Synergies between Climate Policies and the Sustainable Development Goals in Haiti

Abstract

Addressing climate change is an important priority area for Haiti as evidenced by Haiti’s Nationally Determined Contribution of 2015, the National Climate Change Policy of 2016 and the National Adaptation Plan of Action updated in 2017, but it is not Haiti’s only development priority. Balancing many different national priorities can be challenging, and so identifying areas of synergy, where more than one goal can be met at the same time, can help Haiti to achieve its climate goals and other development goals at the same time. One way to identify connections between climate priorities and other priorities is through the Sustainable Development Goals. The goal of this analysis was to identify how Haiti’s climate priorities align with the SDGs, synergies between achieving climate priorities and the SDGs, and any gaps in terms of SDGs that are not addressed in Haiti’s climate policies. We identified climate priorities and actions as articulated in Haiti’s three major climate policies: Nationally Determined Contribution to the Paris Agreement, the National Climate Change Policy, and the National Adaptation Programme of Action. These policies included 99 adaptation actions, 19 mitigation actions, and 12 cross-cutting actions. The SDGs are not explicitly mentioned in any of Haiti’s climate policies, but there are many areas of synergy that can be found between Haiti’s climate policies and the SDGs and the analysis found that there are many opportunities for Haiti to achieve its targets for the SDGs and its climate goals at the same time. The most common connections were with SDG 15: Life on Land (9 priorities). Other common connections were with SDG 2: No Hunger (4 priorities) and SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy (3 priorities). The fisheries and coastal zone, agriculture and food security, health, water resources, health, energy, and human establishments and culture sectors had particularly strong connections. A strong case can be made that investments in climate action will help to achieve many of the SDGs, as investing in climate action also means investing directly in the implementation of many SDGs.