The following report, written by Sophonie Milande Joseph, was originally published in the American Planning Association International Division’s September 2019 Newsletter Interplan. Read and learn more about Sophonie at the end. Interested in sharing your academic papers, conference proceedings and articles from other industry newsletters, let us know.

The purpose of this study is to determine how different institutional arrangements affect energy justice and sovereignty in Ayiti [Haiti]. Several organizations are currently providing electricity to Haitian citizens; representing different organizational, technical, and geographic approaches to delivering energy services. I hypothesize that different institutional arrangements lead to differences in distributive, procedural, and recognition of energy services — these key theoretical concepts in the emerging energy justice literature highlight three ways that inequality may occur during energy service provision (Jenkins et al., 2016). To evaluate this hypothesis, I collected data that describes the organizational properties of each institution through a semi-structured interview protocol administered to energy provider representatives.

COUNTRY BACKGROUND

Ayiti is located in the Caribbean region, sharing the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. In Ayiti’s republican governance system, the people and the state’s social contract endows state powers at the national level. Thus, the central state must explicitly decree powers to subnational government units to undertake civic duties — for example, the provision of electric service delivery to local consumers.

The World Bank estimates a human population size of 10,981,229 people in 2017 (WB, 2018). In Figure 1, note the population distribution is within the capital and primate city: Pòtoprens (Port-au-Prince) and its metropolitan region (Bodson, Benoît, Duval, & Thérasmé, 2017; Manigat, 1997). Urban primacy is where population and economic activity within a given country are dominated by one or a few of the largest cities.

THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS

Ayiti’s fractured decentralization planning results from thepolitical needs of national and subnational leaders, rather than reflecting a broader concern with the public good (Cantave, Fils-Aimé, & Brutus, 2000; Charles, 2018; Joseph, Klopp, Schumacher-Kocik, & Marcello, 2011Njoh, 2016 #64). Ayiti’s non-urbanized areas are in varying states of fragmented, administrative deconcentration from the national state’s influence centralized in the urban primate, Pòtoprens (Joseph, 2019). Legislative loopholes, or gray spaces, are strategic tools that facilitate ongoing corruption and co-opting of systems that delay implementation of decentralization (Yiftachel 2009).

Simultaneously, Haitian planning law also provides legal justification for the parallel pursuit of improved economic livelihoods, in this case through electrification, and social justice (law of April 5, 2017). Energy justice metrics provide explicit measures for assessing just processes and equitable outcomes that parallel global trends in the creation and use of value-based, planning metrics (S. S. Fainstein,2010; Griffin, Cohen, & Maddox, 2015; Heffron, 2015). Distributive, procedural, and recognition comprise key justice sub-types in the emerging energy justice literature stream. The justice indicators monitor the energy planning cycle and outcomes (Griffin et al., 2015). I use these three, energy justice building blocks, to frame the analysis of data findings.

Distributive justice (DJ) supports tracking social and spatial distribution of positive and negative externalities upon electricity consumers by operationalizing equity of outcomes [Appendix B: 8-12]. DJ’s policy implications prioritize inclusionary, electricity distribution mechanisms.

Procedural justice (PJ) centers citizens’ rights for meaningful, public participation in decision-making processes that affect their built environment’s outcomes (Arnstein, 1969; Choguill, 1996). Moving beyond tokenized participation, PJ operationalizes energy service providers’ institutional structure using three measures: organizational, technical and geographic characteristics [Appendix B: 1-7](Heffron, 2017; Jenkins et al., 2016).

Recognition justice (RJ) centers the struggle for redistributive justice by acknowledging inequalities originating in the slavery era’s transnational mercantilism and its influence on population settlement patterns (Allen, 2017; Yarrington, 2015). Such spatial-historic analysis of infrastructure investments connects contemporary patterns in siting of energy infrastructure investment to extractive,institutional practices.

RESULTS

How are different institutional arrangements affecting energy justice in rural Ayiti?

• Electricity Provision by EarthSpark, CEAC, andEDH Organization and Public Participation

Each of the institutions reviewed had varied organizational structures and different methods for public engagement. The EarthSpark microgrid is owned privately with the aim to operate a for-profit business. The EarthSpark team is knowledgeable and comprised of experienced employees working to develop and maintain the microgrid (Interview X). They have a memorandum of understanding with the local komin. There are three levels of engagement with the community: an energy committee, community meetings and grid ambassadors. The energy committee is composed of selected members of the community. The purpose of the committee is to discuss any pressing items relating to the microgrid system. The greater community meeting is open to all members of the community. Inevitably, the voices in the energy committee and greater community meeting do not always align. Lastly, the grid ambassadors are the face of EarthSpark in their respective areas. They typically work at a store in town and act as the point of communicationbetween individual customers and the microgrid.

