Haiti is the poorest country in the

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and one of the poorest countries in the developing world. Its per capita income — $ 250 — is considerably less than one-tenth the Latin American average. About 80 percent of the rural Haitian population lives in poverty. Moreover, far from improving, the poverty situation in Haiti has been deteriorating over the past decade, concomitant with a rate of decline in per capita GNP of 5.2 percent a year over the 1985-95 period.The staggering level of poverty in Haiti is associated with a profile of social indicators that is also shocking. Life expectancy is only 57 years compared with the Latin American average of 69. Less than half of the population is literate. Only about one child in five of secondary-school age actually attends secondary school. Health conditions are similarly poor; vaccination coverage for children, for example, is only about 25 percent. Only about one-fourth of the population has access to safe water. In short, the overwhelming majority of the Haitian population is living in deplorable conditions of extreme poverty. In the face of this daunting reality, Haiti's population continues to grow at a high rate estimated at almost 200,000 people per year.What accounts for the dire extent of poverty in Haiti? Over time, numerous observers have given many and diverse answers to this difficult question. This report points to a number of key factors:Political instability, woefully poor governance, and corruption. Fundamental to the pervasive problem of poverty in Haiti is the long history of political instability and the lack of governance. Corruption and misuse of public funds have resulted in a decline in the quality of all public services, including fundamental areas of traditional governmental responsibility, such as the police, the justice system, and the provision of basic infrastructure. While the restoration of democracy in Haiti is highly welcome development and one, which has resulted in some encouraging progress, the basic problems of governance remain and are at the core of the country's poverty problems.Inadequate growth, as a result of distortions at the macroeconomic level and inadequate levels of private investment. The political factors just enumerated have had a severely negative impact on private investment, both domestic and foreign. The investment/GDP ratio in Haiti is only about 10 percent — on the order of one-third, for example, the ratio in Chile. This report estimates that Haiti would require annual growth rates of at least 5 percent to achieve significant progress in poverty reduction. Instead, as noted above, the country has experienced negative growth of about that magnitude in recent years, and prospects for meaningful improvement on the growth front are not in sight.Underinvestment in human capital and the poor quality of the expenditures that are made. In the public sector, still only 20 percent of resources go to rural areas, where approximately two-thirds of the people live. Per capita health spending, both public and private, is about $21, compared with $38 in Sub-Saharan Africa and $202 in Latin America.A "poverty trap." The interaction of these various factors, including high population growth, produces a downward spiral, a "poverty trap" from which there frequently appears no exit nor hope. Some aspects of that trap discussed in this report include: highlands; rampant environmental degradation, especially in rural areas; an increase in crime and violence, systematic abuse of human rights and outward migration from the country to escape a life of misery. In short, the lack of good governance, the low levels of growth and investment, the lack of attention to basic human needs, and a set of understandable, if lamentable, behavioral consequences interact in numerous and complex ways, all with one outcome: an increase in poverty and the associated human, physical, social, and environmental degradation. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and one of the poorest countries in the developing world. Its per capita income — $ 250 — is considerably less than one-tenth the Latin American average. About 80 percent of the rural Haitian population lives in poverty. Moreover, far from improving, the poverty situation in Haiti has been deteriorating over the past decade, concomitant with a rate of decline in per capita GNP of 5.2 percent a year over the 1985-95 period.The staggering level of poverty in Haiti is associated with a profile of social indicators that is also shocking. Life expectancy is only 57 years compared with the Latin American average of 69. Less than half of the population is literate. Only about one child in five of secondary-school age actually attends secondary school. Health conditions are similarly poor; vaccination coverage for children, for example, is only about 25 percent. Only about one-fourth of the population has access to safe water. In short, the overwhelming