Haiti’s national debt was estimated to be around 3.13 billion dollars in 2020.
Who Does Haiti owe money to?
Much of this debt to France stemmed from what University of Virginia researcher Marlene Daut refers to as “history’s greatest heist”: a newly independent Haiti was obliged to pay reparations to its slaveholders while encircled by French gunboats. Yes, you read that right. The former slaves of Haiti were required to pay reparations, not the French slaveowners. For the privilege of becoming free, Haitians rewarded their oppressors and their descendants. The reparation debts took Haiti more than a century to pay off.
The Tragic Hope of Revolutionary Haiti
In 1804, Haiti gained independence from France and was almost immediately designated as a pariah state by world powers. During a time when white-led nations were enforcing violent, racist systems of exploitation around the world, it was an independent, black-led nation founded by slaves who had flung aside their chains and fought their oppressors for their freedom.
Haiti, formerly known as Saint-Domingue, had been the French empire’s crown jewel. It was the most prosperous colony on the planet. Slaves in Africa were forced to produce sugar, coffee, and other cash crops for the worldwide market by French colonists. The system appeared to be in good working order. That is, until the French and American revolutions aided in the instigation of the world’s largest and most successful slave insurrection, which took place in 1791. Despite all odds, the slaves triumphed. Former slaves forced slaveholders to flee to France and America, where Haitians successfully resisted attempts to re-enslave them. Haiti was the first country to abolish slavery forever.
Haiti, on the other hand, represented a threat to the existing world order as a nation of emancipated black slaves. Fearing that Haiti’s prosperity may incite slave revolts in the United States, President Thomas Jefferson attempted to isolate Haiti diplomatically and economically. Slavery became considerably more profitable with the creation and spread of the cotton gin at the same time that a free Haiti was emerging, and slaveholders in the United States and other countries clung to and extended the brutal means of production. For decades, Haiti’s success was seen as a threat to the system, and the United States didn’t acknowledge Haiti until 1862, when slavery was abolished.
During Haiti’s vital development stage, France acted even more directly than the US to sabotage the country’s prosperity. In July 1825, King Charles X of France dispatched an armed flotilla of warships to Haiti, threatening the nascent republic with dire repercussions unless it paid France 150 million francs to guarantee its freedom. That figure was ten times the price paid by the United States to France for the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the country’s size.
Haiti acceded to France’s demands almost at gunpoint in order to secure its independence. The sum was too much for the new nation to pay in full, so it had to take out loans from a French bank with high interest rates. Haiti paid French slaveholders and their descendants between $20 and $30 billion in today’s dollars over the next century. It took 122 years for Haiti to repay the debt. It “severely harmed the newly independent country’s ability to flourish,” according to Professor Marlene Daut.
Righting The Wrongs
Following the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010, a group of academics and journalists issued a letter to French President François Hollande urging that France repay Haiti. Thomas Piketty, a French economist, revived the concept in 2020, claiming that France owes Haiti at least $28 billion. The French government has resisted the notion under multiple presidents, and it is unlikely to repay Haiti anytime soon.
However, if the developed world wants to help Haiti rectify past wrongs, accepting more Haitian refugees may be the most beneficial strategy right now. This would not just be a humane approach that would better their lives and the lives of their future families. It would also be beneficial to Haiti’s economy. According to the World Bank, Haitian expatriates sent $3 billion in remittances home in 2018, accounting for about a third of the island nation’s GDP.
How Long Does Haiti have to pay France?
Haiti’s payments were initially tough; the first 30 million francs necessitated a 24 million franc borrowing from French banks, which came with a hefty interest rate. The account of the first payment, 24,000,000 gold francs, being transferred across Paris from Ternaux Gandolphe & Cie’s vaults to the French Treasury’s coffers was meticulously documented. In order to make payments, Haiti would continue to take out loans from France and the United States. Large payments proved impossible for Haiti to make, and they were frequently late, escalating tensions between the two countries. On February 12, 1838, France agreed to lower the debt to 90 million francs, payable over 30 years to recompense former plantation owners who had lost their land; this is the equivalent of US$21 billion in 2004 dollars.
How much does Haiti owe the World Bank?
Haiti’s interest-free debt to the World Bank currently stands at $38 million, or around 4% of the country’s total external debt.
