Is Another U.N. Mission the Solution for Haiti? Yes but No
While the UN-backed mission can alleviate the atrocities, it is not the long-term solution to Haiti’s issues. However, stakeholders must use the opportunity to set the foundation for good governance and economic opportunities.
UN Photo credit-Paulo Filgueiras
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Haitian leaders only feel compelled to listen to the international community, not to Haitians, leading Haitians to check out of the political process and create a wary relationship between authorities and their citizens. The success of any future engagement between the international community and Haiti must be assessed on how it helps the country improve the relationship between Haitians and their leaders.
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Stop supporting leaders with questionable records and supporting Haitians in coming up with a long-term development framework issued from national consultations with vital sectors of the country.
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In this quest for long-term stability, Haiti and its supporters must leverage resources to attract investments, foster endogenous economic growth, and offer new possibilities to Haiti’s youth.
On October 2, 2023, the United Nations Security Council voted for the deployment of a non-UN, multinational security force to Haiti. The vote came one year after Haiti’s prime minister, Ariel Henry, made the request and after months-long US-led negotiations. If the international community had to go through that much struggle to find a leader for the mission, it surely had to do with its historic failures in Haiti.
Despite its constant presence and the amount of money spent in Haiti, the country has never gotten out of its transitional phase. The international community is not the only one responsible for Haiti’s quandaries. However, its constant meddling in Haiti’s internal affairs, including propping up unpopular leaders, gives it humongous responsibilities in the country’s current state. The Organization of the American States, in an unorthodox sincerity last year acknowledged that:
“The last 20 years of the international community’s presence in Haiti has amounted to one of the worst and clearest failures implemented and executed within the framework of any international cooperation.”
The resolution acknowledges Kenya’s acceptance to lead the Multinational Security Support (MSS), but it carefully avoided tying the mission's fate to Nairobi. Rightly so, as Mr. Ruto’s government begins to confront mounting opposition over the legality and feasibility of its decision. The resolution also offers significant operational power to the lead nation and freedom for it to determine its exit strategy. Pending Kenya's final move, eleven other nations have already pledged to contribute personnel to the mission. Estimated to cost about $400 million, the US alone has already pledged $200 million for the mission.
The potential Kenyan-led MSS, which is expected to start as early as January 2024, divided both Haitian and foreign advocates for various understandable reasons. However, if there is one point of convergence, it is that this intervention is one too many and must be the last one. With the imminent deployment of the multinational security force, the crucial question is: how do we ensure that the beleaguered country does not return to this very same state in the years to follow?
To put it straightforwardly, the approved military force is not the solution to Haiti’s problems. The security issue, for which it will be designed is not Haiti’s main problem—successive governance failures, weak democratic institutions, and lack of economic opportunities are. Nonetheless, it can provide an opportunity for stakeholders to address the real issues in addition to a truce in the current atrocities, mainly through policies to promote inclusive and responsive governance, strong institutions, and economic opportunities.
First, the security assistance must be accompanied by genuine efforts to include Haitians in the process of stabilizing Haiti and revitalizing its institutions. Haitian leaders only feel compelled to listen to the international community, not to Haitians, leading Haitians to check out of the political process and create a wary relationship between authorities and their citizens. The success of any future engagement between the international community and Haiti must be assessed on how it helps the country improve the relationship between Haitians and their leaders. Additionally, the international community must complement, not substitute, the Haitian government in fulfilling its responsibilities vis-à-vis the population unlike previously. At all stages of the support process, Haitians' involvement is imperative to ensure localization and ownership to increase the odds of consolidating any progress made during this mission.
Second, Haiti’s supporters need to acknowledge how much of an impediment their refusal to listen to the Haitian people is to the stability of Haiti. The current government cannot be held responsible for all of Haiti’s chaos, but the international community’s unconditional support seems to absolve it of any responsibility. After two years in power, there is no apparent sign of progress whatsoever. The current de facto leaders also take advantage of the international community’s complacency to sabotage any effort made by stakeholders and mediators to assuage the political infighting. The international community’s disregard for how the political environment can thwart the MSS’ effort will likely be the first contributor to its ineffectiveness. In a perspective beyond the power strife between Henry’s government and Montana, serious efforts must be devoted to securing a favorable environment for future elected leaders to work. From the international community, this may include a commitment to stop supporting leaders with questionable records and supporting Haitians in coming up with a long-term development framework issued from national consultations with vital sectors of the country.
Lastly, Haitians must gradually change the extractive nature of their political and economic institutions. As stated earlier, the rampant insecurity is the symptom of a more profound crisis. Since November 2022, the U.S. and Canada have imposed sanctions on over 30 Haitian elites for financing gang activities. As of today, none of the sanctioned individuals have been formally questioned by the Haitian judiciary system. Haiti’s institutions have failed to protect the Haitian people by not renewing its elected leaders, not protecting talents, deterring investments, and protecting corrupt individuals. Extractive economic elites that never attempt to widen the economic pie constantly drive away investments and repulse entrepreneurship to keep their monopolies. Consequently, Haitian young men and women have become easy prey to gang leaders to spread chaos. In this quest for long-term stability, Haiti and its supporters must leverage resources to attract investments, foster endogenous economic growth, and offer new possibilities to Haiti’s youth.
Haiti is facing a multidimensional crisis, with intricacies and ramifications within and outside of Haiti, rooted in decades of harmful decisions of local and international actors. As such, a long-term solution warrants a multifaceted, both synchronous and asynchronous approach. A twelve-month security mission, though not knowing its contours yet, can only alleviate the daily sufferings the Haitian population is enduring. Haitian and international stakeholders must not combat it at all costs nor oversell it. Instead, it must be used as a precursor to a more structured and well-thought state-crafting plan to be executed with the highest possible degree of inclusion, oversight, localization, and ownership.
Haiti Policy House is not-for-profit institution focusing on Haitian public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan. Haiti Policy House does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).
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