International Cooperation in Haiti

 A Tale of Cynicism and Fragmentation

Four months after the January 10, 2010 earthquake that killed more than 316,000 people and left Haiti’s capital a shambles with 1.3 million displaced, researchers from the Interuniversity Institute for Research and Development (INURED) convened a meeting with 25 community leaders, aged 17 to 21, from Cité Soleil, a vast shantytown in Port-au-Prince. Since it began in July 2007, these young leaders—men and women— had been active in the Cité Soleil Community Forum, a coalition of grassroots organizations spanning various neighborhoods. INURED’s role was to support them and the Forum in their efforts to rebuild and revitalize their communities, helping them envision a future beyond decades of political crises, endemic gang violence violence and the earthquake’s devastating aftermath.

A Meeting with Members of Cité Soleil Community Forum at the Centre Culturel destroyed by the 2010 earthquake. Photo INURED, June 2008.

At the time, Haiti was under its seventh United Nations mission since 1993, following two significant U.S. military interventions and ongoing political, security and economic involvement by various international actors. This pattern reflected a prolonged history of foreign interventions in the country’s governance and reconstruction efforts, often with limited success in fostering local solutions. The discussion at the meeting centered on a vital question: How do young people in the shantytowns perceive Haiti’s reconstruction, and what steps can be taken to encourage their active civic engagement in shaping a better future for themselves, their communities and the nation as a whole?

One young participant responded bluntly, “Have those who owned Haiti ever ‘constructed’ anything? If they did, it was never for us or with us. So, we cannot talk about ‘reconstruction’ where there was never any ‘construction.”

These young leaders voiced the frustration of millions living in marginalized shantytowns and across Haiti, vividly articulating the marginalization experienced by themselves, their families and their communities.

INURED’s team and the leadership of Cité Soleil Community Forum discussing the findings from a participatory research on challenges faced by residents. Photo INURED, 2008.

I analyzed responses from this meeting, alongside other interviews and research in a 2011 publication. There, I explored the intricate dynamics of international cooperation, peacebuilding and reconstruction within marginalized urban areas, focusing on shantytown communities, taking Cité Soleil as an example. The publication examined how external aid, local governance and community interactions influenced the lived realities of marginalized populations in Haiti. It offered a historical perspective on the country’s socio-political instability, economic challenges and environmental vulnerabilities, all intensified after the earthquake. The voices of youth from these marginalized areas resonated through that research, putting into context the plight of shantytowns within Haiti’s deep systemic issues: inequality, political corruption and governance failures, which have perpetuated violence and insecurity.

That analysis also highlighted concerns about the international community’s long-standing approach to humanitarian and development work in Haiti. These predominantly piecemeal, top-down interventions have historically suppressed Haitian initiatives and prioritized short-term fixes over sustainable, locally-driven solutions. Despite substantial evidence supporting participatory, context-sensitive development strategies that empower communities, such approaches remain rare, resulting in limited gains and widespread dissatisfaction.

Fourteen years later, in July 2024, INURED convened two focus groups: one with 17 youths from Cité Soleil, aged 19 to 25, and five of the former young leaders interviewed in 2010, now aged 29-35 to revisit the same question posed to them in May 2010. Our aim was to understand convergences and divergences in their perspectives on international cooperation, governance and their potential civic engagement in mitigating the insecurity and gang violence plaguing their neighborhoods. By comparing their insights from 2010 to those of 2024, this study reexamines the role of international cooperation in enabling these communities to create a hopeful future for themselves. The findings align with the themes initially outlined in the original 2011 article mentioned above.

Patchwork Investments in Security and Prevention of Violence in Cité Soleil

From 2004 to 2010, responding to the collapse of security and rule of law institutions and the endemic gang violence in the shantytown of Haiti, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization launched several initiatives in Cité Soleil. MINUSTAH, established as a stabilization force, was given the task of implementing a Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) program supported by the National Council on Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (NCDDR) as a governmental counterpart. This program aimed to disarm and reintegrate gang members into society, with Cité Soleil as a focal point (along with Martissant, Bel Air, Saint-Martin in greater Port-au-Prince and Raboteau in the city of Gonaïves). In addition to DDR, MINUSTAH and UNDP introduced “quick impact” social programs to stabilize the area, including the Community Security Program, which later evolved into the UN/MINUSTAH’s Community Violence Reduction Program (CVR). Meanwhile, the U.S.-based Haiti Stabilization Initiative (HSI), a $20 million joint effort by the Department of Defense and the Department of State, aimed to shore up infrastructure, expand police presence and strengthen the justice system.

The UN/MINUSTAH’s Community Violence Reduction section (CVR) undertakes a joint pilot project with the Direction Nationale de l’Eau Potable et de l’Assainissement (DINEPA) to install water filter systems and provide hygiene training in Cité Soleil, Port au Prince. Credit: UN/MINUSTAH/Nektarios Markogiannis.

