National Roadmap for the Transformation of Food Systems in Support of the 2030 Agenda in Haiti (Advanced Version of 17 September 2021)

The roadmap diagnoses the food system under three headings drawn from the Sustainable Development Goals: nutrition, socioeconomic and environmental issues. It reports that 70 percent of the population was chronically food insecure in the 2015 IPC analysis by the CNSA and its partners, that overweight and obesity among women rose from 21 percent in 2005-2006 to 32 percent in 2016-2017, and that anemia affects 49 percent of women aged 15 to 49 and 66 percent of children aged 6 to 59 months. Haiti imports more than half of its staple foods, which the text attributes to thirty years of economic and trade policies unsuited to the sector, including import duties set well below CARICOM rates. Between 60 and 80 percent of the food households consume is bought at market, and more than half of farmers hold between 0 and 0.5 carreau of cultivable land. Major tropical hurricanes between 2004 and 2008 cost more than USD 7 billion, and the damage from Hurricane Matthew in the Grand Sud in 2016 is given as USD 2.78 billion.

Two approaches are combined. The national policy PSNSSANH, published in 2018 and adopted by the Council of Ministers in 2021, comprises 35 measures and 25 national programs to be carried out by 11 ministries and 12 bodies, around four axes (policy, operational, institutional, cross-cutting) and five priority sectoral actions, which include higher import tariffs on agricultural products. The Summit approach adds five action tracks: access to safe and nutritious food, sustainable consumption, nature-positive production, equitable livelihoods, and resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks and stress. The national consultations proposed actions under each, among them strategic food stocks to stabilize staple prices, a nutrition education program, social safety nets, watershed management, crop insurance and early warning systems.

For implementation the roadmap calls for permanent consultation among the State, the private sector and civil society, a National Strategic Commission to monitor the roadmap, public-private partnerships, regional platforms of producers and distributors, and a monitoring and evaluation system. It proposes that the Bank of the Republic of Haiti (BRH) create guarantee funds for small and medium enterprises so that the industrial development fund can lend at rates near 2 to 3 percent a year and commercial banks can finance equipment through leasing below 10 percent, and it gives a strategic role to the BNDA and the BCA. Commercial and fiscal reforms are to take effect gradually, and political stability and a secure environment are named as the minimum conditions for the food systems to function.