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

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 percent inflation, a 25.5 percent 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 percent of capacity, migration returns from the Dominican Republic, and the underfunded $472 million humanitarian requirement, and sets out recommendations framed by the 2030 Agenda.