(2020-06) Report of the Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Haiti (E/2020/66)

United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) • 2020 • 18 pages

Summary — ECOSOC advisory group report warning that COVID-19 could reverse 15 years of development and security gains in Haiti, with half the population needing humanitarian aid and 4.1 million requiring urgent food assistance.

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Key Findings

Some 5.1 million people, approximately half the population, require urgent support and 4.1 million need urgent food assistance, with staple food prices up 25 per cent in 12 months and agricultural production down 12 per cent from 2018 to 2019. Unmitigated COVID-19 models forecast 400,000 hospitalized and 17,000 deaths, against a fragile health system where government health spending is under 1 per cent of GDP and 7,500 to 9,000 hospital beds would be required. The economy contracted an estimated 0.9 per cent in 2019 with 20 per cent inflation, a 25.5 per cent two-year gourde depreciation and energy subsidies at 6.5 per cent of GDP. The revised humanitarian requirement totalled $472 million, prisons stood at 343 per cent of capacity, and roughly 100,000 Haitians per year returned or were deported from the Dominican Republic in 2018-2019.

Full Description

The sixteenth report of the ECOSOC Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Haiti draws on a March 2020 visit to Washington, D.C. and virtual consultations, the visit to Haiti having been prevented by COVID-19 travel restrictions. The Group warns that the pandemic, whose first case was registered on 19 March 2020, could deepen Haiti's multidimensional crisis and reverse 15 years of development and security gains. It reviews the political context, with the President governing without a Parliament since January 2020 and Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe appointed in March, and an economy already contracting before the pandemic, with 20 per cent inflation, a 25.5 per cent two-year currency depreciation and heavy energy subsidies. Humanitarian needs nearly doubled, with 5.1 million people requiring support and food insecurity worse than after the 2010 earthquake. The report covers weak health and education systems, prison overcrowding at 343 per cent of capacity, migration returns from the Dominican Republic, and the underfunded $472 million humanitarian requirement, and sets out recommendations framed by the 2030 Agenda.

Topics

Geography

Time Coverage

2019 — 2020

Keywords

E/2020/66, ECOSOC, Ad Hoc Advisory Group, COVID-19, peyi lok, food insecurity, humanitarian response plan, BINUH, cholera elimination, education, migration returns, 2030 Agenda, series:ecosoc-adhoc-haiti

Entities

Economic and Social Council; Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Haiti; Jovenel Moïse; Joseph Jouthe; BINUH; Helen La Lime; International Monetary Fund; World Bank; Inter-American Development Bank; Ministry of Public Health and Population; International Organization for Migration; UNDP; Pan American Health Organization; Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs; Jean-Henry Céant; Bocchit Edmond

Notes

UN document E/2020/66 via ReliefWeb; ayitistats wave B; ECOSOC Ad Hoc Advisory Group report series (full, per user)