Institutions are relocating outside of Port-au-Prince. Is this decentralization?

Dozens of institutions are abandoning Port-au-Prince for the provinces. Interest in cities outside the metropolitan area is growing

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Gang violence is forcing institutions and individuals to gradually abandon Port-au-Prince.

1.3 million citizens have fled the violence in the metropolitan region and the Artibonite. Tens of thousands of them are rebuilding their lives in the south or north, increasing the pressure on local infrastructure.

Dozens of businesses, embassy branches, and international organizations choose to relocate to the north or south of Haiti. These moves boost the economies of these communities, according to testimonies collected by AyiboPost.

Departments that were once almost entirely dependent on Port-au-Prince are also taking off. This is the case in the south, where the government inaugurated the Port of Saint-Louis in January.

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Port owners are only waiting for permission from the Haitian government to unload containers. This will open the far south to the international market for food exports and direct imports, bypassing the national road linking Nippes, the South, and Grand’Anse to Port-au-Prince. This route is currently completely controlled by bandits.

The southern region’s opening to the world is also taking place by air. In March, the government inaugurated Les Cayes International Airport after lengthening the local runway from 1,300 meters to 1,850 meters.

Much remains to be done to make the airport truly international, but these restrictions did not prevent the airline, IBC Airways, from carrying out a test flight there on Thursday.

In the future, this company plans to connect Les Cayes to the United States, after a stopover in Jamaica, since the southern airport is not yet certified « international » by the American authorities.

Is decentralization, the immediate objective of several successive governments, underway?

Not so fast, respond experts contacted by AyiboPost.

Decentralization involves transferring a set of responsibilities from the central government to regional or local institutions. « It involves defining, on a political level, what powers will be assigned to them, and on an administrative level, what means they will have to implement these policies, » explains sociologist Michèle Oriol.

And this is what we are unable to make effective, continues the former executive secretary of the Interministerial Committee for Regional Planning (CIAT).

Legislation on decentralization exists. But it is not adequate or does not clearly define oversight powers, emphasizes Oriol, who proposes the establishment of structures to ensure internal and external audits, as well as clear legislation on taxes, the powers to be decentralized, and to which entity.

46% of internally displaced persons in 2024 had relocated to the southern peninsula, according to IOM figures published in October 2024.

Alongside the many displaced people, the city of Les Cayes is seeing a growing number of newly established businesses in the construction and hardware sectors, including around twenty registered since November 2024, according to Gustave Ligens, assistant in the city’s tax department.

For the 2024 fiscal year, the municipality had raised 80 million gourdes. This year, municipal officials expect an increase in city revenue thanks to these donations.

Decentralization involves transferring a set of responsibilities from the central government to regional or local institutions. « It involves defining, on a political level, what powers will be assigned to them, and on an administrative level, what means they will have to implement these policies.

– Michèle Oriol

The Presidential Transitional Council (CPT) « inaugurated » the Port of Saint Louis and witnessed the signing of an agreement with the National Port Authority (APN).

This new port welcomed one ship in 2020, seven in 2022, one in 2023, and already six for the current year.

According to an official, the port should allow the Haitian diaspora to send goods to the Greater South, export local products, and even receive fuel. This would facilitate distribution in at least four departments in the Greater South.

The Antoine Simon International Airport in Les Cayes, which opened in March, is awaiting substantial work, including the development of terminals and the extension of its runway to make it suitable for regular international flights.

To reach the necessary 2,200 meters, a bridge must be built on land already available according to Serge Tilus, an operations officer at the airport.

Across from the city of Les Cayes, Cap-Haïtien is receiving a large number of relocations and new businesses.

Several national and international institutions, including the United Nations (UN) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), have transferred some of their services to Cap-Haïtien, reports the mayor of Cap-Haïtien, Patrick Almonord, saying he has met with several other institutions wishing to establish themselves there.

Employees of some ministries are being transferred to the North, the mayor continues.

Legislation on decentralization exists. But it is not adequate or does not clearly define oversight powers, emphasizes Oriol, who proposes the establishment of structures to ensure internal and external audits, as well as clear legislation on taxes, the powers to be decentralized, and to which entity.

The ban on U.S. civilian flights to Port-au-Prince, in effect since November 2024, has led to increased air traffic at Cap-Haïtien Airport, Haiti’s only fully operational international airport.

