Haiti is in the midst of an escalating political crisis that has repeatedly paralyzed the nation. Tens of thousands have been taking to the streets to protest President Jovenel Moïse’s corruption, economic mismanagement and impunity for human rights abuses.
Le Gouvernement d’Haïti reconnaît le rôle joué par le secteur financier pour faciliter la croissance économique grâce à un meilleur accès aux services financiers. Afin de renforcer les politiques génératrices d’une croissance et d’un développement durable et inclusif, les parties prenantes et le gouvernement haïtien ont mis en œuvre FinScope Haïti 2018 pour aider à identifier et à créer une feuille de route garantissant la réalisation de cette vision.
An economic chasm separates the two countries sharing the island of Hispaniola. Until the mid-twentieth century, both had roughly the same GDP, but while the Dominican Republic (DR) has enjoyed decades of economic growth, Haiti’s economy has languished, crippled by political turmoil and natural disasters. Although both countries have roughly the same population—nearly 11 million—the DR’s economy is ten times bigger.
In 2018, Haiti suffered a period of severe drought, floods and an earthquake, at a time the country is still facing epidemics of cholera, diphtheria and malaria, a migration crisis with the voluntary or forced displacement of Haitian populations from the Dominican Republic or other countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region, and recurrent protection problems.
In 2019, more than 2.6 million people in Haiti will need assistance, including 1.3 million people targeted by the Humanitarian Response Plan. In a context of economic fragility and socio-political tensions, the successive shocks that have affected the country (including natural disasters, epidemics, population displacements), combined with structural weaknesses limiting access to basic services, have considerably increased the chronic vulnerability of the Haitian population and reduced its capacity for resilience.
This document describes an evidence-based evaluation of the immediate and long-term impact of LEVE/USAID grants to the fishfarming entities Caribbean Harvest Foundation and Caribbean Harvest Social Enterprise, both hereon referred to jointly as CH. Specifically, the study was interested in evaluating the impact on the resiliency of participating households.
Given that some time had passed since the initial grant to Caribbean Harvest S.A. was made to increase production capacity, LEVE and Caribbean Harvest S.A. agreed to undertake an impact assessment that would go beyond simply capturing results, but more to measuring resiliency (as defined by the United States Agency for International Development) of the fish farmers. The initial grant was to increase both energy supply and the number of cages, which would lead to an overall increase in fish production by fish farmers.
The research presented in this report directly addresses important and unresolved questions stemming from the unexpected fact that Haitians continue to meet approximately 80 percent of their national energy needs through firewood and charcoal production.
Before presenting data and analysis, it should be understood that this report examines life in the rural Grand Anse from the perspective of resiliency and adaptation. People living in the region are adapted to 200-plus years of natural and manmade calamities. Natural calamities include droughts, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes.
Haiti burns over 400,000 tons of charcoal annually (USAID 2011); that amount translates to over 4,000,000 tons of trees destroyed since it takes 10 tons of wood to produce one ton of Haitian charcoal (ESMAP 2007). Regional environmental studies in Haiti, including Ghilardi, et al 2018, have determined that the Haitian charcoal industry has a destructive effect on the trees of Haiti.
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