@hunger Country Profile - Haiti December 4, 2011 Haiti: Haiti was last in the news and peoples collective

consciousnesses in January of 2010. On January 12, 2010 a magnitude (Mw) 7.0 earthquake occurred along a blind thrust fault associated with the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system. The epicenter was roughly 15 kilometers from the Capital of Haiti, Port-Au-Prince. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) estimated that the earthquake rendered between 1.5 and 1.8 million people homeless. Haiti was initially populated by North natives, the Taino Amerindians. The Hispanola (Haiti, Dominican Republic) discovered by Europeans when Columbus American island of was first arrived in

1492. The Spanish virtually wiped out the native population within 25 years of their arrival. In 1697 Spain ceded the western third of Hispanola, the area of Haiti, to France. The French then exploited the resources largely helped by the importation of slaves. In 1804 Haiti declared independence from France after its more than half a million slaves revolted.

Haiti is home to an estimated 9,719,932 people (2011). The current life expectancy is 62.2 years, with a median age of 21.4 years. The country currently has a death rate at 8.21 deaths/1,000 population (2010), however the 2011 statistic is skewed upward due to the January 2010 earthquake. Haiti has a maternal death rate of 300/100,000 and an infant mortality rate of 54.02 per 1,000 live births, both ranking in the highest 20%. 63% of the Haitian population has access to improved drinking water sources, however only 17% have access to improved sanitation facilities. 53% of the population is literate (55% male, 51% female). Haiti has the 39th highest prevalence of underweight children below the age of 5 almost 1 in 5 (18.9%).

Haitis GDP per capita is equivalent to $1,200.00 US per person (ranked 207 in the world). The majority of the labor force is in services (59%) with 25% in agriculture and 16% in industry. The Haitian unemployment rate is 40.6%; when underemployment is factored in roughly twothirds of the Haitian populace are included. As of 2003, 80% of the Haitian population lived below the poverty line; roughly half of all income in Haiti goes to the upper 10% of the population. Haitis agricultural products include coffee, mangoes, sugarcane, rice, corn, sorghum and wood. Lightly industrialized, Haitian industry produces textiles, sugar refining, flour milling, cement, and performs some light assembly based on imported parts. Haiti is a rough and mountainous piece of land comprising the western third of the island of Hispanola with a tropical to semi-arid climate. About 28% of the land mass is arable land, however only about 11.5% is used for permanent crops. Haiti is located in an area subject to a number of hurricanes and tropical storms each year as well as being in a seismically active region of the Caribbean. Haitis natural resources include bauxite, copper, calcium carbonate, gold, and marble. Haitis chief import is food. The Haitian economy runs a trade deficit and has a prime borrowing rate of 17.5%. Years of political violence, combined with a disaster prone geographic and geologic location have left much of the population very poor. A laissezfaire free market economy which is highly reliant on the United States has also been to the detriment of the average Haitian. Investment in Haiti is not wrong by any means. The investments being made, however, need to be targeted in to areas that will benefit the working class and poor who need to be empowered in order to bring Haiti to sustainability. In a way, the serious damage to the country imposed by the 2010 earthquake could prove to be beneficial. Jobs should be available in unskilled labor to
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demolish, repair, or rebuild structures damaged.

Buildings to be reconstructed should be

constructed to current international building codes in order to protect the lives of the people living in disaster prone areas. Buildings must be seismically stable, and able to withstand strong storms. Public works projects can be put in to place to protect against flooding and storm surges. Haitis hunger problem is not a permanent one. Invest ments which create jobs for the Haitian people will go a long way to helping people feed themselves rather than keeping them reliant on foreign food aid. Political stability, while difficult to achieve under such circumstances, is a must in order to provide a hand up.

Christopher Cecile @hunger Sources: CIA World Factbook - https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ha.html United Nations World Food Programme - http://www.wfp.org/countries/Haiti UNICEF - http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/haiti.html Encyclopaedia Britannica BLOG Haiti Earthquake of 2010: One Year Later http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2011/01/haiti-earthquake-of-2010-one-year-later-picture-essayof-the-day/