IMF Staff Country Reports

Haiti is facing exceptional challenges. While security has deteriorated steadily since the last 2019 Article IV Consultation, it reached crisis proportions in the first few months of 2024. Gangs controlled 80 percent of the capital during March-May 2024, paralyzing economic activity by disrupting supply chains, destroying much infrastructure, and rekindling inflation pressures. The escalation of violence has destroyed human and physical capital and led to a surge in the number of displaced people and greatly accelerated brain drain. The worsened security situation has amplified Haiti’s fragility, compounding its multiple shocks, including the pandemic, a devastating earthquake, political crisis following the assassination of President Moïse, worsening malnutrition resulting from the economic spillovers of Russia’s war in Ukraine which led to the food crisis, and repeated outbreaks of infectious diseases. The economy is only very slowly normalizing. The first wave of the contingent of the Multinational Security Support mission (MSS)—led by Kenya backed by the United Nations—arrived in Haiti at the end of June to help re-establish security. The new government, in place since June 2024 with a time-bound mandate through February 2026 (tasked with holding general elections), has a window of opportunity to implement reforms that could eventually help restore the country’s potential over the medium and long term.