The Haitian population is based on the family in the dwellings or "Lakou". Formerly essentially rural, this population lives in very difficult conditions, cultivating or fishing in an archaic way. This rural environment also suffers from a lack of infrastructure and services of all kinds (electricity, drinking water, education, etc.)

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                     Poverty and natural disasters cause a massive exodus, to flee poverty, either abroad, the Dominican Republic, or big cities like Port-au-Prince, the capital, mainly in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

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                   Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world ranked 163rd out of 188 for the Human Development Index. Ranked the 15th poorest country in the world for 2021 in the latest IMF ranking, down 7 places compared to 2014.

      

                The vast majority of the population lives from day to day, in great poverty, in working-class neighborhoods, living on odd jobs, small informal businesses or employed in factories, shops or schools with poverty wages.

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              Living conditions are harsh in an unhealthy environment made of dust, mud, rubbish, mosquitoes, favoring epidemics and chronic diseases.

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                70% of the population lives below the poverty line, on less than US $ 2 per day, and 56% of the population lives below the extreme poverty line, on less than US $ 1 per day.

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               The population is around 12 million inhabitants but the last official census dates from 2003 and all the figures since that date remain in the order of an evaluation and projection.

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                Literacy is around 63%. The literacy of children and young people, which had risen by around 80%, is currently regressing with the situation of misery and insecurity experienced by the population in 2020.

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                   The life expectancy is around 63 years.

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             The population faces growing insecurity with the proliferation of powerfully armed gangs, controlling almost all districts of the country and in particular the working-class districts or "ghettos", where the "chiefs" engage in social matters without forgetting the racketeering, the kidnapping, the murders, taking advantage of the absence of the helpless and unarmed police in the face of this phenomenon, with a staff of about 15,000 men and women. According to the FJKL (Je Klere Foundation), nearly a third of the national territory is controlled by gangs. The phenomenon of kidnapping, further reinforced in the fall of 2020, adds to the stress of the population as long as a loved one has not yet returned home.

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               The Haitian bourgeoisie prefers to trade by importing than to invest in local production. It is encouraged by the absence of import tax. This situation favors the rise in the prices of basic necessities and the fall of the gourd against the US dollar.

Haiti plunges into economic chaos. The middle class no longer exists. There remains only the class of the rich and profiteers and the class of the poor and less poor. The standard of living has fallen. In the great majority of families, the budgets allocated to food, health care, education, clothing, among others, are drastically reduced. Often, only transfers from the Haitian diaspora make it possible to survive.

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                 The problems of housing and access to drinking water reinforce this insecurity. Access to electric current has been a challenge in recent months. Most of the time, there are only a few hours of power per month… And what about provincial towns…

More than 4.5 million people are severely food insecure.

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            The cost of a complete basic meal for 4 people represents more than 1000 gourdes which would represent a sum of 30,000 gourdes monthly for a single meal per day which cannot be afforded more than 90% of Haitian families ...