Haiti Social Resilience and State Fragility in Haiti: A Country Social Analysis

Haiti is a resilient society whose rural communities in particular have developed coping mechanisms in response to a long history of underdevelopment and political instability. The country’s religious, cultural, and artistic life is highly diverse and vibrant. Like other fragile states, however, Haiti is also beset by widespread poverty and inequality, economic decline and unemployment, poor governance, and violence. This Country Social Analysis1 examines Haiti’s conflict-poverty trap from the perspective of the triangle of factors that have been identified as its main components: (a) demographic and socioeconomic factors at the individual and household levels; (b) the state’s institutional capacity to provide public goods and manage social risks; and (c) the agendas and strategies of political actors. The report’s three main sections explore the nature of these components, and a closing section considers the linkages among them.