This increase in traffic impacts the monthly revenue of Cap’s Airport, « between 700,000 and 1,000,000 US dollars per month, » reveals Mayor Almonord.

Almonord regrets that none of these profits are paid to the city, whose budget amounts to 350 million gourdes. According to the mayor, these funds go directly to the public treasury and the National Airport Authority (AAN).

This increase in activity is also remarkable in the international port of Cap-Haïtien, which receives thousands of containers of products such as rice and cement per year, since the insecurity.

Entrepreneurship is also thriving in Cap-Haïtien. Most of the city’s hotels are regularly at capacity. The same goes for some shops, which regularly run out of certain products.

Read also: Cap-Haïtien is not the new capital of Haiti!

Rock André is one of the new investors in the north. Along with local partners, he established a local franchise of his Pot’Iwa pizzeria in August 2023.

André considers the investment to be « profitable » in a context where his pizzeria in the capital, launched in 2015, is struggling to keep up due to its unprofitability and low attendance.

Faced with insecurity in the West and Artibonite, Cap-Haïtien is establishing itself as an event destination in the North.

The city of Saint-Christophe hosts festive activities, particularly during carnival and summer periods, attracting people from the diaspora, reports the city’s mayor, Patrick Almonord.

Entrepreneurship is also thriving in Cap-Haïtien. Most of the city’s hotels are regularly at capacity. The same goes for some shops, which regularly run out of certain products.

The centralization of the country represents a historic challenge in Haiti with the economic, social, administrative and cultural concentration around the capital, Port-au-Prince, the nerve center of the country.

The creation of this state inherited the colonial model: a local government was based in Port-au-Prince, while thousands of colonial settlements operated independently, with their own export channels to the French metropolis. This fostered recurring tensions between the settlers and representatives of the central metropolitan state.

The American occupation of 1915 accelerated the centralization of power, disbanding the national army in favor of a new military structure, creating a road network linking the provinces to the capital, and modernizing port infrastructure, while reducing the influence of the provinces.

This has caused a shift in the workforce to the working-class neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince.

This dynamic would accelerate after Hurricane Hazel in 1954, forcing thousands of farmers to leave their ravaged plantations to pursue opportunities in Port-au-Prince.

This trend will continue during the Duvalier dictatorship. The dynamic intensified with the creation and reinforcement of shanty towns in the metropolitan region.

Since then, decentralizing the country has regularly come up in political debate, as it did during the drafting of the 1987 Constitution.

Calls are coming from local communities to use the insecurity crisis as an opportunity to initiate the country’s sustainable decentralization.

An initiative called the Southern Peninsula Economic Forum, which brings together 39 signatory municipalities, four chambers of commerce and four public universities, aims to create and promote an economic zone and to consider a municipal development authority.

Les Cayes and Cap-Haïtien needs significant investments from the State to strengthen existing infrastructure.

Cap-Haïtien, for example, has more than a million inhabitants, spread across more than 100,000 houses, most of which are poorly constructed, according to the city’s mayor.

The historic center, classified as a national heritage site on August 23, 1995, is deteriorating in a context of housing shortages.

Cap-Haïtien records 200 tons of waste daily, without the municipality having the infrastructure to meet this need. The city also faces electricity and environmental problems.

Cap-Haïtien, for example, has more than a million inhabitants, spread across more than 100,000 houses, most of which are poorly constructed, according to the city’s mayor.

The airport’s capacity is already exceeded. It must be equipped with 200 additional seats to avoid queues in the street, according to the municipal official, who said that work is underway.

The situation represents an asset for the city, according to Mayor Patrick Almonord. But it places us in the difficult situation of « meeting the needs of all those arriving, because we were not prepared, » adds the mayor, who hopes for support from the state.

The state can take advantage of the crisis. To do so, it must encourage local autonomy by supporting them in tax mobilization and the implementation of a tax management system, according to Luc Wans Duvalsaint, a consultant and trainer in local governance.

The State must also, according to the specialist, impose transparency in the management of the Management and Development Funds (FGDCT), intended to finance the activities of communities, « work with the private business sector, chambers of commerce, and mobilize funds to strengthen crafts and agriculture in order to revive economic activity. »

However, Jude Saint-Natus, former director of local authorities at the Ministry of the Interior, believes that all of this must first involve intelligent governance: the implementation of data, better targeting of public funds, and the promotion of public-private partnerships.

By :  Jérôme Wendy Norestyl & Widlore Mérancourt