The downward spiral: Haiti’s reality in the aftermath of PetroCaribe (2018-2022)
The downward spiral: Haiti’s reality in the aftermath of PetroCaribe (2018-2022)

Author(s): Katherine Cheung Garcia
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Social Sciences, Economy, Sociology, Security and defense, Health and medicine and law, Corruption - Transparency - Anti-Corruption
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: Haiti; PetroCaribe; corruption; humanitarian crisis
Summary/Abstract: As the Americas’ most fragile and underdeveloped country, Haiti has been struggling since 2017-2018with growing instability stemming from its already notorious state of abject precarity, inequality andviolence. This article highlights how Haiti’s distressing current situation is intrinsically linked to the demiseof PetroCaribe, a scheme from oil-rich Venezuela aimed at making recipient countries in the regionenergy-secure so that energy costs could be channeled into much-needed poverty-alleviation and(social) development initiatives. None of this happened, as the funds were grossly misappropriated bythe Haitian government in a corruption scandal involving even the president himself. Through primaryofficial sources, press articles and academic literature I reconstruct Haiti’s PetroCaribe decade (2008-2018), focus on its disastrous aftermath, and attempt to shed light on the complex and rapidly deterioratingsituation faced by millions of Haitians today and what seems to be an impending humanitariancatastrophe.

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