The poverty and malnutrition situation in Haiti is a pressing concern, with the country ranking 111th of 117 countries in the 2019 Global Hunger Index. Fifty percent of the population is undernourished, while 21.9 percent of children under five years of age are stunted and 3.7 percent wasted. The level of hunger in the country is considered serious/alarming.
The main purpose of this report is to provide an overview and synthesis of the poverty and food security situation in Haiti, with a particular focus on two of the country’s ten administrative departments, Sud and Grand’Anse. Grand’Anse is the poorest department of the country, with 70 percent of the population living in the bottom two quintiles of asset distribution, compared to 50 percent in Sud.
The report primarily relies on desk research and stakeholder consultations, with some quantitative exploration of determinants of poverty and malnutrition using the 2017 round of the Haiti Demographic and Health Survey (HDHS). Key findings include the significant distance between the AOIs and the border with the Dominican Republic, which drives internal migration from Sud and Grand’Anse. Twenty percent of migrants from Sud move to other communes, 69 percent to other departments, four percent to the Dominican Republic, two percent to Latin America, and two percent to the United States. Twenty percent of migrants from Grand’Anse move to other communes, 58 percent to other departments, three percent to the Dominican Republic, five percent to Latin America, and 12 percent to the US.
Access to land for cultivation and productive purposes is key, with 61 percent of Haitian households owning or having access to agricultural land. Eighty percent of households in Sud and 84 percent in Grand’Anse have access to land usable for agriculture. The southern region of Haiti is particularly prone to natural disasters, such as droughts, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes, which have been linked to the El Niño phenomenon in several areas of the country.
The report also highlights the significant role of women in Haitian households, with 41 percent of households in Sud and 39 percent in Grand’Anse headed by women. However, domestic violence is a significant concern, with 17.6 percent of women in Sud and 18.2 percent in Grand’Anse having experienced physical violence from their husbands.
Youth are also a significant demographic in Haiti, with 54 percent of the population under 25. However, women between the ages of 15 and 19 have not worked (likely for pay) in the last 12 months, while 60 percent of men have. Among women between the ages of 20 and 24, 58.4 percent have not worked, while 34.6 percent of men have not.
The report utilizes the livelihood zones classification established by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) to analyze the food security context in Haiti. The zones are geographic areas of a country where people generally share similar options for obtaining food and income and similar access to markets. In Haiti, the zones are numbered on the FEWS NET map from HT01 (dry coastal maize) to HT10 (urban areas).