This explainer examines relations between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, analyzes Dominican President Luis Abinader’s response to the Haitian crisis, and explores the challenges his country faces in the coming months.
This explainer examines the political and humanitarian impact of gang violence in Haiti, the challenges facing the MSS mission, and U.S. policy towards Haiti.
Gender-based violence is inextricably linked to the security crisis in Haiti. Addressing it should be as essential as confronting the gangs. A gender-sensitive approach must be woven into the MSS operation’s every action. Without definite, actionable steps to account for women, girls, and victims of gender-based violence, existing considerations risk becoming mere rhetoric, potentially condemning Haiti to yet another failed intervention.
In the wake of the announcement of a Kenyan police-security deployment to Haiti, public attention to the crisis the country is facing shifted from general appeals for multilateral action to concerns that the Kenyan deployment would not resolve the crisis—simultaneously debating the logic of a fourth international intervention in a span of three decades. A common variable throughout is that the crisis in Haiti is deepening, and that even with some conditionalities, most Haitians desperately want outside help.
It seems evident that these UN missions and other initiatives to support Haiti have lacked a vision of state-building as a basic premise to articulate society, the economic system, and the governmental structure.
Haiti is headed toward a catastrophic humanitarian and political crash. With an estimated 90 percent of the Port-au-Prince region under the chaotic control of gangs.
Outside of targeted sanctions against several high-profile Haitians as well as some notorious gang leaders, a perplexing disconnect remains between the international community’s response and Haiti’s pleas for help.
Considering Haiti’s deteriorating conditions, many in the international community are chiming in with critiques and proposals. Some suggestions have merit, while others are misinformed, too short-termed, or are altogether dangerous. Fewer yet are coordinated. It is arguable that any truly see the Haitian people.
For a region largely made up of island states, climate change represents an existential crisis. Without significant measures to curb global warming by large countries, projections forecast a dire future for the region.
Diagnosis of the crisis has been easy—but what key actors in Haiti and its international partners can agree on what to do about has remained muddled.
