Mr. Bauer believes that Haiti is facing an unprecedented crisis that could get even worse. For this reason, he says, there is no time to waste.
“It’s hard to believe that just a two-hour flight from Miami, a staggering 4.7 million people – half of Haiti’s population – are in a food crisis. In the Cité Soleil neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, 19,000 people are living in ‘disaster’ on a global scale of food insecurity.
In the 1980s, I often visited Haiti on family trips; My mother fled to America in the 1960s and I grew up in the suburbs of Washington, DC. The country was very poor at that time but could support itself. Now that I have witnessed its struggle, coordinating the response of the World Food Program, I cannot deny the feeling of being affected on a deeply personal level.
I speak Creole. I grew up with djon djon rice and joumou soup. I have always been acutely aware of Haiti’s rich history.
‘Disaster after another’
In the 1990s, there was a series of coups and trade embargoes; Everyone risked their lives on the boat. Free-market policies have ruined Haiti’s smallholder farmers and made the country heavily dependent on food imports. A series of disasters followed, including the 2010 earthquake and cholera outbreak, 2016’s Hurricane Matthew, and the 2021 southern quake.
Everything is now at a breaking point. This crisis is not going to pass – it needs new and strong humanitarian support.
I am often asked why things are in fact so bad near my family’s place of adoption. I replied that Haiti was starving because the gangs had taken control of the ports and roads. This has cut off communities from both the farms that feed them and essential humanitarian aid. Over the past year, food and fuel prices have skyrocketed.
A country in a deadlock
In September, widespread protests and looting broke out. The barrier has brought the country to a standstill, what Haitians call peyi lok (blockade). Peyi lok begins on September 12 like what happened around the world in the early months of the Covid pandemic – except that people are now forced to stay at home out of fear and violence, instead of a dangerous disease.
Armed groups have seized key fuel import depots, blocking the flow of diesel, the lifeblood of the economy. Humanitarians were also attacked; two in WFPwarehouses were looted, robbing thousands of essential food supplies. Because WFP employees, getting to the office means navigating obstacles and overcoming threats.
In peyi lok, buying panic broke out. Supermarket shelves are getting smaller and smaller as the days go by. I recently met a group of women at Cité Soleil as they waited for much-needed food from WFP. They say work is hard to come by, that they simply cannot afford the food they need. They said they were drinking rainwater. For dinner, they sometimes boil water and add salt because there is simply nothing else to eat. As we talked, gunshots rang out and bullets flew overhead. Sadly, the people of Haiti have become accustomed to violence and hunger.
Against this backdrop, WFP and its partners have fed more than 1 million Haitians this year – including more than 100,000 since the lockdown. The only safe way to get in and out of Port-au-Prince is by air. The UN Humanitarian Air Service, administered by WFP, has helped deliver cargo vital to the cholera response. But while emergency rations and planes will help people survive, they will not provide a future.
Armed groups no longer control the Varrreux Fuel Station but still hold large areas of the city. Their grip on Haitian society must end. UN sanctions against their supporters are a step in the right direction. But humanitarian work in Haiti needs a change of tack.
Help Haiti feed its people
Above all, we must help Haitian farmers feed their people. WFP is working with 75 agricultural cooperatives to provide school meals.
Thanks to this program, on any given school day, 100,000 children will receive locally provided school meals. But social unrest is keeping children away from schools and farmers away from markets. Peyi lok must end so that the rebuilding of Haiti’s broken food system can continue.
What Haiti is experiencing now is not merely a bout of unrest that will subside as part of the usual cycle to which the world is accustomed. Haiti is experiencing a crisis of unprecedented scale and can only get worse – unless we all act more quickly and urgently.”