The CEAC cooperative is designed to include the community in the development and operation of the microgrid. The responsibility for such communication lies with the board, which consists of three members of the community who each serve three-year terms (Interview). The board members are paid only a token remuneration and are responsible for overseeing all aspects of the microgrid development and operations. Due to the technical and economic difficulties of the microgrid development, official communication channels were not a priority and thus never developed. There are, however, periodic informal exchanges through places of public gathering, such as schools and churches. For practical needs, if a customer needs to report a failure, they can contact a representative located in each commune or call the commercial director or general manager. Due to the small number of clients, the interviewee states this direct mode of interaction is feasible; however, there would be more difficulty with higher client numbers.

EDH does not have explicitly delineated policies for including the community in the planning of new energy-related, infrastructure (Interview). Communications appear to primarily be top-down using mediums such as newspapers, televisions, and radio. Customers can call to report failure or outages, but they are not guaranteed a response (Interview).

Business Models for Sustained Operation

Common to all the institutions is the inability to recover costs, as none have yet to settle on a sustainable business model.

EDH has well documented financial issues. The government pays two-thirds of the system’s running costs with payments for service only covering a small fraction of costs. It is estimated, however, that if revenue were able to be recovered that the system could run at a profit (Belt,Allien, Mackinnon, & Kashi, 2017). While technically introducing metering technology is possible, recent attempts to do so have failed due to what has been termed as a lack of will from the organizations in power.

In contrast, EarthSpark was initially funded through external grant funding with the intent to develop a sustainable business model through public and private partnerships. EarthSpark has made several strides in attempting to develop a model of electricity provision that can be profitable. They have developed a methodology to evaluate and rank various communities throughout rural Haiti to assess their suitability, based on several metrics including population density and ability to pay (Archambault, 2014; Interview). They have also developed new low-cost metering technologies, incorporated pay-as-you-go payment methods, and developed ties with the community to mitigate theft all in attempts to bring costs down (Archambault, 2014;Interview). They have significantly oversized their system enabling them to have a controlled ramp up to more customers while maintaining the same level of service. However, they are still yet to recover costs. To rebuild after Hurricane Matthew, EarthSpark was required to return to investors for subsequent funding (Stuebi & Hatch, 2018).

The CEAC cooperative was built with initial funding from the Norwegian government, USAID, and other nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s) and with volunteer contributions in-kind from the National Rural Electrical Cooperative Association (Stuebi et al. 2018; Interview). The initial business model aimed at the microgrid to be self-sufficient in 4 years. However, several aspects hindered this progress. The business model assumed a rate of demand increase higher than what occurred, the cost to obtain diesel increased substantially from initial projections, and Hurricane Matthew destroyed the microgrid requiring additional financing and slowing the growth of the system. Currently the price of electricity is subsidized to a value of 25 c/kwh but according to the interviewee may need to increase to the full cost of 45 c/kwh (Interview). This would be a substantial increase for their customers and could render the whole project infeasible.

How do you balance the business need for economies of scale and the need for organizations equipped to meet the communications needs of the community? The black and white approach is a set up for failure. A holistic approach acknowledges that without social stability, economic development is not sustainable.

• Implications for Energy Justice

Procedural Justice

Procedural justice seeks to determine how decision-makers have sought to meaningfully engage with the community and power relations. Arnstein (1969) outlined eight levels of public participation: manipulation, therapy, informing, consultation, placation, partnership, delegated power and citizen control.

EarthSpark exhibits a level of public participation that is categorized as placation. This level is defined by engaging the community in dialogue through surveys, neighborhood meetings and public hearings. While the community is consulted and able to provide advice, EarthSpark retains final decision-making power.

CEAC is a cooperative. There is a layer of technical experts that mediate communications between the CEAC citizen representatives and external funding bodies (Interview). I categorize CEAC as also being a case of the placation form of public participation.

