(2022-04) Can a New U.S. Plan Finally Give Haiti the Long-Term Framework It Needs?
Summary — USIP analysts assess the U.S. State Department's April 2022 designation of Haiti as a priority country under the Global Fragility Act (GFA). They argue the GFA's 10-year, whole-of-government strategy could finally replace decades of short-term, erratic assistance, but only if it anchors a fully inclusive Haitian political process that gives civil society a voice in setting a national vision.
Key Findings
- Haiti's April 2022 designation as a Global Fragility Act priority country (alongside Libya, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea and coastal West Africa) could replace decades of short-term, erratic U.S. assistance.
- The GFA mandates a 10-year country strategy co-designed with Haitian partners, a sharp break from the six-month mandate cycles that hamper U.N. planning.
- Roughly 60 percent of health facilities in southern Haiti were destroyed and 62 percent of the population was food insecure, per U.N. figures, while kidnappings rose almost 60 percent in early 2022.
- Inclusion of all societal voices is Haiti's most persistent political challenge; civil society has grown diverse but has not translated into a national governance structure.
- State stabilization fails without a political cause that earns genuine popular support, so the GFA's civil-society requirement is central to its prospects.
Full Description
Published days after the State Department designated Haiti a priority country under the Global Fragility Act (April 2022), this USIP analysis by Keith Mines and Nicolás Devia-Valbuena argues that the GFA offers Haiti its first genuinely long-term U.S. policy framework. The authors document the depth of the crisis: a health system in shambles (some 60 percent of health facilities in the south destroyed after the 2021 earthquake), 62 percent of the population food insecure, kidnappings up almost 60 percent year on year in early 2022, and a governance void following President Jovenel Moïse's assassination, with parliament dissolved since 2020 and a headless judiciary.
Two GFA features are singled out as potential breaks with past practice: a 10-year country strategy co-designed with Haitian partners, replacing the short mandate cycles that have hampered U.N. missions, and a requirement that all elements of the U.S. government work with a wide range of local partners, including civil society, community leaders and business. Drawing on Georges Fauriol, Rufus Phillips and Heather Selma Gregg, the authors caution that institution-building alone will fail without a political cause that earns genuine popular support and a sense of national unity; the GFA's insistence on inclusion gives it a better chance than previous efforts driven by U.N. mandates and electoral calendars.
Notes
Recovered from Wayback Machine (USIP 2025 publisher takedown); web article printed to PDF