Endemic poverty, organized criminal group (OCG) activity, and recurring shocks from natural disasters—including droughts, earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes—continue to exacerbate acute food insecurity and other humanitarian needs throughout Haiti. An estimated 578,000 people remained displaced due to OCG-related violence across the country as of May, with the majority of internally displaced persons (IDPs) displaced within Haiti’s capital city Port-au-Prince. IDPs face heightened food insecurity, protection risks, and water, sanitation, and hygiene needs. At the same time, elevated OCG-related insecurity across the capital city has restricted humanitarians’ access to vulnerable populations and limited households’ ability to meet their basic needs. Relief actors, however, continue to access the majority of areas across the city.
In Haiti, USAID provides life-saving assistance to natural-disaster and OCG-affected populations, and supports disaster risk reduction programs promoting local and national self-sufficiency in disaster preparedness, response, and management. To augment food security, strengthen livelihoods, and enhance resilience to sudden-onset shocks, such as earthquakes, USAID also supports a five-year, $50 million Resilience Food Security Activities (RFSA) award in Haiti’s Sud and Nord-Est departments. Since 2011, USAID has supported humanitarian partners, including the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN World Food Program (WFP), to maintain emergency stocks of food, shelter, hygiene and other supplies in Haiti in the event of a disaster, as well as to develop Government of Haiti personnel’s capacity to manage facilities and deploy emergency supplies when necessary. On May 1, USAID transitioned Haiti response activities from the field-based Disaster Assistance Response Team and Washington, D.C.-based Response Management Team structure to a steady-state structure under USAID/Haiti’s Office of Humanitarian Assistance and the USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (USAID/BHA) Latin American and the Caribbean division.
