Poverty and Hunger, Research Paper Example

As a developing country, Haiti has joined the UN and made significant progress to achieve most of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The most priority in MDGs is Reduce Poverty and Hunger. However, they still have many obstacles and far from perfect. The new report in Haiti stated: the national poverty rate is 58.6 percent and the extreme poverty rate is 24.7 percent. Currently, the richest one percent of Haitians own the same wealth as 45 percent of the poorest population (usundp).

There are ten facts about poverty and hunger in Haiti that everyone should know (wfd):

• Two and a half million Haitians live in extreme poverty. Haiti is the poorest country in the northern hemisphere.
• Two out of three Haitians live on less than US$2 per day.
• Ten percent of the richest Haitians possess 70 percent of the country’s total income.
• Fifty percent of urban Haitians are unemployed.
• Shocks induced by climate change threaten over 500,000 Haitians every year.
• Although agriculture is an important sector of Haiti’s economy, the country fails to produce enough food, and imports more than 50 percent for its population’s needs. It imports 80 percent of its main staple: rice.
• Ninety percent of farmers depend on rain for their harvest as only ten percent of the crops are irrigated.
• One-hundred thousand children under five years of age suffer from acute malnutrition, while one in three children is stunted, or irreversibly short for their age.
• Less than 50 percent of households have access to safe water and only 25 percent benefit from adequate sanitation.
• One-third of Haitian women and children are anemic.

The leaders of the country concerned mostly about this goal. “Poverty reduction is the number one priority to the Haitian Government and its people, and the MDGs call for a concrete and coordinated action by the United Nations system and bilateral and multilateral donors to build the State’s capacity to achieve these development goals,” said Sophie de Caen, UNDP Haiti Senior Country Director. “I hope that this report will contribute to this debate and inspire a renewed effort by all stakeholders to accelerate progress by 2015 and beyond.” (usundp)

Sources

http://www.us.undp.org/content/washington/en/home/presscenter/articles/2014/06/25/undp-releases-haiti-mdg-report-significant-progress-has-been-made.html

https://www.wfp.org/stories/10-facts-about-hunger-haiti

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/19410-why-is-haiti-hungry