This chapter examines the institutional fragility and structural fragmentation that have long undermined territorial governance and planning in Haiti. While the 1987 Constitution and subsequent legislation promised decentralization and participatory governance, in practice, these frameworks remain largely unrealized. Instead, persistent centralization, overlapping mandates, and weak bureaucratic cultures have produced institutional inertia and competition among actors, obstructing coherent policy implementation. Planning, when attempted, is often confined to paper, detached from the capacities of local governments, and misaligned with the needs of communities. Furthermore, externally driven and technocratic tools frequently bypass local realities, reinforcing dependency and excluding grassroots innovation. These dynamics reveal a profound disjuncture between state-led discourses of modernization and the lived practices of urban and territorial governance, where informal arrangements and micro-level actors increasingly fill the void left by absent or ineffective institutions. The analysis underscores how institutional dysfunction generates not only inefficiency but also deep social and spatial inequalities, eroding the legitimacy of the state while fostering fragmented, often competing sovereignties. Rebuilding governance in Haiti thus requires moving beyond formalistic frameworks to embrace inclusive, polycentric, and territorially anchored approaches capable of bridging the gap between state norms and local realities.