(Moving beyond the politics of promises to build a national vision, a strategy for transformation, and collective accountability)
Haiti is undergoing a crisis that is not limited to insecurity, political instability, or the collapse of certain public services. It reveals a much deeper difficulty: our persistent inability to anchor political action within a coherent, shared, and sufficiently sustainable national vision to withstand changes in government. With every new political deadline, the same questions arise. Who will be the next president? Which candidate will promise to restore security? Who will announce the creation of jobs, economic recovery, infrastructure rebuilding, or improvements in education? These questions are legitimate. But they may not be the most fundamental. One question should precede all others: what society do we want to build and on what collective vision do we wish to organize the future of Haiti? We have learned to discuss candidates, elections, and governments. Have we sufficiently discussed the historical destiny of our nation? A country can multiply political programs without managing to construct a coherent future. It can also change governments without altering its trajectory. This is precisely the risk of politics that focuses on the conquest of power without managing to define sustainably the purpose of its exercise. Therefore, the question is not about choosing between political programs and a social project. We need to understand their difference, their complementarity, and especially the place they must occupy in the national reconstruction.
A. The Political Program: Organizing the Action of a Government
A political program is a structured set of guidelines, measures, and commitments proposed by a candidate or party to exercise power. It primarily answers one question: what do we want to do during our mandate and how do we plan to achieve it? A serious presidential program must notably present:
1. a diagnosis of the national situation;
2. clearly prioritized priorities;
3. measurable objectives;
4. concrete measures;
5. budget estimates and sources of funding;
6. a timeline for execution;
7. responsible institutions;
8. indicators to evaluate results;
9. mechanisms for monitoring and accountability.
Therefore, the political program is a government instrument. It translates a political orientation into decisions, public policies, and administrative actions. However, even when well constructed, it remains limited by its time horizon and by the specific priorities of the party or candidate presenting it. A presidential term lasts only a few years. A national transformation sometimes requires several decades. This is where the issue of state continuity arises. If each new government abandons the directions of its predecessor to start again from scratch, public policies become fragmented, investments lose coherence, and citizens are left uncertain about which direction their country intends to take.
B. The Social Project: Defining the Collective Destination
The social project operates at a deeper level. It does not simply consist of compiling a list of government measures. It expresses a vision of the nation, its values, its institutions, its economy, its social relations, and its place in the world. It answers a fundamental question: what Haiti do we want to become? This question entails historical and collective choices. Do we want to build a state capable of effectively guaranteeing fundamental rights? A productive economy that creates jobs and reduces structural dependencies? A society where education serves as a genuine instrument of social mobility? Institutions that function independently of personal interests and changes in government? How do we want to organize relations between the central state and local communities? What place do we want to give to the diaspora? How do we articulate national sovereignty, international cooperation, and Caribbean integration? A social project should allow us to answer these questions within a coherent framework. It defines the major desired transformations, the principles that should guide them, and the collective objectives to pursue beyond a single presidential term. It should not be the personal document of a candidate. It must be able to become a reference framework for the nation, subject to democratic debate and capable of being enriched by successive generations.
C. The Real Problem of Haiti: Strategic Discontinuity
One of the major problems of public action in Haiti is discontinuity. Governments succeed each other, priorities change, structures are sometimes reorganized, projects are abandoned, and available resources do not always produce the expected transformations. This situation can be analyzed through several mechanisms. First, the absence of a sufficiently shared national vision. Political actors do not necessarily align around a common conception of the priority transformations to be made. Second, the personalization of public action. Policies are sometimes associated with those who initiated them rather than with the enduring needs of the population and the permanent responsibilities of the state. Third, the weakness of planning. Immediate decisions are not always linked to medium- and long-term objectives. Fourth, the insufficiency of evaluation. Governments do not systematically have public and regular mechanisms to measure results, understand failures, and correct orientations. Fifth, dependence on external knowledge. When the state does not sufficiently produce its own data, analyses, and anticipatory capacities, it risks becoming excessively dependent on diagnostics and solutions conceived elsewhere, sometimes inadequately adapted to Haitian realities. The Haitian crisis cannot therefore be understood solely as a crisis of leadership. It is also a crisis of institutional continuity, knowledge production, planning, and collective capacity to organize the future.
