Haiti Assistance Overview, November 2023 – Haiti

CONTEXT

• Exposure to natural hazards, including tropical cyclones and earthquakes; food insecurity; limited access to essential services; and political instability and related organized criminal group (OCG) activity continue to drive humanitarian needs in Haiti, where an estimated 5.2 million people require humanitarian assistance in 2023, according to the UN.

• High levels of insecurity and violence, as a result of political instability following the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and the associated rise in OCG activity, have displaced nearly 200,000 people across the country. In Haiti’s capital city of Port-au-Prince alone, approximately 143,000 people had been displaced and were in need of food, hygiene kits, psychosocial support, and safe drinking water as of July. The significant rise in violence has also hindered civilian movement and humanitarian access, limiting vulnerable populations’ ability to access essential goods and services.

• After more than three years without a detected cholera case in the country, the Government of Haiti (GoH) confirmed two cases on October 2, 2022. Since then, the GoH’s Ministry of Public Health and Population (MPSS) has reported nearly 70,000 suspected cases of cholera and more than 4,000 confirmed cholera cases as of early November 2023, with more than 40 percent of the country’s cholera cases originating from Port-au-Prince as of early October. The disease has disproportionately affected children ages 10 and younger, who account for nearly 40 percent of suspected cases. IDPs also face a disproportionately high risk of contracting cholera due to a lack of available water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services, particularly for the nearly 60,000 IDPs sheltering across informal IDP sites within the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area as of July, the UN and WASH actors report.

• Inflation and supply chain disruptions driven by OCG activity; poor agricultural production; repeated Dominican Republic–Haiti border closures; and natural shocks, including droughts and storms, are driving food insecurity across Haiti. Nearly 2 million people, up to 20 percent of Haiti’s population, will likely experience Crisis—IPC 3—or worse levels of acute food insecurity between October 2023 and May 2024, including 250,000 people—primarily located in Artibonite, Nord-Ouest, and Ouest departments—expected to face Emergency—IPC 4—levels of acute food insecurity, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) reports.