VZCZCXRO8514
RR RUEHQU
DE RUEHPU #0398/01 1031439
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 131439Z APR 09
FM AMEMBASSY PORT AU PRINCE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9836
INFO RUEHZH/HAITI COLLECTIVE
RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA 2281
RUEHMN/AMEMBASSY MONTEVIDEO 0353
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 1842
RUMIAAA/HQ USSOUTHCOM J2 MIAMI FL
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PORT AU PRINCE 000398 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR WHA/CAR, WHA/EX AND S/CRS 
INL FOR DIANNE GRAHAM, KEVIN BROWN AND MEAGAN MCBRIDE 
WHA/EX PASS USOAS 
SOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD 
STATE PASS AID FOR LAC/CAR AND OMA AND DOCHA 
INR/IAA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV EAID PREL SNAR HA
SUBJECT: Cite Soleil's Door is Open: Proving the Concept 
and Building Credibility 
 
Ref: 08 Port au Prince 1439 
 
¶1. Summary:  The Haiti Stabilization Initiative's (HSI) 
integrated approach to civilian-led stabilization and 
reconstruction is bringing real, palpable change to Cite 
Soleil.  Despite skepticism and stovepipes, it has done 
what it said it would do. Progress, as in the rest of 
Haiti, is fragile, uneven and by no means assured.  HSI, 
however, has opened the door to Cite Soleil, building a 
critical mass that, with continued, targeted support from 
the USG, other donors, the GOH and the private sector, 
should continue the positive developments.  HSI hits the 
two-year mark with the vast bulk of its projects completed 
or near completion and funding obligated and essentially 
spent.  The remaining major component, completion of 
Boulevard des Americains, is scheduled for completion in 
early September.  HSI now focuses heavily on transition 
issues and identifying synergistic opportunities and 
leveraging projects with other donors and the Haitian 
private sector.  End Summary. 
 
Why Cite Soleil Mattered 
------------------------ 
 
¶2. A major challenge for HSI was that many of the Haitian 
elite saw the effort as a quixotic waste of money at best, 
or at worst, a dangerously naive mistake that would play 
into the hands of vicious criminals and their 
political allies. If regular aid programs and 
the Government of Haiti had thrown up their hands in Cite 
Soleil, why was this effort any different? Similarly, the 
slum dwellers themselves were unwilling to waste much time 
on yet another doomed effort of do-gooders (unless they 
could rake something off for themselves). After a 
generation of multiple international peacekeeping missions, 
each promising to be better than the last, there is a deep 
Haitian suspicion that no program can really make a 
difference. That assumption of failure is even more true 
when discussing urban slums and Cite Soleil. Cite Soleil 
has an almost mythic stature as a dangerous place where 
failure is guaranteed. Going in, the importance of HSI's 
focus on Cite Soleil was not only the needs of 300,000 
people in the slum, it was the potential positive example 
that it set for donors, the government, and the public. 
 
BACKGROUND 
---------- 
 
¶3. The Haiti Stabilization Initiative (HSI) is a pilot 
project designed to test and demonstrate a whole-of- 
government civilian-led stabilization project, funded by 
DOD Section 1207.  HSI was designed by S/CRS in concert 
with elements of DOD, USAID, INL, and the Bureau of Western 
Hemisphere Affairs, Office of Caribbean Affairs (WHA/CAR) 
with input from most elements of the U.S. Mission to Haiti, 
including USAID and State's Political, Public Diplomacy, 
Regional Security (RSO) and Narcotics Affairs sections. 
The project focuses on Cite Soleil, a slum enclave of 
300,000 (equivalent to the 4th largest city in Haiti), an 
area of metropolitan Port-au-Prince that was completely 
lost to GOH control until reclaimed by MINUSTAH military 
operations at the beginning of 2007.  HSI is the only 
Section 1207 project that has a dedicated staff, intended 
to ensure flexibility and speed in implementation. 
 
¶4. Three national USAID projects, administered respectively 
by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), CHF 
(previously the Cooperative Housing Foundation) and the 
National Committee for State Courts (NCSC), had goals and 
organizational structures that were deemed compatible with 
HSI's intense geographic focus and overall goals, and were 
used as the basis for HSI's Community Building, 
Infrastructure and Justice segments.  The Security element 
is implemented through the Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS). 
Community Building was operational within weeks of the 
official launch of HSI in April 2007.  Infrastructure and 
Justice were much slower off the mark, and the Police 
segment, requiring buy-in and trained community police 
 
PORT AU PR 00000398  002 OF 003 
 
 
officers from the Haitian National Police and a formal 
contracting process, slower still. 
 
WHY HSI WORKS 
------------- 
 
¶5. MINUSTAH efforts to retake control of Cite Soleil were 
critical to long term success and a necessary precursor to 
the USG program in Cite Soleil, especially in light of the 
continued absence of any viable Haitian National Police 
(HNP) presence.  Military action alone, however, would not 
have been enough.  Equally, the UN's Quick Impact Projects 
(QIP), while useful in the larger scope, were not of 
sufficient scale to make a significant impact and regular 
UN budgeted programs were going to be too slow.  HSI's 
USD20 million was designed to fill this gap between the 
cessation of military intervention and the inevitable lag 
before regular donor programs and GOH presence could begin 
to fill the void.  Return of the HNP to the area through 
construction of police stations, training and the 
introduction of community policing will be vital in the 
long run to continue this momentum. 
 