When did Haiti stop paying France?
When Haiti obtained independence from France in 1804, the owners of French slaves wanted recompense for the property they had lost. The original sum of 150 million francs was decreased to 90 million francs, although the debt was not paid off until 1947.
When was Haiti rich?
Although Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, its culture and history are indisputable. Haiti was the wealthiest colony in the New World during French rule in the 1700s, accounting for more than a quarter of France’s economy.
Who is the richest Haitian?
Denis O Brien is an Irish actor. $6.8 billion in net worth Denis O’Brien is the richest person in Haiti, according to Quora. He is an Irishman who has made billions of dollars by investing in Digicel, Haiti’s largest telecommunications business.
What countries did Haiti help free?
Haiti aided modern-day northwest Brazil, Guyana, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, northern Peru, and Costa Rica in the early nineteenth century.
Why is Haiti so poor?
Haiti, once the richest colony in the Americas, is today the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with more than half of the population living below the World Bank’s poverty line. The Caribbean country’s progress has been hindered by foreign interference and debt, political instability, and natural calamities.
Is Haiti Rich or poor?
Political instability, rising violence, and fragility continue to stymie Haiti’s economic and social growth. Haiti is still the poorest country in Latin America and one of the poorest countries on the planet. Haiti had the lowest GDP per capita in the LAC area in 2020, at US$2,925, less than a sixth of the LAC average of US$15,092. In 2020, Haiti was placed 170th out of 189 nations on the UN’s Human Development Index.
The COVID-19 epidemic has exacerbated a weakened economy already beset by social unrest and political unrest. The economy was declining and suffering serious budgetary imbalances even before the outbreak. Following a 1.7 percent contraction in 2019, GDP is expected to contract by 3.8 percent in 2020.
Past marginal achievements in poverty reduction have been undone by a series of crises, the most recent of which were the COVID19 pandemic, the assassination of President Jovenel Mose, and the August 2021 earthquake.
According to current projections, the poverty rate in 2020 will be around 60%, up from the last official national estimate of 58.5 percent in 2012. Rural areas are home to roughly two-thirds of the impoverished. The disparity in welfare between urban and rural communities is mostly owing to poor agriculture production circumstances. Haiti is also one of the countries in the region with the most inequalities. The richest 20% of the population owns more than 64% of the country’s total wealth, while the poorest 20% own less than 1%.
Since 2019, Haiti has achieved considerable progress in cholera control, with no laboratory-confirmed cases. Despite this progress, human capital gains have slowed and, in some circumstances, regressed since 2012. Infant and maternal mortality remain high, and preventive coverage is stagnant or declining, particularly among the poorest households.
According to the Human Capital Index, a child born today in Haiti will be just 45 percent as productive as if he or she had full access to quality education and healthcare as a child born today in the United States. Over one-fifth of youngsters are at danger of cognitive and physical disabilities, and only 78 percent of 15-year-olds will live to be 60 years old.
Aside from the virus and the political crisis, Haiti remains vulnerable to natural disasters, particularly hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes. These types of shocks affect more than 96 percent of the population. On August 14, 2021, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 on the Richter scale devastated Haiti’s southern region, which is home to 1.6 million people. The epicenter of the earthquake was located 12 kilometers north-east of Saint-Louis-du-Sud, about 125 kilometers west of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
Hurricane Matthew, which devastated the country in 2016, wreaked havoc on the same area. It cost the country 32 percent of its 2015 GDP in losses and damages, compared to the 2010 earthquake, which killed around 250,000 people and obliterated 120 percent of the country’s GDP. Extreme weather events are predicted to become more frequent, intense, and impactful as a result of climate change, and the country, while making progress, still lacks proper preparedness and coping strategies.
Did Haiti used to be rich?
Haiti used to be prosperous, which you probably didn’t realize. Haiti was the richest colony of the French Empire throughout the 18th century, but it came with a price. It was dubbed the “Pearl of the Antilles” back then. Because of the importation of slaves and environmental exploitation, Haiti’s riches rose dramatically during this period.
Many years later, the country’s huge deforestation is the reason it now experiences flash flooding and other natural disasters. Because of the removal of the top layer, the ground has also become infertile. They didn’t realize at the time that this would make Haiti impoverished in the future.
