The Dominican Republic is situated on the eastern two-thirds of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, which it shares with Haiti (see Figure 1 ). A population of about 10.3 million occupies an area about the size of New Hampshire and Vermont combined. Between 900,000 and 1.2 million of the people currently living in the Dominican Republic are undocumented; many of them are Haitians or descended from Haitians. With a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of roughly $5,770 (2013), the Dominican Republic is classified by the World Bank as an upper middle-income country. This stands in sharp contrast to neighboring Haiti, a low-income country with a per capita GDP of just $810 (2013) that was struggling economically even before a devastating earthquake hit the country in January 2010. The two countries had similar GDP per capita levels in 1960, but while growth in Haiti has stagnated and its per capita GDP has shrunk by half since that time, the Dominican Republic has posted one of the fastest growth rates in Latin America, and its per capita GDP has quadrupled. After fighting to achieve its independence from Spain in 1821 and then from Haiti in 1844, the Dominican Republic embarked upon a bumpy road toward its current democratic form of government characterized by frequent coups, dictatorships, and U.S. interventions (including 1916-1924 and 1965-1966). Rafael Trujillo ruled the country as a dictator from 1930 to 1961, often employing violent tactics to quell political opposition. Despite his brutality, Trujillo's strong anticommunist stance earned him tacit support from the United States. His acolyte, Joaquín Balaguer, then served as president from 1960-1962, 1966-1978, and 1986-1996. As a result of the dominance of these caudillo (strongman) leaders, the Dominican Republic did not develop into a modern democracy until the 1990s. In 1994, an agreement commonly referred to as the "Pact for Democracy" removed the aging Balaguer from power and paved the way for the country's first truly free and fair elections to be held in 1996. Since the mid-1990s, the Dominican Republic has, for the most part, continued to post solid economic growth (see Figure 2 below) and developed democratic institutions, albeit with very high levels of corruption. In 1996, Leonel Fernández of the center-left Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) succeeded Joaquín Balaguer as president and presided over a period of strong economic growth fueled by expansion in tourism and free trade zones. In the 2000 presidential elections, after top PLD officials were charged with misusing public funds, Hipólito Mejía (2000-2004), an agrarian engineer of the populist Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), defeated the PLD candidate, Danilo Medina. He lost support, however, by spending excessively and deciding to bail out all deposit holders after three massive bank failures in 2003. Leonel Fernández defeated Mejía easily in 2004 to garner a second four-year term. During his last two terms, Leonel Férnandez restored confidence in the Dominican economy, enacted significant political reforms, and played a key role in regional politics. As a result of sound economic management, record foreign investment, infrastructure spending, and a successful diversification of the economy, Férnandez helped the Dominican Republic resume its position as one of the fastest-growing economies in Latin America (GDP growth averaged 7% per year from 2005-2011). Rapid growth combined with significant reductions in inflation helped reduce the percent of Dominicans living in poverty from 43% in 2004 to 34% in 2010—a rate that economists maintained was still rather high for the country's income level. Former President Férnandez also scored a number of political victories that will likely ensure his party's dominance for years to come. In May 2010, Férnandez's PLD party captured 31 of 32 seats in the Dominican Senate and 105 of 183 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. It will control both chambers through May 2016. In 2009, then-President Fernández secured congressional approval of a new constitution. The new constitution, which took effect in January 2010, allows presidents to complete one term and then serve again after sitting out of office for four years, making President Fernández eligible to run again in 2016. As president, Leonel Férnandez maintained close ties with the United States but also sought to diversify the Dominican Republic's trade relations and raise the country's international profile by mediating regional conflicts and supporting reconstruction efforts in Haiti. Férnandez helped resolve disputes between Colombia and neighboring Ecuador and Venezuela and supported efforts to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the 2009 political crisis that occurred in Honduras. Despite centuries of tension between the two countries, the Dominican Republic responded to the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti with an outpouring of public and private donations and emerged as a key supporter of international relief and reconstruction efforts. While some argue that