WFP VAM Bulletin, December 2023: Food Security Analysis

This WFP VAM Bulletin covers November 2023. After reaching a record national prevalence of insufficient food consumption of 72.4 percent in October 2023, the highest since WFP's monitoring began in September 2021, the rate eased slightly to 70.8 percent in November, about 8.2 million people, though most departments deteriorated compared with October except West, South-East and Grande'Anse. Grande'Anse (82 percent) and North-East (81 percent) had the highest prevalence. In the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, 1.7 million people (73 percent of households) had insufficient food consumption, down from 78 percent in October, though Cite-Soleil (93 percent) and Delmas (71 percent) remained the worst affected.

The closure of the Dominican Republic border since mid-September disrupted food supplies, particularly in Centre, North-East, South-East and North, where 62 percent of surveyed traders reported scarcity, mainly of beans and rice. An affordability analysis found that 24.7 percent of Haiti's 11.9 million people could not afford the Minimum Expenditure Basket in July 2023, rising to an estimated 30-35 percent (up to 760,000 additional people) by February 2024 under a worst-case inflation scenario. The rainy season was drier than average for most of 2023 except a late-November tropical depression that brought flooding too late to help the harvest.

Security deteriorated sharply at year's end: armed clashes between gangs in Cite Soleil (13-16 November), following the death of a gang leader, killed at least 166 people, with houses burned, a health center shot up and sexual violence reported; the West department recorded the country's highest share of households (29 percent) reporting insecurity limiting their livelihoods or food access.