INTL 190 - Haiti in a Transnational Context

Haitian Economy

Haiti endured a difficult and bloody path to independence, but the years to follow proved even more treacherous. Historian Patrick Bellegarde Smith notes that, “Haitian independence challenged the foundation of the existing international system in which enormous profits were made through colonization and slavery. The demonstrative effect of the Haitian Revolution in destabilizing other European colonies and the slave-holding southern United States created highly exaggerated fears among the metropolitan powers.” (Bellegarde-Smith 71). The unwillingness of the modern world to recognize Haiti as an independent state severely hindered its economy’s ability to expand in its early years. Their agriculture-based economy stayed pretty much the same before and decades after independence, and the rigid social structures from their colonial days did as well. The combination of these two factors prevented the Haitian economy from growing like the rest of the independent world and is in my opinion, the primary cause of their struggles today.



Let’s look at some data from the World Bank to illustrate just how terribly the Haitian economy has performed over the years. The chart above shows the GDP per capita (standard measurement of economic output controlling for population size) since 1970 for Haiti, the World, Latin America, and the European Union member nations measured in US dollars. We can see that in 1970, all four groups started in roughly the same place and since then Europe has performed the best, with the World and Latin American averages somewhat mirroring each other, and Haiti brings up the rear. These numbers are even more alarming when we consider that Haiti is included in the data for both the World and Latin American averages so in reality, the gap between Haiti and the two groups is even larger than the chart shows. So why is it that Haiti hasn’t been able to keep up with the rest of the world, or even the countries in its own region? 

There are several possible explanations, but the most likely has to do with the political and economic institutions currently in place. As I mentioned earlier, Haiti never fully recovered from its colonial scars which resulted in poorly constructed governments and economic systems. These failures have plagued them for years and are what I believe to be the driving force behind their lackluster performance. For example, in an economic article analyzing the business cycles in Haiti, the author notes that, “in March 2013, another Haitian Official announced that poverty was under control and that the government had created 400,000 new jobs in the economy. At the same time, the Coordination Nationale de Sécurité Alimentaire (CNSA), the government office responsible for food security published a report indicating that 1.5 million were facing severe malnutrition during year 2013” (Dorsainville 65). These types of contradictory reports just don’t happen in more developed economies and point to structural issues within Haiti’s government. The inability to accurately report on what’s going on their own country reflects the severity of the economic issues in Haiti. Until these issues are resolved, and the citizens can trust official government reports, Haiti will continue to underperform economically.

Click the link to go to the World Bank's Haiti page. 

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