Thursday, June 1, 2017

A Note on Statistics in Haiti

Collecting statistics in the developing world is hard (cf: Poor Numbers, 2007). Agencies tasked with gathering data are commonly understaffed and underfunded, leading to unreliable baseline data and potentially biased and inaccurate results. What we have done here is to collect the best numbers we could find while bearing in mind these challenges.

Some basic statistics:

Poverty;

* Haiti ranks 168 out of 187 on the 2014 Human Development Index.
* Gross National Income per capita (at Purchase Power Parity) is $1,730 per annum. The average for Caribbean/Latin American developing countries is $14,098.
* 59% of the population lives on less than U.S. $2 per day.
* 24.7% Lives in extreme poverty on less than US$1.25 per day.
* Poverty is mainly rural, at 75.2%, vs. 40.8% in urban areas.
* Over two-thirds of the labor force do not have formal jobs.

Education;

Enrollment & Retention
* 50% of children do not attend school.
* Approximately 30% of children attending primary school will not make it to third grade; 60% will abandon school before sixth grade.
* Only 29 percent of Haitians 25 and above attended secondary school.

Quality
* Almost 80 percent of teachers have not received any pre-service training.
* Half of public sector teachers in Haiti lack basic qualifications.
* 90% of primary schools are non-public and managed by communities, religious organizations or NGOs.

Literacy
* Haiti’s literacy rate is 61% – 64% for males and 57% for females.
* The average literacy rate for Latin American and Caribbean developing countries is 92%.

Health & Nutrition
* Life expectancy is 63 years.
* 30% of the population is considered food insecure.
* Infant mortality: 55 per 1000 births
* 59 per 1,000 born in Haiti die before reaching their first birthday
* Under five mortality rate: 88 per 1000 live births
* An estimated 1 in 285 births will result in a woman’s death, a ratio about 16 times higher than in the United States.
* Prevalence of stunting (moderate to severe) is 22%.

Country Info
Population: 10,461,000

Age structure:
* 0-14 years: 33.28% (male 1,686,647/female 1,678,156)
* 15-24 years: 21.64% (male 1,093,024/female 1,094,591)
* 25-54 years: 35.78% (male 1,801,988/female 1,815,819)
* 55-64 years: 5.11% (male 247,588/female 269,103)
* 65 years and over: 4.18% (male 188,952/female 234,151) (2015 est.)
* Median age: 22.2

These statistics are alarming, yet there is no need for them to continue in this direction. Haiti has suffered from decades of corruption from dictators, whom lined their pockets at the expense of their own people. They became billionaires while millions of innocent people starved and lived in the worst conditions on the entire western hemisphere. But there is hope on that front as that seems to be their history and not their future. Since the overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti has settled into a more stable democracy with presidents that are more and more conscious of the suffering of their people.

In fact this very plan is geared toward the integral cooperation of Haiti’s last president Michel Martely and its newly elected president Jovenel Moise.

In addition on January 12, 2010, Haiti suffered from the fifth deadliest earthquake in recorded history, with a magnitude 7.0 and an estimated death toll of 222,570 people.

Then on October 4, 2016, Haiti was hit by Hurricane Matthew, although the death toll was relatively light compared to the earthquake, estimated at 546. It destroyed over 200,000 homes and left 1.4 million people in need of humanitarian aid.