Gender, IFIs and Food Insecurity Case Study: Haiti

from chronic food insecurity (World Food Program, 2010). One third of the population is food insecure, the most vulnerable of whom are women and children. International Financial Institutions (IFIs), including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) and the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB), have severely undermined Haiti’s ability to improve food security and reduce hunger and malnutrition among Haiti’s poor. Beginning in the 1980s, IFI structural adjustment strategies imposed sweeping trade liberalization measures on Haiti (McGowen, 1997), including substantial reductions in Haiti’s import tariffs. United States and other developed country food imports “flooded into the country” (FAO, 2001), undermining the livelihoods of rural farmers. Moreover, the WB and IDB, among Haiti’s largest donors and most influential policy advisors (Gender Action, 2010), have failed to adequately address gender issues in agricultural and rural development sector investments. Doing so would contribute to improving Haiti’s food security and reducing rural poverty.