Executive Summary
Haiti finds itself at a crossroads; public spending on education is crucial for socioeconomic development as the benefits touch not only private but also social sectors that are fundamental for democracy and social cohesion. In Haiti today, one of the most important needs is qualified human capital/resources in the education sector. However, the current system has considerable room for improvement in order to provide sufficient human capital. The most pressing human resource challenges include: reaching and retaining qualified teaching staff, good governance, and a strong connection between primary and secondary education. These factors combined limit Haiti’s overall development.
The Ministry of National Education and Professional Training (le Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle; MENFP) is engaged in the preparation of a new plan conceived to identify and improve actions in the sector for the next ten years (2017-2027, see Annex I for an organization chart of the MENFP).
This study estimates $435.35 million dollars (USD) has been spent annually in education and training via the MENFP and other government ministries from 2010-2018.1 As the study will further show, the investment of donors and the government is important; $935 million USD is the cumulative investment of donors in the basic education during the period analyzed.
Education is a crucial component of the general government budget (more than 15% of the budget since 2015) and of the social sector (68.8% during the analyzed period). Diverse actors are implicated, including 20 donors (spending on average some 103.8 million USD per year, about 5.19 million USD annually per donor) and about 205 national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), churches, foundations, and associations.
The MENFP budget mobilizes 369 million USD annually, of which 73.7% is for the Fundamental I and II levels of education (i.e. basic education).3 However, without improvement of the general governance of the system, the road these programs could travel could be arduous. Administrative costs dominate domestic spending to the point where investment in this subsector is mainly based (at about 70.7%) on programs and projects funded by technical and financial partners (partenaire technique et financier; PTF). Since the 2010 earthquake, the financial investment in basic education amounts to $1.4 billion USD ($157 million annually), of which only 29.33% comes from domestic resources. Administrative costs therefore absorb more than half of the resources dedicated to the sector, leaving few internal avenues for investments in quality (e.g. teacher training or modern teaching materials). These aspects are thus related to cooperation projects; since 2012 a decline in external aid has led to a corollary decline in investment expenditures in the education sector.