# **1.  Introduction**

Haiti, with some 8 million people, is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and has been so for quite some time. It is also one of the Caribbean Community's most densely populated countries, with 306 people per sq. km in 2003. Haiti has experienced a tortuous development notable for political instability and structural and institutional weakness. This, paired with the country's historical, socioeconomic, and agricultural development have caused adverse long-term effects in several areas such as food security, nutrition, education, and income poverty.

In 2001, 49 percent of the Haitian households lived in absolute poverty with 20, 56, and 58 percent of the households in metropolitan, urban, and rural areas, respectively, being poor based on a US$1 a day extreme poverty line. Most of the approximately 4.3 million indigents live in rural areas (3.06 million) and others live in the metropolitan and other urban areas (1.27 million). Poverty is especially extensive in the northeastern and northwestern regions of Haiti. The analyses in this paper are based on a recent national household survey (which is still not released) and available data (see Section 3).

Social indicators such as literacy, life expectancy, infant mortality, and child malnutrition also show that poverty is broad in Haiti. Around 4 out of 10 people cannot read or write; around 20 percent of children suffer malnutrition, nearly half the population has no health care and more than four-fifths have no clean drinking water. Although still very high, these indicators show that poverty in non-income terms decreased in the last decades. However, most of the social indicators do show that poverty has increased since the mid-late 1990s. Moreover, the gap between rich and poor people and between regions is still large, such as between the Northeast and West region.

This paper analyzes metropolitan, rural, and other urban (henceforth called urban) poverty in a broad manner taking into account regional differences. The paper is organized in 9 sections and the majority of analyses are of metropolitan, rural, and urban areas and the nine regions. Section 2 presents demographics and economic growth trends. Section 3 presents the data and methodology used throughout the paper. Section 4 presents the sources of incomes for metropolitan, rural, and urban areas and Section 5 analyzes poverty and its depth in metropolitan, rural, and urban areas. Section 6 shows the poverty profile and Section 7 presents access to assets such as education and infrastructure services for the poor and nonpoor population. Section 8 presents analyses of rural and urban poverty correlates and compares rural living and characteristics to those of urban areas in order to reveal important factors to escape poverty. Finally, Section 9 concludes and gives policy recommendations. Before initiating the analyses, this section ends with a short background presentation of the current situation in Haiti.

Haiti's 200-year history has been marked by political instability and weak institutional capacity, resulting in a debilitated economy and an impoverished population. The current complex emergency is rooted in a four-year political impasse. In 2000, Aristide's party, Lavalas Family, claimed an overall victory in disputed legislative and municipal elections, then later that year, the opposition boycotted the presidential election 2