2016 Country Review
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Haiti 2016 Country Review http://www.countrywatch.com Table of Contents Chapter 1 1 Country Overview 1 Country Overview 2 Key Data 6 Haiti 7 Caribbean 8 Chapter 2 10 Political Overview 10 History 11 Political Conditions 15 Political Risk Index 58 Political Stability 72 Freedom Rankings 87 Human Rights 99 Government Functions 102 Government Structure 103 Principal Government Officials 109 Leader Biography 112 Leader Biography 112 Foreign Relations 115 National Security 120 Defense Forces 122 Chapter 3 124 Economic Overview 124 Economic Overview 125 Nominal GDP and Components 128 Population and GDP Per Capita 129 Real GDP and Inflation 130 Government Spending and Taxation 131 Money Supply, Interest Rates and Unemployment 132 Foreign Trade and the Exchange Rate 133 Data in US Dollars 134 Energy Consumption and Production Standard Units 135 Energy Consumption and Production QUADS 137 World Energy Price Summary 138 CO2 Emissions 139 Agriculture Consumption and Production 140 World Agriculture Pricing Summary 142 Metals Consumption and Production 143 World Metals Pricing Summary 145 Economic Performance Index 146 Chapter 4 158 Investment Overview 158 Foreign Investment Climate 159 Foreign Investment Index 163 Corruption Perceptions Index 176 Competitiveness Ranking 187 Taxation 196 Stock Market 197 Partner Links 197 Chapter 5 199 Social Overview 199 People 200 Human Development Index 202 Life Satisfaction Index 206 Happy Planet Index 217 Status of Women 226 Global Gender Gap Index 229 Culture and Arts 239 Etiquette 239 Travel Information 240 Diseases/Health Data 249 Chapter 6 255 Environmental Overview 255 Environmental Issues 256 Environmental Policy 257 Greenhouse Gas Ranking 258 Global Environmental Snapshot 269 Global Environmental Concepts 280 International Environmental Agreements and Associations 295 Appendices 319 Bibliography 320 Haiti Chapter 1 Country Overview Haiti Review 2016 Page 1 of 332 pages Haiti Country Overview HAITI Haiti became the first independent Caribbean state when it threw off French colonial control in 1804. However, the country has been plagued by political instability for most of its history. Violence, instability and dictatorship have turned it into one of the poorest countries in the world and the least-developed country in the Western Hemisphere. After an armed rebellion led to the forced resignation and exile of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004, an interim government took office to organize new elections under the auspices of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti. Democratic rule was restored in May 2006 when Haiti finally inaugurated a democratically-elected president and parliament. In 2010, the country was hit by a devastating earthquake, whose effects are discussed below. Note on Governance and Poverty in Haiti: Haiti is one of the world's most impoverished countries and the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. It is the only country from the Americas located in the bottom echelon of the United Nations' Human Development Index. Haiti's population lives on an average of $2 USD a day and 50 percent of the population is composed of children and youth -- the most vulnerable segment of society in a natural disaster. With a significant portion of the people --22 percent -- living in the Haitian capital city of Port-au-Prince, which was at the epicenter of the January 2010 earthquake, the effects on Haiti as a whole was expected to be staggering. As noted here, in a country of nine million, a full third of Haiti's entire population was expected to be deleteriously affected by the earthquake. In the period before the 2010 earthquake, Haiti was already dealing with the massive destruction caused by four major hurricanes that struck the country in 2008. At the time, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes, had characterized the cumulative effect of the four hurricanes of 2008 as the "worst disaster in the last 100 years" to plague Haiti. It therefore bears repeating: The Haitian earthquake of 2010 has been a catastrophe of proportions rarely endured by a single nation state. The cataclysmic situation on the ground in Port-au-Prince augured manifold challenges in a country already wracked by a legacy of political instability and blinding poverty. As noted by United States President Barack Obama in his assessment of the situation in Haiti: "For a country and a people who are no strangers to hardship and suffering, this Haiti Review 2016 Page 2 of 332 pages Haiti tragedy seems especially cruel and incomprehensible." As the international community has mobilized to assist Haiti in its time of need, there have been widespread discussions of the country's level of poverty and the role of international aid in less developed countries. With regard to these issues, the question arises, "Why is Haiti so poor?" The answer to that question, as one might imagine, is a complicated one and lies, to some extent, in Haiti's historical legacy. Haiti -- once known as Saint-Domingue -- became a French colony in the late 17th century and gained the distinction of being one of the wealthiest French colonies in the New World. In fact, by the 18th century, Haiti's plantation economy was contributing to French wealth. Indeed, coffee and sugar -- two significant crops cultivated by African slave labor -- would yield enormous profits for France during that period. Haiti's shocking reversal of fortune is rooted in a conflagration of causes. After Haiti gained independence from France in 1804, following the mass revolt of slaves led by Toussaint L'Ouverture, it became the one of first independent black nations in the world. The country was eventually re-named "Ayiti" -- an indigenous Taino name meaning "land of mountains." But peace had not easily come to independent Haiti, as a consequence of France's continued attempts to re-assert its power and re-impose slavery. Then, following independence, Haiti continued to suffer at the hands of successive oppressive leaders -- a trend that would continue for years to come. Notably, in the post-L'Ouverture years, under Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the stewardship of the Haitian economy and political arena was compromised due to his decisions to ban the country's European population from owning property, and to mandate that the African population work either in the army or on plantations in what became a system of pseudo- serfdom. Other leaders, such as Henri Christophe, reinforced a brutal but successful plantation system called "fermage" in the northern part of the country during his tenure, which disintegrated after his death. In the south under Alexandre Pétion, the agro-economy devolved into subsistence farming. Years of ongoing battles and warfare also exacted a painful and destructive toll on the landscape and resources of Haiti. Clearly, Haiti's economic prospects were deteriorating as a result of these collective factors. Nevertheless, the likely death knell was the reparations settlement that Haiti was forced to pay France. The example of a black nation state being forged from a slave revolt was not a welcome precedent for the prevailing European colonial powers. Accordingly, Spain and the United States joined France in imposing an economic embargo onto Haiti, which ultimately forced that country in 1838 to pay an indemnity of 150 million francs to France -- an amount roughly equivalent to $21 billion today. Meanwhile, Haiti's national bank was being plundered by British, French, American and German forces. The ostensible result was a country in a state of debt to its former colonial master for Haiti Review 2016 Page 3 of 332 pages Haiti almost a century and a post-colonial economic disaster from which Haiti has never really ever recovered. Haiti's more recent political and economic history has been fraught with tyrannical and dictatorial regimes, such as those led by "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his successor, "Baby Doc" Duvalier. Both Duvaliers were tacitly supported by the United States for geopolitical and strategic reasons, given Haiti's closeness to communist Cuba. Under "Papa Doc," peasant lands were seized and given to members of his paramilitary force (re: death squads) called the Tonton Macoutes. "Baby Doc" oversaw a military regime that continued a pattern of exploitation and corruption, marked by the expropriation of the government's treasury into the hands of the governing elite, and to the detriment of economic development. This disturbing political and social terrain contributed to a mass exodus of the country's intelligentsia to neighboring Francophone islands, Francophone Canada, and urban centers in the United States. This "brain drain" served to ensure that Haiti may not have sufficient human capital (re: a dearth of technocrats) capable of solving the country's complex political and economic challenges. Today, Haiti is the recipient of international aid and is home to a number of humanitarian aid organizations, all charged with the goal of helping the Haitian people. To this end, there have been some critiques about the utility of long-term international aid to Haiti. Some voices concentrate on the failure of governance in fragile Haiti, usually with venal and corrupt leadership at the helm. They have contended that this dysfunctional system has resulted in the Haitian people receiving only limited benefits from the billions spent in international aid. Other voices, however, have argued that Haiti is constituently unable to chart a better path for its people. This sentiment was recently articulated by well-known New York Times' columnist, David Brooks, who suggested that countries like Haiti suffer from a progress-resistant culture, and that there is no real knowledge of how to transform aid funding into poverty alleviation in such places. A countervailing view, as noted by renowned economist, Hernando de Soto, is not that the less developed countries of the world suffer as a result of "a culture of poverty," but from a dearth of strong governance and a lack of corresponding institutions.