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Haiti

MCC has worked in Haiti since 1958 with a recent focus on reforestation and peacebuilding through support for human rights. MCC partners in Haiti have long sought to address the effects of political instability, weak rule of law, environmental devastation, and most recently, a massive earthquake.

The 7.3 magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12th, 2010 killed approximately 300,000 people, injured 300,000 more, displaced almost one million and resulted in the reverse migration of over 600,000 to the countryside. It is estimated that between 35-50% of Haiti’s GDP was lost as a result of the quake and it will take Haiti years to recover from the devastation.

The extent of the earthquake’s devastation was a direct result of economic injustice. Haiti has long been subject to external interventions that have perpetuated the nation’s structural poverty such as unjust international trade policies, onerous payments on debt acquired by past dictatorships, military interventions and paternalistic charity.

Beginning in the 1980’s, structural adjustment policies imposed by international financial institutions like the World Bank and IMF and "food dumping" by the United States weakened national agricultural production and exacerbated the poverty in rural Haiti, resulting in mass urban migration that made Port-Au-Prince especially vulnerable to this earthquake.