I have not been able to identify EDH’s systematic process for continuous public participation. There has been project by-project inclusion of community members through informational campaigns in the past (Interview X). Respondents noted such public engagement activities will occur again in the future. As such, I categorize EDH as being in the non-participation levels of Arnstein’s ladder of public participation.

The differences in the level of citizen participation directly translate into meeting the electrification for economic development needs of people through socially just planning processes and outcomes (S. Fainstein, 2011). July 2018’s events mark the start of an energy justice story that demonstrates how corruption related to the Petrocaraibe funds’ embezzlement and the lack of transparency in fuel price decision-making negatively impact recent strides in the country’s branding as a place of socio-economic stability that is open for business to investors and tourists alike (Seraphin, 2016). Instead, the lack of inclusion of social justice issues in previous energy-related decision-making launched the ongoing “Ayiti Nou Vle A / The Ayiti We Want,” social media-led uprising against corruption within Ayiti’s state and international aid sectors. Sustainable development requires simultaneous pursuit of equity, economic and environmental goals (Campbell, 1996); otherwise, electrification for economic development will not be sufficient to spark Ayiti’s viable inclusion in a globalized economy (Goldsmith, 1997).

Distributive Justice

Distributive justice seeks to highlight the equity of differences in benefits and negative effects. With respect to the benefits afforded by electricity service, there is a clear division in the allocation of energy services to the rural customers served by EarthSpark and CEAC’s micro-grids and the urban customers served by EDH. The microgrid systems through their targeted approach were each able to provide a high level of service relative to EDH and incorporate various levels of public participation. Using urban and rural as collective classes to compare differences in service outcomes, demonstrates urban citizens have access to more electricity provision, albeit sparse and intermittent, than their rural counterparts. EarthSpark will only expand a microgrid system to komins that show the possibility for favorable returns. For the cooperative model, komins could petition to develop a cooperative microgrid but are still beholden to outside funding organizations to obtain capital and technical know-how. Overall, densely populated areas are viewed as a priority for electrification by EDH while EarthSpark targets specific urbanized areas of rural regions due to the minimum densities required for micro-grids to be financially solvent within privatized funding models.

Recognition Justice

Recognition attempts to determine which communities are mis-represented and ignored by energy service providers by asking survey questions to understand the make-up of each energy provider’s customer base, the participatory committees and governance bodies. Due to the fuel riots, which canceled the household survey, the study was not able to obtain household-level data about the communities served by each energy service provider.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

The purpose of this study is to determine how different institutional arrangements affect energy justice and sovereignty in Ayiti. The findings indicate privatization of formerly state-goods, dependency on international aid and short-term, political maneuvers have undercut implementation of decentralization planning. As a result, the three models for energy provision are also affected by international aid limitations, privatization’s demands for fiscal solvency, de-concentration of energy infrastructure beyond urbanized areas and delayed devolution of state powers to the local level.

There are positives and negatives in my findings on thelaunch and implementation of the two decentralized IPPs in the Southern Haiti region. CEAC and EarthSpark are providing partially clean-energy in sites that previously did not have access to or reliable access to energy. Furthermore, CEAC and EarthSpark are experimental models that are creating experiential knowledge that may inform future energy infrastructure expansion in other communities.

The negatives regarding the two decentralized IPPs in the Southern Haiti region that also provide lessons learned for planning professionals working to expand utility infrastructure within marginalized communities. Given the push for privatized utilities, business models for sustained operation demand changes in business and technical plans. There is a need for business plans that explicitly incorporate known uncertainties due to damage from natural disasters. For example, the CEAC business plan’s forecasts did not incorporate financial needs in case of a natural disaster such as Hurricane Matthew in October 2016. Technical plans need to include modular build up to be able to operate underchanging conditions.

The organization’s size has positive and negative impacts on energy justice outcomes for individual consumers. The struggle may appear to be binary: how do you balance the business need for economies of scale and the need for organizations equipped to meet the communications needs of the community? The black and white approach is a set up for failure. A holistic approach acknowledges that without social stability, economic development is not sustainable.

The planning and policy implications of decentralization planning displayed in Ayiti’s trends in unbundling of utility services. Ongoing monitoring of energy justice indicators across different institutional arrangements provides lessons learned for practitioners and policymakers regarding best practices for improving access to electricity. In this manner, Haitian citizens may be spared the injustice of an international aid and governing system that seeks to indirectly inform affected citizen stakeholders regarding pertinent energy policy decisions via a football game.