Recommendations for program replication. The PHOENIX program has proven to be effective at developing community services and infrastructure through providing much needed jobs in poor communities. ▪ Employment programs can be sustainable when designed to build and/or repair vital community infrastructure. The program impact on the local Palestinian economy was very positive because it fulfilled all requirements for a successful job creation projects i.e. high labor input and local material usage, wage rate, accumulated wages hence accumulated positive value to national economy. Furthermore, it fulfilled the immediate community needs for infrastructure upgrades in water, sewage, roads, kindergartens and schools. ▪ The CHF methodology of selecting small scale infrastructure projects and utilizing smaller contracting and supply companies that employ local workers from within the target community is very successful. ▪ The CHF/PHOENIX approach that focuses on ensuring high community contributions (cash or in kind) increases the sense of ownership by the community, encourages other donors’ support and optimizes the outputs and impact of every dollar invested by the donor. ▪ Finally: the strategic approach of working with neighborhood committees, municipalities and community groups guarantees a high degree of ownership on the beneficiaries’ side and a high degree of visibility for CHF as well as for USAID.
Recommendations for program replication. The Emergency Solid Waste Collection, Landfill Rehabilitation and Jobs Creation (SWM) Program was very successful in that it created a substantial amount of employment for a needy sector of the population, and distributed the benefits of this employment widely. In doing so it also contributed to safeguarding public health by significantly reducing the amount a solid waste collecting in the streets of the capital city, and increasing the capacity of local authorities to operate the regional landfill at Truitier. It was, as its name suggests, intended to be an emergency program and did not - with the hopeful exception of the reopening of the landfill – fundamentally alter the extremely serious shortcomings of the solid waste management system in Port au Prince. The program did illustrate that a labor intensive model relying on a combination of community participation, a substantial role for the private sector, and public sector coordination and operation of the landfill is significantly more cost effective and operationally efficient that the current system in place. We are aware and acknowledge that, while opening the applications during the bidding process, we had to postpone the process because USAID representatives were absent. Private Sector Contribution – Although the Haitian private sector has been greatly affected by the current crisis, private firms demonstrated strong interest and willingness to provide donations in an effort to counteract the crisis. Haitian citizens have also demonstrated strong enthusiasm for the SWM program, in spite of high levels of insecurity they have had to face on a daily basis in areas such as Cité Soleil, Belair, Carrefour, Cité Militaire and even Truitier. Clearly, beneficiaries were well aware of the program’s income generation impact for families in their communities. By injecting capital into local firms, CHF also generated indirect employment. Unfortunately these numbers are not reflected in this report. Many of the firms that participated and contributed to waste collection were construction firms. The income they earned from their participation was particularly appreciated in such difficult times. Although the waste collection containers (water tanks converted into garbage cans) were not particularly esthetic or practical, they did enable CHF and its partners to centralize waste and to affect behavior positively: citizens began taking garbage to the garbage cans, rather than disposing of waste in the streets as t...