D. Why Does Haiti Need a Social Project Before Multiplying Programs?
To say that Haiti needs a social project does not mean that we must wait for perfect national consensus before governing. Security must be restored. Schools must function. Hospitals must be accessible. Infrastructure must be rebuilt. The economy must recover. The state must regain its capacity to act. However, these interventions would gain coherence if they were framed within a defined national vision. Let’s take a few examples. Security: do we want to simply restore order in the short term or build a sustainable public security system based on a professional police force, a functional justice system, an efficient penitentiary administration, and a prevention policy? Education: do we want to simply increase the number of schools or build an educational system capable of training citizens, scientists, technicians, teachers, and public officials for the future needs of the country? The economy: do we want to only attract capital or build a productive, localized economy capable of gradually reducing strategic dependencies? Decentralization: do we want to transfer some responsibilities to local communities or build a genuine national architecture in which the ten departments have the necessary institutional, human, and financial capacities for their development? Justice: do we want to only address backlogged cases or build an independent, accessible, credible judicial system capable of sustainably guaranteeing the rule of law? These examples show that the difference between a one-off intervention and structural transformation is considerable. The social project provides meaning. The political program organizes action. Public policies achieve transformations. Evaluation allows us to verify results.
E. The Third Imperative: Integrating Foresight into the Social Project
In my view, Haiti must not only establish a social project. It must build a social project enlightened by a genuine foresight approach. Why? Because a social project that does not take future transformations into account risks becoming quickly outdated. Foresight does not involve predicting the future. It allows us to explore several possible futures, identify risks, detect opportunities, and prepare necessary decisions. For Haiti, this approach should notably consider:
1. Demographic transformations, particularly youth, migration, and future needs in education, employment, and health.
2. Economic transformations, especially productivity, agriculture, energy, industry, trade, and new technologies.
3. Climate and environmental risks, which directly threaten territories, infrastructures, and livelihoods.
4. Geopolitical transformations, including relationships with the Caribbean, the Americas, Africa, and international partners.
5. Technological transformations, particularly artificial intelligence, data governance, and cybersecurity.
6. Institutional capacities, essential for anticipating crises and ensuring state continuity.
It would be particularly necessary to develop territorial scenarios for the ten geographical departments, taking into account their resources, vulnerabilities, economic possibilities, and institutional needs. Such an approach would allow us to move beyond exclusively centralized planning and build a national vision that truly considers the diversity of territories.
F. Cognitive Sovereignty: A Condition for National Autonomy
There is another dimension that we can no longer overlook: Haiti's capacity to produce its own knowledge. How can a state freely decide if it does not sufficiently master the information, data, and analyses necessary for its decisions? How can it build a coherent economic policy if it does not have sufficiently solid diagnostics on its economy? How can it anticipate territorial risks if it lacks the necessary tools to understand the dynamics of its departments? How can it negotiate effectively with its international partners if it does not have its own analytical and expertise capacities? It is in this perspective that the reflection on cognitive sovereignty applied to fragile states is situated. Cognitive sovereignty refers to the institutional, scientific, technological, and foresight capacity of a state to produce, preserve, interpret, contextualize, verify, and mobilize the knowledge necessary to understand its reality, autonomously formulate its public decisions, and anticipate its possible futures. It does not mean rejecting foreign expertise. It means the ability to engage in dialogue with the world without relinquishing control over its main processes of understanding and decision-making. Therefore, a true social project for Haiti should integrate the strengthening of its statistical, analytical, scientific, foresight, institutional, and decision-making capacities. Before sustainably rebuilding the state, we must also rebuild its capacity to know the country, understand its transformations, and prepare its future.