¶6. HSI's goal was to quickly stabilize the bitter and 
violent Cite Soleil gang-led environment enough so that 
regular USG programs, other donors and the GOH could begin 
to work normally, as they already do in other parts of 
Haiti.  The key to HSI's success in facilitating the 
relatively rapid transformation of this distressed 
community has been its monomaniacal focus on integration in 
a specific geographic zone.  No activities were undertaken 
in isolation or without linkages to as many other program 
elements as permitted by the project contracts.  HSI has 
constantly looked to use its projects as leverage for buy- 
in from other programs and actors, or as a catalyst to 
generate other activities.  There is nothing unique about 
the type or scope of the projects themselves; the 
difference lies in the original conception of the project 
AND in having a staff specifically dedicated to its 
implementation. 
 
¶7. Speed was the other factor that played an important 
role, differentiating HSI from many programs that take to 
two years from budgeting to first expenditures. With HSI's 
two year total limit came an all-consuming 
drive to bypass business as usual -- there are many 
in the private sector and in NGOs who were amazed at how 
quickly we responded positively and concretely to their 
ideas.  This gave HSI enormous credibility in a community 
that had learned to assume most promises were never kept, 
at least not fast enough to do a slum dweller any good. 
HSI was different, and leveraged that difference into a 
new attitude on the part of nascent or reborn community 
grassroots organizations. 
 
INTEGRATION, LEVERAGE AND SYNERGY 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶8. As much as a stabilization program or a development 
program, this was an anti-gang program and even a 
counter-insurgency program. Skepticism about the model was 
due to a basic lack of understanding of the difference of 
the approach.  Tight integration of security and limited, 
targete\YQDQ2>Proving the Concept 
and Building Credibility 
 
common violence. 
 
INSTITUTIONAL AND PROGRAM CHALLENGES 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶9. Real coordination and integration is very labor 
intensive and difficult to sustain.  Each office or agency 
is driven by its own program demands and larger mission. 
Thus, even with genuine buy-in from others, personnel 
decisions are driven by the agencies, not by the 
stabilization program.  Other agency staffs all have "real 
jobs" they also have to do. 
 
¶10. Agency stovepipes still drive programs and the common 
source of funds (DOD Section 1207) for HSI was only partly 
effective in helping integration.  In order to speed the 
initiation of projects, S/CRS moved the funds to 
agencies/sections with existing contracts, but funding that 
was flexible became less so as the transferred funds took 
on the new agency's legal parameters/restrictions and 
contracting had to be done using that agency's procedures 
and within contract goals that might not be quite what HSI 
needed.  Even if another agency can be more responsive, it 
can be painfully hard to shift money between agencies. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶11. Cite Soleil today is a changed environment.  It is less 
a hair trigger population ready to riot on command or in 
reaction to any number of catalytic events -- man-made or 
natural -- and more of a community increasingly trying to 
work together.  This represents a depoliticizing of 
conflict and a more pragmatic focus on grassroots self- 
interest.  The stage is set for regular aid, training, 
health, education, and microenterprise programs to begin 
operating, and they are.  Elements of Haiti's private 
sector are coming around to the idea that there is value to 
be gained in promoting and supporting training and 
education opportunities and are beginning to consider the 
value of reinvesting in the larger neighborhood.  We can 
say that in two years, despite difficulties both internal 
and external, HSI did what it said it would do, in one of 
the worst places in the Western Hemisphere. End Comment. 
 
Tighe 
 
PORT AU PR 00000398  003 OF 003 
 
 
common violence. 
 
INSTITUTIONAL AND PROGRAM CHALLENGES 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶9. Real coordination and integration is very labor 
intensive and difficult to sustain.  Each office or agency 
is driven by its own program demands and larger mission. 
Thus, even with genuine buy-in from others, personnel 
decisions are driven by the agencies, not by the 
stabilization program.  Other agency staffs all have "real 
jobs" they also have to do. 
 
¶10. Agency stovepipes still drive programs and the common 
source of funds (DOD Section 1207) for HSI was only partly 
effective in helping integration.  In order to speed the 
initiation of projects, S/CRS moved the funds to 
agencies/sections with existing contracts, but funding that 
was flexible became less so as the transferred funds took 
on the new agency's legal parameters/restrictions and 
contracting had to be done using that agency's procedures 
and within contract goals that might not be quite what HSI 
needed.  Even if another agency can be more responsive, it 
can be painfully hard to shift money between agencies. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶11. Cite Soleil today is a changed environment.  It is less 
a hair trigger population ready to riot on command or in 
reaction to any number of catalytic events -- man-made or 
natural -- and more of a community increasingly trying to 
work together.  This represents a depoliticizing of 
conflict and a more pragmatic focus on grassroots self- 
interest.  The stage is set for regular aid, training, 
health, education, and microenterprise programs to begin 
operating, and they are.  Elements of Haiti's private 
sector are coming around to the idea that there is value to 
be gained in promoting and supporting training and 
education opportunities and are beginning to consider the 
value of reinvesting in the larger neighborhood.  We can 
say that in two years, despite difficulties both internal 
and external, HSI did what it said it would do, in one of 
the worst places in the Western Hemisphere. End Comment. 
 
Tighe