The World Food Programme (WFP) will be unable to feed 100,000 Haitians this month as the UN agency has insufficient funding to meet burgeoning humanitarian needs in the embattled Caribbean nation.
Haitians grappling with dire malnutrition will have to endure the absence of vital food and financial support amid the worst hunger crisis the country has ever witnessed, the WFP announced on Monday.
Surging food inflation in Haiti means the cost of feeding each person has increased while the number of those in need of assistance has also grown, driving up the cost of delivering WFP aid. At the same time the programme’s donors have cut funding, meaning many in dire need of assistance will not receive it.
The island nation has been engulfed in brutal gang violence since its then president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in July 2021 and 4.9 million people have been thrust into food insecurity. In October last year “catastrophic” level-five hunger conditions, usually associated with war-torn nations, were recorded in slums in Port-au-Prince for the first time in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Earthquakes and severe flooding last month have exacerbated Haiti’s hunger crisis, but just as NGOs need to ramp up their response programs they are having to scale them back due to funding shortages.
“This could not come at a worse time, as Haitians face a multilayered humanitarian crisis, their lives and livelihoods upended by violence, insecurity, economic turmoil and climate shocks. Unless we receive immediate funding, further devastating cuts cannot be ruled out,” said the WFP’s country director for Haiti, Jean-Martin Bauer.
Non-governmental organisations like the WFP have stepped up their efforts to assist Haitians as the country has spiralled towards anarchy, but they are underfunded and overstretched.
Some civil society groups have been forced to leave Haiti due to security concerns or the inability to send supplies through gang-controlled ports in the capital of Port-au-Prince.
The scale of the country’s humanitarian crises mean that even the largest international organisations now lack the financial resources needed to deliver their programs.
More than half of Haiti’s 11 million people regularly experience hunger and the cost of food has spiked in recent months as gangs take control of rural, food-producing areas.
“Needs are peaking and Haiti is experiencing a brush with famine. What we need to be doing is not cut back but provide more assistance,” Bauer said.
The WFP’s Haiti response plan is only 16% funded, meaning that in July it must slash the number of people to whom it will provide emergency food assistance by a quarter.
While the UN agency aims to reach 2.3 million Haitians this year, it warns that without securing $121m by the end of 2023 it will be unable to provide assistance to 750,000 of them.
The total cost of the WFP’s humanitarian response plan for 2023 is $720m, Bauer said.
For many Haitians supported by the WFP – including more than 450,000 schoolchildren in the first half of this year – the full meal provided to them is the only one they eat each day, the agency says.
Without an injection of funds, nearly half of those children will lose access to school meals when they return to class in September.
“We possess the human resources, the plan and the capacity to continue our efforts, but, unfortunately, without immediate financial support, we are compelled to make cuts that will leave thousands of vulnerable Haitians without assistance this year,” Bauer said in a press release.
The collapse of the Haitian state, and the rapid expansion of the gangs who control most of Port-au-Prince and are driving up poverty, show no signs of being resolved any time soon.
Little progress has been made in international discussions over how to restore order to the country as the UN is calling for troops to be sent in to quash the gangs, but countries have been largely unwilling to put boots on the ground given a long and dark history of failed foreign intervention in Haiti.
“This is not the time to scale back; it is the time to step up. We cannot fail the Haitian people when they need us the most,” Bauer added.
