Executive summary
2016 has been the third year of consecutive drought in Haiti, worsened by the influence of the El Niño weather phenomenon. These prolonged conditions, with the consequent important crop losses, plunged the country’s many rural households into food insecurity.
As rural populations are considered to be the most exposed to food insecurity, assessments conducted to estimate the drought’s impact on the population’s food security have only focused on rural areas. However, there is a concern that food insecurity may increasingly become an urban issue.
In Haiti more than half of the population lives in urban centres (about one in two Haitians live in urban areas, and about one in four Haitians live in the Metropolitan Area of the capital Port-auPrince).
Spikes in food prices and political instability may trigger the proliferation of urban food insecurity, particularly in the poorer areas.
In June 2016 an Urban Food Security Assessment was conducted by the Coordination Nationale de la Sécurité Alimentaire (CNSA) and the World Food Programme (WFP) to estimate the food insecurity prevalence and to identify community/ neighbourhood factors that can directly influence food insecurity, nutrition and economic vulnerability in the Haiti urban context.
The assessment showed that:
In the Metropolitan Area of Port-au-Prince, 30 percent of the households are food insecure (about 750,000 people) out of the estimated 2.6 million total inhabitants. The level of severe food insecurity is 2 percent (about 50,000 people);
The level of food insecurity in the Metropolitan Area of Port-au-Prince is considerably less than that seen in the drought affected rural areas assessed in the December 2015;
The commune of Cité Soleil and the cities of Gonaïves, Jérémie, and Port-de-Paix stand out as having the highest levels of food insecurity;
40 percent of households have unacceptable food consumption;
Food insecurity is also driven by economic vulnerability, with 50 percent of households spending over half their budget on food;
Increase in prices of food and other goods is the most common shock reported;
The majority of households are forced to engage in negative coping strategies, including 25 percent relying on crisis or emergency strategies, which are difficult to reverse.
The present report looks at the intricacy of the assessment process, strategies and tools with a specific focus on the context of the analysis. It finally reveals that food insecurity in the Haiti urban scenario should continue to be monitored, as further increases in food prices or other shocks are expected to continue to negatively affect a sustainable urban food security situation in the country.
Recognising the need to expand food security surveillance to main Haitian cities, WFP and the CNSA, in collaboration with key food security stakeholders, plan to set-up a food security monitoring system in large cities in order to get regular and timely information, and prevent food crises.
I. Introduction
More than six years after the January 2010 earthquake that rocked the capital and other areas of the country, Haiti has more recently been impacted by the rise of food prices of many key staples over the past year. These rising prices are caused by the drought and the devaluation of the Gourde (the currency of Haiti) compared to the US Dollar (USD) and the Dominican Peso over the past year.
Rural populations are of continued concern with regard to food insecurity. Much of the rural population is chronically vulnerable to food insecurity, particularly to the impacts of drought. A rural Emergency Food Security Assessment (EFSA) was conducted from December 2015, to determine the extent of the impact on these rural populations. Ongoing programmes to assist the most vulnerable in rural areas are also in place. While there is little current information available on the plight of the large population of urban poor in Haiti. Indeed, assessments conducted to estimate the drought’s impact on the population’s food security have only focused on rural areas, in a country where more than half of the population lives in urban centres. Haiti is also experiencing rapid inflation and political instability, factors that could further hinder food insecurity, particularly in urban areas.
In December 2015, the CNSA and WFP conducted a Port-au-Prince case study as part of the ‘Adapting to an Urban World Project’, which provided insights on the factors defining vulnerability as well as lessons learnt and recommendations for the adaptation of indicators and approaches within the urban context.