The In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) on Fri­day ap­proved a US$16 mil­lion grant to im­prove pol­i­cy im­ple­men­ta­tion and ser­vice de­liv­ery to cit­i­zens in Haiti through dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion of pub­lic man­age­ment. 

The Wash­ing­ton-based fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion said the Pro­gramme for Strength­en­ing the Foun­da­tions of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion of Pub­lic Man­age­ment to Im­prove Gov­ern­ment Ef­fec­tive­ness, ap­proved by the IDB Board of Di­rec­tors, seeks “to in­crease the in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty of Haiti’s dig­i­tal gov­ern­ment agency.”

It al­so aims to im­prove the ef­fi­cien­cy of core man­age­ment sys­tems run by the Min­istry of Econ­o­my and Fi­nance (MEF), as well as cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty mon­i­tor­ing and man­age­ment ca­pac­i­ty of pub­lic agen­cies, the IDB said. 

“Haiti is a low-in­come, frag­ile state that has been strug­gling with so­ciopo­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic chal­lenges for decades,” it said. “On­go­ing in­sta­bil­i­ty and se­cu­ri­ty crises have se­vere­ly af­fect­ed the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic per­for­mance and state ca­pac­i­ty. 

“In this con­text, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion of pub­lic man­age­ment will tack­le the is­sue of in­suf­fi­cient ca­pac­i­ty of the state to de­liv­er on its func­tions and ba­sic pub­lic ser­vices, thus help­ing ad­dress Haiti’s fragili­ty,” the IDB added. 

By fos­ter­ing dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion of pub­lic man­age­ment, it said the project will con­tribute to im­prove ef­fec­tive­ness of pol­i­cy de­sign and im­ple­men­ta­tion, ef­fi­cien­cy, qual­i­ty and in­clu­sive­ness of ser­vice de­liv­ery, and pub­lic sec­tor trans­paren­cy and in­tegri­ty. 

“This project will ben­e­fit the cit­i­zens of Haiti, who will be able to ac­cess bet­ter and more in­clu­sive pub­lic ser­vices thanks to the dig­i­tal­iza­tion of MEF in­ter­nal man­age­ment, the strength­en­ing of in­sti­tu­tion­al, reg­u­la­to­ry and tech­no­log­i­cal ca­pac­i­ties, and the de­vel­op­ment of tal­ent of pub­lic sec­tor dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion,” said Clau­dia Mendi­eta, Pub­lic Sec­tor Man­age­ment Spe­cial­ist at the IDB’s In­no­va­tion in Cit­i­zen Ser­vices Di­vi­sion. 

“Fur­ther­more, the project will ad­dress the MEF’s crit­i­cal need of im­prov­ing the re­silience of its op­er­a­tion and busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity in the cur­rent com­plex coun­try sit­u­a­tion, con­tribut­ing this way to the re­silience of the whole pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tion op­er­a­tion,” she added. 

The IDB said the project is struc­tured in three com­po­nents, each de­signed to ad­dress spe­cif­ic as­pects of the gov­ern­ment’s dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion. 

The first com­po­nent will strength­en pub­lic sec­tor dig­i­tal gov­er­nance and the in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty of the Sta­tis­tics and In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy In­sti­tute (IH­SI) as the dig­i­tal gov­ern­ment agency, the IDB said. 

It said the sec­ond com­po­nent will pro­mote the dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion of Cen­tral MEF in­ter­nal man­age­ment, by fi­nanc­ing im­prove­ments in dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture, in­clud­ing con­nec­tiv­i­ty, en­er­gy and cloud, and in key dig­i­tal so­lu­tions such as in­ter­op­er­abil­i­ty, dig­i­tal doc­u­ment man­age­ment, dig­i­tal sig­na­ture, dig­i­tal pay­ments, and hy­brid work, among oth­ers. 

The IDB said the third com­po­nent will im­prove pub­lic sec­tor cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty ca­pac­i­ty. It will fo­cus on de­vel­op­ing pub­lic sec­tor cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty gov­er­nance and the ca­pac­i­ty to pro­tect, mon­i­tor, de­tect, re­spond to, and re­cov­er from cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty in­ci­dents, the IDB said.

WASH­ING­TON, Jul. 20, CMC –

CMC/nk/kb/2024