localization goals. Tracking and analyzing these key data may help USAID/Haiti measure progress toward achieving its locally-led development goals. Doing so may also help USAID/Haiti officials identify and assess trends and barriers to partnering with local organizations in Haiti and inform future strategies and interventions for strengthening local partherships.
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| U.S. Agency for International Development | The Administrator of USAID should ensure that USAID/Haiti systematically tracks information on the activities that the mission funds to strengthen organizational capacity of Haitian organizations, including which activities USAID funds, and basic information about these activities, such as key interventions, entities involved, results achieved, and lessons learned. (Recommendation 5) |
USAID concurred with the recommendation. In response to the recommendation, officials noted that USAID/Haiti began tracking a USAID standard indicator that measures whether U.S. government-funded capacity development efforts have led to improved organizational performance in organizations receiving organizational capacity development support from USAID. Although USAID/Haiti started tracking this standard indicator in fiscal year 2020, in September 2023, USAID/Haiti modified its internal tracker for measuring the indicator to include additional activities to collect information on the full range of activities primarily focused on strengthening the organizational capacity of Haitian organizations, according to officials. The mission's internal tracker, which USAID provided to GAO, captures the activity providing capacity-building assistance, the organization receiving the assistance, whether organizational performance gaps were assessed, and whether organizational performance improved. Tracking these activities and understanding key information about them should help USAID/Haiti to understand the effectiveness of these investments toward achieving local partnership goals. USAID/Haiti could then use this information to better inform ongoing and future organizational capacity-building efforts and the use of resources for these efforts.
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