Behind Haiti’s Hunger
Tuesday, October 8, 2013 at 01:31PM Port-au-Prince, HAITI, 10 October 2013 – During the past year or so in Haiti, as humanitarian actors raised a cry of alarm about hunger, Haiti Grassroots Watch (HGW) journalists kept hearing complaints and rumors about the misuse, abuse, or negative effects of food aid.
Photo and headline from recent AP story on hunger in Haiti.
Our journalists and the community radio members who worked with them decided to investigate.
Why – when the country has received at least one billion U.S. dollars worth of food aid between 1995 and the 2010 earthquake – is hunger on the rise?
Who are the actors in the “hunger games” in Haiti and internationally?
What can be done that isn’t currently being done?
HGW and its partners visited two programs funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which recently ended or are ending this year:
1) In Grande Anse, a CARE food coupon program called “Tikè Manjè” (Food Voucher) at first and later called “Kore Lavni Nou” (Supporting Your Future), which ended in August.
2) On La Gonâve and in Savanette, a World Vision feeding program that targets pregnant women, mothers, and young children. It is part of that organization’s five-year “Multi-Year Assistance Program,” slated to wind up at the end of 2013.
Read:
Food Voucher Program Hurt Farmers, Favored US Exports and see the video
Questions About World Vision’s Targeted Food Program and see the video
To accompany these articles, and to provide readers with context, HGW has also produced brief summaries on key issues related to hunger in Haiti:
Aid or Trade? The nefarious effects of three decades of U.S. policy
Watch the two-part video documentary - 23 and 28 minutes
Haiti Grassroots Watch is a partnership of AlterPresse, the Society of the Animation of Social Communication (SAKS), the Network of Women Community Radio Broadcasters (REFRAKA), community radio stations from the Association of Haitian Community Media and students from the Journalism Laboratory at the State University of Haiti.
This series distributed in collaboration with Haïti Liberté
Reader Comments