Leonel Férnandez passed a strong legacy on to his successor, others maintain that his government left major problems unaddressed. At the end of Férnandez's two terms, the Dominican Republic still experienced persistent electricity shortages, high crime rates (the homicide rate stood at 25 per 100,000 people in 2011), and corruption. In addition, the Dominican Republic's weak education system, which ranked just above Haiti in a 2012 global competitiveness report, remained a major impediment to an otherwise competitive economy. The Fernández government's decision to let a stand-by agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) lapse rather than reducing electricity subsidies left the country in a precarious fiscal situation. Danilo Medina took office for a four-year presidential term on August 16, 2012, after soundly defeating former President Hipólito Mejía of the PRD by a comfortable margin of 51.2% to 46.2%. During his inaugural address, Medina emphasized the development goals of his administration: reducing poverty and inequality; increasing spending on education to 4% of GDP as mandated by the constitution; ending illiteracy; and creating 400,000 new jobs. Observers expect his policies to be guided by the country's National Development Plan 2010-2030 , which set specific targets for boosting tax revenue, increasing education and healthcare spending and quality, and increasing electricity production. Thus far, President Medina has accomplished the first of those two development goals; a national dialogue to address the serious challenges in the electricity sector began in January 2015 (see " Energy Challenges and Opportunities " below). Upon taking office, President Medina endorsed austerity and fiscal reform. He shepherded a fiscal reform through the Dominican Congress that included a variety of tax changes aimed at boosting revenue and reducing the country's fiscal deficit. Though unpopular among Dominicans, the reforms, combined with cuts in public spending, have been praised by the IMF for helping to restore macroeconomic stability in the country. Medina also dedicated more of the budget to social programs by, for example, increasing education funding to 4% of GDP in 2013. Buoyed by a large congressional majority and high approval ratings (83% in a January 2015 poll), President Medina has implemented a variety of new social programs that have already yielded positive results. In his recent state of the nation address, Medina highlighted progress made in education programs that have helped 200,000 students enroll in full-day education programs, literacy programs that have benefitted nearly 800,000 people, and subsidized health initiatives that have reached 460,000 people. (See also " Social and Economic Development Programs " below.) Despite those impressive results, the Medina government's efforts to address crime and corruption remain a work in progress. President Medina launched a national security plan in 2013 and has reported on progress in terms of additional police hired, equipment purchased, and prevention programs launched. In his 2014 state of the nation address, Medina credited government efforts for contributing to a 13% reduction in homicides in 2013. The country's homicide rate fell further in 2014, from a rate of 20 per 100,000 to a rate of 18 per 100,000. Nevertheless, violent crime in the Dominican Republic has been fueled by increasing drug flows through the country and exacerbated by the complicity of corrupt police and other officials. In January 2015, the former head of the Dominican anti-drug agency was arrested and charged with robbing more than a ton of cocaine that had been confiscated. Corruption is an issue that President Medina did not mention in his 2015 annual address to the nation even as it remains a top concern among investors and business leaders in the country. The Dominican Republic is ranked 115 out of 175 in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index. In addition to police officials, top allies (including a military official) of former President Fernández are being investigated for their role in a potential bribery scandal involving the purchase of jets from Brazil, yet the Medina government has taken few steps to support efforts to investigate or punish their alleged actions. The Dominican government has long received criticism for its migration policies and general treatment of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent living within its borders. A ruling in September 2013 by the Constitutional Tribunal of the Dominican Republic could render as stateless an estimated 200,000 Dominican-born persons, mostly of Haitian descent, many of whom have lived there for decades. With the ruling's retroactive effect, it has the potential to impact thousands born in the Dominican Republic. The case involved Ms. Juliana Dequis Pierre, a 29-year-old Dominican-born woman and mother of four children whose Haitian migrant parents moved to the Dominican Republic decades ago. Although Ms. Dequis Pierre was registered at birth as a Dominican citizen, the Tribunal concluded she did not meet the criteria for the acquisition of Dominican nationality.