G. Towards a National Transformation Pact
The solution does not lie in asking all political parties to defend exactly the same ideas. Democracy implies a plurality of visions, interests, and orientations. However, it is possible to build a national foundation for transformation around a few fundamental objectives:
1. ensuring the security of persons and property;
2. restoring the rule of law and judicial independence;
3. ensuring access to education and healthcare;
4. strengthening national production and employment;
5. organizing balanced territorial development;
6. protecting the environment and preparing territories for climate risks;
7. strengthening public institutions and administrative continuity;
8. developing the scientific, technological, and foresight capacities of the country;
9. ensuring transparency and evaluation of public policies.
This foundation would not be a single electoral program. It would constitute a collective reference around which parties could propose different methods, priorities, and policies. Each candidate should then explain how their program contributes to this national project, which parts they intend to implement, what resources they will mobilize, and how citizens will be able to measure results. Such a mechanism would gradually transform political competition into a confrontation of strategies rather than a mere competition of promises.
H. The Questions Every Citizen Should Ask Candidates
As a presidential election approaches, every citizen should be able to ask:
1. What vision of the nation does your project defend?
2. What are the five structural problems you consider priorities?
3. On what data is your diagnosis based?
4. What measurable results do you wish to achieve?
5. How will you finance your commitments?
6. Which institutions will be responsible for their execution?
7. What timeline do you propose?
8. How will you take into account the realities of the ten departments?
9. What risks could compromise your program and what solutions do you foresee?
10. How will your project prepare Haiti for the transformations of the next twenty years?
These questions should not be seen as obstacles to candidacy. They are minimum requirements for democratic accountability.
Ultimately, Haiti needs both, political programs and a social project, but their roles are not identical. The political program indicates what a government intends to do. The social project defines the nation we want to build. Foresight allows us to anticipate possible futures and prepare necessary choices. Cognitive sovereignty provides the state with the essential knowledge capacities to decide based on its own realities. A political program without a social project risks becoming a succession of measures without direction. A social project without political programs risks remaining a vision without realization. A foresight without capable institutions risks staying an intellectual exercise. Haiti can no longer afford to restart its political history with every change of government. We need a national vision strong enough to transcend individual ambitions, partisan interests, and electoral deadlines. We need institutions capable of preserving achievements, evaluating results, and correcting mistakes. We need leaders who understand that their responsibility is not only to hold power but to prepare the conditions for a future in which subsequent generations can live with greater security, dignity, and opportunities. The question is therefore not solely about who wants to become president of Haiti. The question is who is ready to contribute to the building of a nation that will no longer rely solely on the will of its successive leaders to advance. Haiti does not just need candidates who promise to govern. It needs a society that knows where it wants to go, institutions capable of leading the country there, and citizens who can hold those in power accountable.
Me Jonel Dilhomme, Av.
Researcher in international law and global governance
Analyst of foresight applied to fragile states and the future of Haiti
Researcher on the General Theory of Cognitive Sovereignty applied to fragile states
Former professor at the State University of Haiti
Email: Jonel.dilhomme30@gmail.com
Selective References
OECD. (2022). Recommendation of the Council on Public Policy Evaluation, OECD/LEGAL/0478. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Recommendation adopted on July 6, 2022.
OECD. (2025). Strategic Foresight Toolkit for Resilient Public Policy: A Comprehensive Foresight Methodology to Support Sustainable and Future-Ready Public Policy. Paris: OECD Publishing. DOI: 10.1787/bcdd9304-en.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (2025). Human Development Report 2025: A Matter of Choice: People and Possibilities in the Age of AI. New York: UNDP. ISBN: 978-92-1-154263-9 (electronic edition).
United Nations General Assembly. (2015). Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution A/RES/70/1, adopted on September 25, 2015. New York: United Nations.
European Commission. (2021). Better Regulation Guidelines. Working Document SWD(2021) 305 final, Brussels, November 3, 2021.
European Commission. (2025). Better Regulation Toolbox. Brussels, December 1, 2025.
