Crisis in Haiti

Haiti is a prime example of how human needs in one area of the world are interdependent with social conditions elsewhere in the world. Haiti, for most of its history has been overwhelmed with economic

Illness and disease along with poverty still plague Haiti today. The effort to try and recover from the most recent earthquake tragedy has Haitians concerned. The conditions that they have endured in the past just to survive are worse than the conditions brought on by the earthquake. Some Haitian natives feel the Government is moving a bit slow in cleaning up and getting

In order to understand Haiti we must first put ourselves in their shoes. At one stage or another, every man, woman, or child will be faced with at least one issue that is now happening in Haiti. The issues involving Haiti has been a popular topic for the past two years. Since January twelfth two-thousand and ten. There are many factors which influenced the development of Haiti. Many people have abandoned Haiti over the past years. They have also given up hope for Haiti. Haiti is heralded by economic issues both political and social, foreign issues, military issues (minustah), presidential issues, and the recent earthquake. I plan to explain each of these factors in detail and give

However, in Haiti’s case, it is so entrenched in debt that the government has problems far beyond water and sanitation. In 2008, Haiti was $1.85 billion in debt to other countries, and that figure is only growing (Varma et al., 2008, p. 68). Additionally, countries that were helping reconstruct the physical water system and infrastructure, such as the United States, have been backing out because they know it is unlikely Haiti will repay them. Failed international involvement is a crucial side-effect of a government in disarray. Other nations do not trust Haiti and do not want to enter the scene of turmoil. Consequently, such a shortage of financial resources is harming multiple facets of Haitian lives. For example, the country does not even know how much water it requires for self-sufficiency because the government has not allocated funds to research and development (Stoa, 2015, p. 5). Moreover, water transportation is currently ineffective. The natural geographic location of individuals relative to the water supply puts the metropolitan areas at an advantage. Wealthier individuals have cisterns and can pay a premium for water whereas rural residing Haitians often travel on foot carrying their water in buckets (Varma et al., 2008, p. 70). However, developing more efficient water distribution procedures for the population at large is costly and requires funding the government cannot

If the government were to open up opportunities for entrepreneurs, small businesses could be established and there would be less dependence on large corporations. Non-governmental and aid organizations have slightly helped conditions in Haiti, but they will not help the self sufficiency needed to make Haiti prosper. If the government were to take advantage of the NGO and foreign aid, progress could be made. However, there are holes. This solution is similar to the import substitution industrialization policy in which governments encourage local production of items that had previously been imported. While local production would decrease dependence on imports, Haiti does not have the funds to industrialize their economy. If Haiti were to industrialize the majority of their economy, these industries would most likely not be globally competitive enough to attract more trade partners. Plus, if Haiti were to take advantage of the foreign aid, this would contradict the point of becoming financially

The national population is continuing to increase at a 1.17% growth rate, which appears small, but consider that most developed countries have negative population growth rates. This is caused by two main factors; continuous births in a state that cannot support them, and the deportation of Haitians from the Dominican Republic, who’s population is decreasing. More than that, Haiti still lies in ruins following the 2010 earthquake, which, as previously mentioned, leaves a large percentage of the population without shelter, food, or work. Even worse is that Haiti’s economic status is continually deteriorating, caused by the previous two factors; population growth and geographic destruction. For that matter it is not helping the global economy at all, as a developed country would. Data shows that Haiti is truly the most under-developed country in the Western Hemisphere. This is due to the fact that it “is the most densely populated country in the Western Hemisphere” (Aronson 1), the fact that it is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and has the least income per person, the fact that it does not have nearly enough food, shelter, clothing, water, or work for all of its people. With that, Haiti shows no signs of improvement in the near future, as it has nothing to build up

Haiti is one of the more indigent countries in the world; the country also holds a low economic status. Over time Haiti’s economy grew gradually at around 2.3

Fixing the corrupt governments of both the countries is the best start to making them thrive. Living with leaders who continually fail to keep their promises may be disheartening, but the country continuously grows and improves with each presidency. As for Haiti, their main focus should be to replenish the environment, and provide solutions for the AIDS epidemic through foreign help. Preserving the environment proved helpful for the people of Dominican, and is something that Haiti should mimic, as well as attempting to find new exports such as

According to Trost, “97% of the land has been deforested” (Trost). Much of the land is not farmable, and what little is, is controlled by the elite. The common people are unable to grow their own crops successful in their unfertile soil. Additionally, over a third of the country’s water supply is contaminated. Haiti has also faced many natural catastrophes, such as hurricanes and earthuakes, that further destroyed their fertile soil and contaminated more of their water supply. These natural catastrophes have also led to disease and the destruction of buildings and homes. Haitians have struggled to rebound from these natural

The government in Haiti has been overwhelmed over the last two centuries with a plethora of

This free market system allows low labor costs and tariff-free access to the US for many of its exports. However, Haiti’s economy as struggled for decades. Within the last 7 years, Haiti has experienced substantial roadblocks on the path to economic growth: poverty, natural disasters, weak infrastructure, such as access to electricity, deforestation, soil erosion and inadequate supplies of potable water. Economic recovery has been impeded by the 2010 earthquake and 2012 hurricanes which adversely affected agricultural production and slowed public capital

“Sometimes the skies turn barren and will not rain.”(Sometimes, the Earth is Cruel John Pitts.) When Pitt said this it made me think not just the actual skies, but to think about life. Sometimes seems like it will never let you get a break from the struggles, but if you just keep pushing on you will soon find something that will help you. We know people that break down when they are handed a hardship, but we also see people that will adapt to the struggle and work around it, there back to the we are never handed more than we can handle. “Bad enough, Haiti is wretchedly poor.” (Sometimes, the Earth is Cruel John Pitts). Haiti itself may look poor, but the people that live there are people that know how to live and make a living off of the little thing that the Earth gives

“Over 100,000 children under five suffer from acute malnutrition while one child out of three is stunted, or irreversibly short for their age.”(“Hunger”) This staggering statistic is due to one of the world’s biggest problems, hunger. Hunger is a problem that many developing countries face, one of the biggest victims to hunger is the small Caribbean country of Haiti. Hunger in Haiti affects the entire country, from the rural countrysides to the major cities. Though hunger is already a big issue for Haiti, it has gotten worse in the past decade due to the extreme poverty, heavy storms, and natural disasters that the country has faced. “In 1997 some 1.2 million Haitians didn 't have enough food to eat. A decade later the number had more than doubled. Today, that figure is 6.7 million, that goes without food some days, can 't afford a balanced diet or has limited access to food.”(“Goldberg”) Natural disasters and extreme poverty have played large roles in Haiti’s growing hunger problem.

Although, Haiti’s economy hasn’t been able to grow due to poverty and corruption, their vulnerability to natural disasters and deforestation has also influenced. The border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic is what best reflects the amount of deforestation occurring in Haiti. Even though, they share the same climate, ocean access, and location, there is a huge divergence of growth between these two countries.

Deforestation of Haiti results in poverty. The role of deforestation in poverty is driven by the desperate search for fuel by these exceedingly poor people. In Haiti, poverty is rooted in a lack of resources and decades of bad social policies of dictatorial regimes. With every family constantly needing charcoal, charcoal production became a "job" almost anyone could have. Therefore, everyone scrounges for any wood that can be made into charcoal, either to sell or to