Recurrent political troubles, civil strife, insecurity, urban crime and repeated natural disasters in Haiti, whose devastating effects are exacerbated by environmental degradation, have considerably increased people’s poverty and their vulnerability to food insecurity.
Haiti fell from 146th in 2002 to 154th of 177 countries on the United Nations Development Programme’s 2006 Human Development Index; 76 percent of Haitians live below the poverty line and 56 percent on less than US$1 per day. In 2005, food production covered only 41 percent of national needs.
One third of newborn babies are born underweight; acute malnutrition among children under 5 is 9 percent; chronic malnutrition is 24 percent; 50 percent of pregnant women and two thirds of children under 5 are affected by anaemia. National surveys show that 72 percent of children aged 6–12 in rural areas suffer from iodine deficiency; 32 percent of school-age children are infected by intestinal parasites. Prevalence of HIV at 5.4 percent is the highest in the hemisphere; tuberculosis is making a comeback, because the two pathologies are closely linked.
Given the scale of needs, the proposed intervention is intended to provide a response to emergencies at the national level, targeting the most vulnerable populations in six of the country’s ten departments. Individual components will focus through the country’s health and education institutions on mother-and-child health, the nutritional status of the most vulnerable groups, tracking and treating HIV-positive and tuberculosis patients, and school feeding.
Particular attention will be paid to strategic partnerships, especially with United Nations organizations such as the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Development Programme, with whom complementary activities will be run. In implementing the relief component, collaboration will also be established with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The choice of activities and intervention modalities is based on the recommendations of several evaluations conducted in Haiti since 2005. The operation conforms to the Government’s priorities as set out in its July 2006 Social Appeasement Programme; it will provide direct support for national policies on universal education and for the national campaigns against parasitosis, malnutrition and HIV/AIDS. WFP will collaborate in the preparation of a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper and a United Nations Development Assistance Framework.
The operation will address Millennium Development Goals 1, 2 and 3 and WFP’s Strategic Objectives 2, 3, 4 and 5. The country’s food deficit, the rate of chronic malnutrition among vulnerable groups, problems of violence and security in poor urban districts and the Government’s limited resources combine to make it necessary to continue these activities for some time. But Strategic Objective 5, which WFP has already initiated with the deployment of groups in ministries and with training for government and other partners, is a first step in building up the Government’s capacity to take over responsibility for the social programmes.
The Board approves the proposed PRRO Haiti 10674.0 “Food Assistance for the Relief and Protection of Vulnerable Groups Exposed to Food insecurity”
