Overview

Haiti has a long history of underdevelopment and political instability. Haiti is beset by widespread poverty, economic decline, unemployment, poor governance, and severe violence.

Haiti currently has a population of about 8 million people, and 1 million of those inhabitants are abandoned or orphaned children. 

• Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere
• 50%  of all Haitian households live in extreme poverty using the  U.S. standard of a $1 per day
• Extremely poor households have about twice as many children as do the nonpoor.
• The country’s per capita GDP, has fallen by about 50 percent to $332 in the last two decades
• Most of the approximately 3.9 million who are extremely poor live in rural areas.
• About 4 in every 10 adults cannot read and write.
• More than 80% do not have access to clean drinking water.
• In rural areas only 10 percent of the inhabitants have electricity and just 3 percent have a telephone.
• The unemployment rate is highest in urban areas and runs close to 49%
• As many as 58 percent of residents in the metropolitan area feel unsafe “often or most of the time” in their own home. 
• Haiti has one of the world’s weakest police forces. There are 63 police officers per 100,000 people, less than a quarter of the regional average of 283 per 100,000 and only a third of the average for sub-Saharan African countries.