Poverty in Haiti
Poverty in Haiti affects many aspects of everyday life. Examples include housing, nutrition, education, healthcare, infant mortality rates and the environment. Haiti has long struggled with poor living conditions, with many Haitians moving to the capital city of Port-au-Prince in a bid to escape poverty in the more rural areas of the country. Poverty in Haiti is regarded as among the most severe in the western hemisphere.
Agriculture
More mountainous than Switzerland, Haiti has a limited amount of arable land. According to soil surveys by the United States Department of Agriculture in the early 1980s, 11.3% of the land was highly suitable for crops, while 31.7% was suitable with some restrictions related to erosion, topography, or conservation. The surveys revealed that 2.3% was mediocre because of poor drainage, but was acceptable for rice cultivation, and 54.7% was appropriate only for tree crops or pastures because of severe erosion or steep slopes. According to estimates of land use in 1978, 42.2% of land was under constant or shifting cultivation, 19.2% was pasture land, and 38.6% was not cultivated.The use of purchased inputs, such as fertilizers, pesticides, machinery, and irrigation, was rare; farmers in Haiti employed traditional agricultural methods more than did farmers in any other part of the Western Hemisphere.
Small farmers also lacked access to credit. Informal credit markets flourished, but credit was not always available at planting time. When credit was available, it was usually provided at usurious rates. The country's major public financial institutions provided loans to the agricultural sector, but this lending benefited less than 10% of all farmers. Major credit sources included the Agricultural Credit Bureau, agriculture credit societies, credit unions, cooperatives, and institutions created by nongovernmental organizations.
CIA World Factbook
In 2015, the gross domestic product in Haiti was estimated to be US$18.54 billion by The World Factbook, ranked 146 in the world. Although GDP growth in Haiti is among the fastest in the region, it has not been sufficient to significantly reduce poverty rates.| Field | Haiti |
| GDP : | $18.54 billion |
| GDP - per capita : | $1,800 |
| Life expectancy at birth: | 63.18 years |
| Population growth rate: | 1.08% |
| Health expenditures: | 9.4% of GDP |
| Literacy: | total population: 60.7% |
United Nations Development Program
The United Nations Development Program estimated the national poverty rate in 2014 at 58.6%, with those living in abject poverty at 24.7%. This is roughly one quarter of the population.Key reported figures of the UNDP Millennium Development Goals are as follows:
The richest 1% of Haitians possesses the same wealth as the bottom 45% of the income distribution. There is a new baseline of poverty in Haiti, based on consumption: The national poverty rate is 58.6%, and the extreme poverty rate is 24.7%.
The net enrollment rate in primary education has increased steadily from 47% in 1993 to 88% in 2011. The number of children vaccinated against measles increased from 25.80% in 1987 to 85% in 2013. In rural areas, 75% of births are still without the assistance of qualified personnel in obstetrics. In urban areas, the majority of women give birth with medical assistance—nearly 60%. HIV/AIDS prevalence has stabilized between young Haitians aged 15–24 years, from 1% in 2006 to 0.9% in 2012.
Corruption
In 2014, Haiti ranked as the fifteenth most corrupt country in the world by Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index, with a CPI score of 19, compared to the United States' score of 74. The Corruption Perceptions Index measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption worldwide, and it paints an alarming picture. No country achieves a perfect score, and more than two-thirds score below 50 on a scale from 0 to 100.Studies conducted by Transparency International shows a strong correlation between corruption and poverty. Corruption increases poverty by lowering economic growth rates, biased tax systems which would also lead to a widening disparity between the rich and the poor, poor implementation of social programs, lower welfare spending and unequal access to education.
Although Haiti has a high economic growth rate for the region, social programs, and decreasing educational cost, studies have shown that international donors have been slow to assist Haiti, mainly due to perceived widespread corruption and structural problems present in the country.
The United Nations estimates a total of US$13.34 billion has been earmarked for the 2010 Haiti earthquake that inflicted $7.8 billion in damages, yet two years after the 2010 quake, less than half of that amount had actually been released, according to U.N. documents. This is due in a large part to the perceived corruption of the Haitian government, and yet less than 5% of Humanitarian aid was channeled through it. According to the UN Office of the Special Envoy for Haiti, as of March 2012, of Humanitarian funding committed or disbursed by bilateral and multilateral donors in 2010 and 2011, only 1% has been pledged to the Haitian Government