Country profilesHaiti

Humanitarian profile

Decades of dictatorship and coups have left Haiti the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere. A U.N. peacekeeping force has struggled to contain political and gang violence. A massive quake in 2010 killed tens of thousands of people and left more than 1 million homeless. The country is frequently hammered by hurricanes



Country snapshot

Haiti, the world's oldest black republic, was founded in 1804 following a slave revolt that led to independence from France. The Caribbean nation, which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Decades of violence, political instability, weak governments, dictatorship and coups have contributed to Haiti's poverty. Unrest and political turmoil has twice prompted the U.S. to intervene in Haitian affairs. United Nations peacekeepers have been based in the country - on and off - since 1994.

Haiti has among the highest levels of starvation and malnutrition in the Americas, with an estimated 30 percent of children suffering chronic malnutrition. A wide gap in poverty exists between the richer French speaking Haitians and the poorer Creole speakers.

More than half of all Haitians live on less than $1 a day, forcing many to cut down trees for firewood. Less than two percent of Haiti's territory is covered by forest, leaving a nation of subsistence farmers vulnerable to soil erosion, devastating floods and mudslides.

Haiti is one of the world's most disaster prone countries. Frequent tropical storms and cyclones batter the Caribbean nation, killing and displacing thousands.

Entrenched poverty has led to an exodus of Haitians, many fleeing the country in flimsy boats. It is estimated that about one in every six Haitians live abroad. Many have settled in the U.S., Canada and in neighbouring Dominican Republic where Haitians make up an estimated 10 percent of the population.

Haiti is a major transit point through which drugs destined for the U.S. pass through.

In January 2010 a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, the country's worst in 200 years. Tens of thousands of people were killed and some 1.5 million Haitians were directly affected by the disaster. The earthquake wrecked the capital, Port-au-Prince, wiped out dozens of hospitals and schools and destroyed the presidential palace, the main prison, law courts, the U.N. mission's headquarters and several ministries. 

Government

In Haiti, the president is the head of state and the prime minister is the head of government. Haitian voters directly elect a president, who serves a five-year term but cannot serve consecutive terms. The president appoints the country's top posts with the consent of parliament.

Over the years, political infighting and a lack of consensus between the prime minister, president and parliament has dogged Haitian politics, often leading to a political stalemate.

Economy

About two-thirds of all Haitians depend in some way on agriculture.

Decades of cheap food imports, a result of U.S. pressure to slash food imports, in particular U.S. rice imports, has stifled local agricultural production and driven farmers off their lands.

Haiti imports 50 percent of its food, including 80 percent of its rice needs, the nation's staple diet. In 2008, anger over rocketing food prices sparked violent protests.

Remittances are the primary source of foreign exchange in Haiti, equalling up to twenty percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).

The January 2010 earthquake had a devastating impact on Haiti's economy. Its cost is equivalent to fifteen percent of the country's 2009 GDP, according to World Bank estimates, but the Haitian government puts the figure at around sixty percent. The total reconstruction bill totals $11.5 billion.

The magnitude of the disaster prompted renewed calls to write off Haiti's $1 billion foreign debt. Shortly after the earthquake, the Inter-American Development Bank cancelled Haiti's $479 million debt.

History

Hispaniola's earliest inhabitants, the Tainos, arrived on the island around 2600 BC. Within a few decades of explorer Christopher Columbus landing on the island in 1492, the Tainos were virtually wiped out by disease and harsh working conditions in the mines.

Two hundreds years after Columbus established Spain's first settlement in the Western hemisphere, Spain ceded part of Hispaniola to France. The French territory became known as the "pearl of the Antilles" as plantations producing sugar, coffee and cotton made it one of France's richest colonies in the 18th century with labour provided by African slaves.

In 1791, Haiti's half a million slaves revolted under Toussaint L'Ouverture and the country became the first black republic to declare independence in 1804, heralding the first independent Caribbean state.

Haiti's post-independence history has been blighted by instability, despotism and military rule and a series of provisional governments marked by political gridlock.

The country achieved notoriety during the 30-year rule of father-son dictators, Francois and Jean-Claude Duvalier, which ended in 1986.

Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, a voodoo doctor, seized power in a military coup, promising to extend power to the black impoverished masses. But in 1964 he declared himself president-for-life and turned Haiti into a police state, unleashing a brutal reign of terror using his Tonton Macoutes henchmen.

After Papa Doc's death in 1971, his son, Jean-Claude, or "Baby Doc", took over at the age of 19 but was overthrown amid an uprising against his reign of corruption and brutality.

Haiti's first freely elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former priest, was ousted by the military from office during both of his two terms -- in 1991 and then in 2004.

Rene Preval, an agronomist, was re-elected to power in 2006, which heralded a brief period of political stability, economic growth, and increase in foreign investment before the earthquake struck.

Legal snapshot

Haitian law is based on the French civil law system.

Its justice system is dysfunctional, rights groups say, and plagued with corruption and a dire lack of trained officials and resources. Haiti's constitution calls for the independence of the judiciary, but over the years judges have been removed at whim by the government.

Haiti was ranked 168th out of 180 countries -- lower than  Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria -- in Transparency International's 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index measuring perceived levels of public-sector graft (1st position is perceived as least corrupt).

In the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake, hundreds of Haitians protested in the capital Port-au-Prince, accusing a district mayor of corruption and hoarding food aid provided by relief groups.

Many Haitians said they expect a good portion of any post-quake aid to flow straight into the pockets of corrupt government officials.