WFP VAM Bulletin, Quarter 2 2023: Food Security Analysis

This WFP VAM Bulletin covers the second quarter of 2023. After a peak of 71 percent of households with insufficient food consumption in April 2023 (the lean season), the rate fell to 64 percent by June, around 7.7 million people, still far above the 42 percent recorded in June 2022. West, Nippes, South and North-West departments had the highest prevalence (66-69 percent). In the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, 1.6 million people (about 70 percent of households) had insufficient food consumption in June, down from 75 percent at the quarter's start, though Carrefour, Croix-des-Bouquets and Cite Soleil remained the worst affected, at 72-84 percent.

The share of households using emergency or crisis coping strategies rose nationwide to 63 percent in June. Basic food prices, which had nearly doubled year-on-year for products like wheat flour (+110 percent) and ground corn (+93 percent) between April 2022 and April 2023, dropped by around 8 percent between April and May 2023, though they remained far above 2022 levels, and all nine of WFP's monitored main markets were classified in crisis under the ALPS price-spike system. Violent events and fatalities peaked in April 2023, with over 400 people killed mostly in the capital, before declining, though insecurity continued to unfold in Artibonite, where at least 60 people died in May versus 4 a year earlier.

A significant delay in the rainy season's onset, combined with prolonged rainfall deficits especially in Grande'Anse, West, Centre and South-East, raised concerns about the 2023 harvest, compounded by a confirmed El Nino episode expected in the second half of 2023. Households with daily-wage jobs were the most vulnerable nationally, with 70 percent facing insufficient food consumption compared with 47-50 percent for those in public-sector or stable employment.