Haiti commits to reducing the prevalence of chronic malnutrition by 25% by 2030 and by 50% the prevalence of severe acute malnutrition in children under 5 years old

The Republic of Haiti, due to its geographical position, is exposed to climatic hazards that affect its agricultural production, and the resulting food insecurity represents one of the major determinants of poor nutritional status. Acute and chronic malnutrition, including stunting, wasting and micronutrient deficiencies, affect children during the window of opportunity. Thus, malnourished pregnant women give birth to low birthweight children, with intrauterine malnutrition affecting their brain development, resulting in a vicious intergenerational cycle of poverty in adulthood and a decline in per capita income and gross domestic product.

The satisfactory results obtained with innovative community strategies (mobile outpatient therapeutic care, maternal wellbeing packages), scientific evidence such as the simplified protocol for the management of acute malnutrition and international guidelines or guidance notes on the management of acute malnutrition in the context of Covid-19 require a revision of the PCMAG protocol to facilitate increased coverage, a reduction in the dropout rate and better adherence of beneficiaries.

Factors such as inflation (an increase of about 29% in the value of the food basket in June 2020), repeated socio-political crises, devaluation of the gourde, reduction of remittances, deterioration of the agricultural situation following the El Niño phenomenon and natural disasters (tropical storm Laura) have largely affected the purchasing power of the poorest households and their ability to access food, forcing them to adopt unsustainable livelihood strategies.

According to the food security coordination, the number of food-insecure people increased from 600,000 (in 2013) to more than 1.6 million in 2015, 4.4 million in October 2019 and 3 million in August 2020. Of the population analysed, 43% and 46% are chronically moderately food insecure (level 3) or chronically severely food insecure (level 4).

All this has led to a deterioration in the nutritional status of the target groups, justifying the need for recent data on the nutritional status of children and women in order to intervene more effectively, weakened by Covid-19 and its collateral effects, especially at the community level, where nutrition services have slowed down.