Report of the Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Haiti (E/2008/90)

This fourth report of the Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Haiti to the Economic and Social Council was prepared without a country visit, cancelled because of the April 2008 political crisis in which food riots led the Senate to dismiss the Government of Prime Minister Alexis. It reviews follow-up to the Group's 2007 recommendations across development planning and aid coordination, institutional capacity building, and levers for economic and social development. The report records the completion of the national growth and poverty reduction strategy paper at the end of 2007, macroeconomic progress with 3.2 percent growth, and the potential of the HOPE and HOPE II trade preference acts, alongside persistent institutional weakness, a structurally deficient justice sector and a Parliament struggling to legislate. A dedicated section analyzes the food crisis: basic food prices rose by up to 65 percent between August 2007 and March 2008, triggering riots, an emergency response plan and large-scale international mobilization. The Group stresses that a new government must be installed quickly and issues twenty recommendations to the Haitian authorities, the UN system and donors.