The Haitian government’s NCDDR program, inaugurated in September 2006, showed promise, providing job training for a few young people previously involved in gangs, with the expectation that they would transition into the workforce. By mid-2007, the program had engaged more than 50 participants, which at the time did not strike any observer as a lot, given the urgency and the magnitude of the armed groups problem and the intensity of violence they relay in Cité Soleil. However, the lack of an accompanying long-term strategy of socioeconomic development that places the youth and their communities at the center ultimately doomed its initial success. NCDDR Director Alix Fils-Aimé emphasized that “people will not return guns voluntarily if we do not offer them lives that have more dignity” (Comunidade Segura, August 31, 2007). The absence of a systematic strategy of integration that would include job training, entrepreneurial skill development, and financial inclusion for at-risk youth compounded their vulnerabilities, undermining the efforts to “disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate” Cité Soleil. Similarly, the Haiti Stabilization Initiative sought to establish a foundation for development via short-term job creation, infrastructure improvements and security enhancements. Despite initial gains in stabilizing Cité Soleil, that progress eroded in the absence of follow-up investments, leaving the area vulnerable to escalating instability.

Open market built by USAID/HIS, rarely utilized by vendors and customers and eventually abandoned altogether. The market was located in a no-man’s land, a territory contested by rival gangs during violent unrests that followed President Aristide’s ousting in 2004. Residents believe that the bodies of rival gangs were buried beneath this site. Credits INURED.

Between 2004 and 2010, most international efforts in Cité Soleil centered on creating a safe and secure urban environment in response to the proliferation of gangs. However, our discussions with youth in 2011, coupled with more systematic program evaluations, revealed that these initiatives had little measurable impact on the lives of residents. In the 2024 focus groups, participants were asked to reflect on these initiatives’ institutional legacies and their role in preventing the breakdown of human security in City Soleil. Respondents from both groups struggled to identify any lasting effects of these programs. Instead, they described a landscape of fragmented communities shaped by patchwork projects that were intended to create security but had failed to establish protective institutions. Fourteen years after these efforts ceased, the area remains plagued by worsening violence, political and economic actors’ criminal entanglements with narco-trafficking, and an environment of oppression, distrust, and conflict, all compounded by cold social indifference by Haitian elites and abandonment by the state.

While the international community and NGOs often claim to prioritize building local community capacities, their investments in security have not been complemented by long-term development initiatives or institutional capacity-building. The absence of sustained support has undermined any local endogenous efforts as well as progress made during the implementation phases of these projects, leaving communities to grapple with the enduring challenges of insecurity, social neglect, abject human misery, and societal fragmentation.

Patchwork Interventions in the Rule of Law

The responses from the 2024 focus groups reflected many of the concerns first voiced in May 2010. Across periods and cohorts, the dominant themes were “corruption,” “injustice,” “extortion,” “abuse,” “abandonment,” “impunity,” “despair” and “predation.”

Participants from both focus groups expressed profound distrust in the legal system, rooted in a long history of systemic inequality, corruption, and abuse by authorities. Many Haitians view the rule of law as inaccessible and unresponsive to their needs. Their perceptions of injustice have fostered a sense of alienation from society and disillusionment with promises of democracy and participation. They argued that the lawlessness prevalent in their neighborhoods and the rise of a gang-driven political economy reflect broader societal failings. The inability of a series of Haitian governments – backed consistently by the United States with the support mainly of Canada and France – to address systemic inequities and ensure equal protection under the law has perpetuated cycles of poverty and social instability, forcing many citizens to rely on criminal gangs for their basic needs, including protection and in some cases income. Impunity for more “official” abuses only makes the general distrust of government worse, as the highest-ranking government officials and members of security forces consistently avoid accountability for their crimes. In the absence of functional and fair economic, political and justice systems, residents of Cité Soleil, the participants argued, have understandably resorted to alternative, often destructive, means of seeking “justice” and “retribution.”

Since 1995, the international community, through organizations such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), French Cooperation and seven successive UN missions has made significant investments in justice reform initiatives in Haiti, as I pointed out in the previously cited article, However, the investments, including the most recent by the United Nations Mission for Justice Support (MINUJUST) and the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), have been largely ineffective. Key drivers of instability and challenges to governmental legitimacy and rule of law have remained largely unaddressed.

