Box 2.2
PARTNER SPOTLIGHT: CONCERN WORLDWIDE IN HAITI
On Saturday, August 14, 2021, Haiti was hit by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake. At the time of writing, the scale of the disaster was unclear, but early estimates of 1,300 dead, 5,700 injured, and more than 15,000 homes destroyed or damaged were all expected to rise.
The resilience of the Haitian people in the face of environmental, social, economic, and political instability is as extraordinary as the scale of challenges they face daily. Though not at war, the country has suffered violence over many decades. In 2004, a UN peacekeeping mission was deployed there when, for the first time in history, a mandate was given authorizing the use of force—not to address an active conflict or enforce a peace agreement, but because the political and humanitarian crisis was a threat to international peace and security. That UN mission continued until 2017 and was followed by a smaller peacekeeping mission. Having worked in Haiti for more than 27 years, Concern Worldwide has learned a number of lessons about how best to help people build resilience to the shocks and stresses they are confronted with. Its resilience-building work has been focused especially on Haiti’s urban centers, where the majority of Haitians live.
Growing urbanization in Haiti has led to a high concentration of the population in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince, where sprawling slums and high unemployment put enormous pressure on the area’s limited social infrastructure and basic services. Since long before the catastrophic 2010 earthquake, Haitians have suffered from degraded living conditions, limited educational opportunities, and poor economic prospects. In recent months the country’s sociopolitical and economic context has deteriorated further (President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated on July 7), leaving marginalized communities even more vulnerable to social and natural shocks. One of the areas where Concern Worldwide works is Cité Soleil, a marginalized and stigmatized commune in the Port-au-Prince area with a population of more than 265,000. Throughout 2021, tensions in the commune have been high. Fuel scarcity, traffic disruptions, and the closure of businesses and schools have harmed the livelihoods of the poorest households. According to the National Coordination for Food Security (CNSA), 46 percent of the population—4.4 million Haitians—are food insecure and in need of urgent humanitarian action. In Cité Soleil, at the time of writing, 55 percent of households are in a food crisis or food emergency (CNSA 2021).
Against this backdrop, where hunger and conflict collide, Concern Worldwide’s integrated programming consists of a range of interventions that work holistically. Its approach prioritizes working with and through local facilitators and community health workers, and it places a strong emphasis on its relationships with local institutions. Its collaboration with the professional school Haiti Tec and the training center Centre Animation Paysanne et d’Action Communautaire (CAPAC), for example, has encouraged these institutions to make additional investments in vulnerable communities. As part of its adaptive approach, Concern Worldwide seeks to use technology to best effect, including using mobile phones to distribute vouchers or delivering radio broadcasts about good health and nutrition practices.
Concern Worldwide’s integrated urban program is designed to meet people’s basic needs while building their capacity to meet their future needs. It provides people with the means to buy food while ensuring that markets have high-quality products from preapproved local suppliers. The team helps promote good health and nutritional practices so people can achieve both food security and nutrition security, which are especially critical at this time.
Despite the challenging context and growing needs, Concern Worldwide—working in collaboration with partners and local communities—has had a positive impact on families living in Cité Soleil. Its programming has helped improve the food security of 3,000 of the commune’s most vulnerable and food-insecure households. Its interventions have increased households’ access to food, reduced the number of families resorting to negative coping strategies, and improved people’s nutrition behavior, including their consumption of fruits and vegetables and their dietary diversity. Concern’s food security programming has contributed to a rise in the food consumption score in the commune. Since the onset of the organization’s food security programming in Cité Soleil, the share of the population with an acceptable food consumption score has risen from 39 percent to 73 percent, and the share of the target population reporting poor food consumption has fallen from 25 percent to just 2.1 percent. In the face of the myriad challenges faced by the people of Haiti, it is critical that these gains be protected and built on over the months and years to come.