Patchwork Interventions in Economic Development

The focus group participants highlighted poverty and socioeconomic exclusion as centrally destabilizing factors in everyday life. Cité Soleil youth leaders interviewed in 2010 emphasized that violence in their neighborhoods could not be eradicated without providing legitimate economic opportunities for most Cité Soleil residents. However, they also believed in the potential of leveraging local resources, such as the availability of a talented young labor workforce, skilled craftsmen, grassroots civic associations, and emerging young social entrepreneurs avid to be trained, to address everyday challenges. In contrast, during the July 2024 focus group discussions, the younger participants argued that these drivers had expanded beyond the context of extraordinary circumstances to become embedded in the rhythms and strategies of daily life. The resulting environment of predation, exercised through territorial control by gangs, shaped how individuals interacted with each other and navigated what were supposed to be public spaces. For these young people living in Cité Soleil today, fear engendered by systemic violence has become a normalized aspect of daily life under gang control.

Participants in both groups shared their experiences living under constant threat:

If you know Cité Soleil, most houses are made of makeshift materials. So, bullets fly in every direction. You are not safe at home. You are not safe in the streets. You leave your home and do not know if you will return.

They also recounted tragic incidents, such as a woman who died in her bed due to stray bullets from the street. Disempowered parents lose hope for a better future for their sons as rival neighborhood gangs recruit them. Desperate mothers and humiliated fathers bear the shame of their daughters, in some cases two from the same household, becoming sex slaves to gang leaders. One single mother thought she was safe when her 15-year-old son brought home a AK-47 rifle; however, she and a neighborhood friend were killed at her house during a surprise raid by a rival gang searching for her son. Residents navigated through their harsh reality in different ways, redefining their interactions with the state’s disappearing public institutions and their fellow community members. Nonetheless, this normalization of fear and systemic violence does not signal acceptance, but rather a continued effort to maintain dignity and a sense of purpose in an oppressive environment.

Cité Soleil Community Forum members and INURED surveying one of the neighborhoods.

Cité Soleil, one of Haiti’s poorest and most densely populated areas, epitomizes the intersection of gang violence, narco-trafficking, criminality, political manipulation and poverty in Haiti. Gang violence dominates daily life, with armed groups battling for territorial control, extorting residents, parading in neighborhoods, and engaging in deadly confrontations. These gangs fill the institutional vacuum left by the absence of the state, exerting influence over local communities through fear and coercion. Widespread unemployment, limited educational opportunities, and a sense of abandonment by the state and the country’s socioeconomic elites fuel the growth of criminal networks. This leaves many young men and women vulnerable to gang recruitment and abuse, perpetuating a cycle whereby poverty begets structural violence, and violence exacerbates systemic poverty, trapping the residents of Cité Soleil and other slums in an environment with almost no access to basic human security or opportunities to imagine a hopeful future.

Cold political machination, unconscionable business and ruling elites’ actions compound the crisis in Cité Soleil, as both local and national sociopolitical actors have exploited gangs for electoral and financial gains, intimidation and control over drug routes and neighborhood territories. Relationships with politicians, drug traffickers, government and security officials, and business actors provide gangs with protection and resources, bolstering their power while undermining the rule of law. Meanwhile, extreme poverty limits the ability of residents to escape or resist violence, as many lack the financial means to relocate or access essential services such as education, healthcare and legal protection. The scarcity of basic infrastructure, such as clean water, sanitation and electricity, makes the residents even more vulnerable. The combination of gang control, political exploitation and economic deprivation perpetuates instability, making Cité Soleil a stark example of Haiti’s broader challenges around governance, inequality and human insecurity.

As noted in previous work, young people are acutely aware of the relationship between socioeconomic exclusion and violence. Their narratives often frame violence, kidnappings, drug smuggling, murders, and other crimes as responses to broader social conflicts, in which self-destructive and harmful actions are seen as justified struggles against exclusion and a desire for social respect. In both pre- and post-earthquake focus groups, participants consistently identified exclusions from sociocultural, financial and economic life as the primary issues driving social distress in Cité Soleil. They felt that the status quo would persist without a dramatic change in the economic landscape. And yet, despite millions of dollars spent by international aid organizations and NGOs in shantytowns like Cité Soleil, residents continue to face even more vulnerabilities and suffering than when these programs were first introduced.

Three generations of people playing dominos Credits INURED.

Rethinking the scope and framework of international cooperation in their peacebuilding and sustainable development initiatives is urgent. I argue that for such efforts to achieve lasting impact, they must be grounded in collaborative action among local community institutions, and national and international actors. Achieving this requires that multinational and bilateral institutions, the Haitian government, and international and national NGOs recognize and actively leverage local knowledge and resources, cultivating community leadership and social trust as foundational elements of peacebuilding and sustainable development. In the absence of these elements, the landscape of international cooperation in Haiti will continue to be characterized by cynicism, cacophony and fragmentation.

Louis Herns Marcelin is a professor of social sciences and researcher at the Department of Anthropology, Department of Public Health Sciences, and Department of International Studies at the University of Miami. He serves as Chancellor of the Interuniversity Institute for Research and Development (INURED), a “think and do” tank that fosters collaborative research and intervention programs for Haiti’s policymakers to address the wide range of issues affecting the country.