Caribbean & Central America - July 2026

On 16 June, United Nations (UN) Secretary General António Guterres paid a visit to Haiti. During his visit he claimed to see “faint glimmers of hope” following the deployment of the Gang Suppression Force (GSF) in April. He also described his trip as a “solidarity visit with the people of Haiti”. The people of Haiti, however, can be forgiven for scepticism. Using almost exactly the same terms, just under three years ago, on 2 October 2023, Haiti’s then-foreign minister, Jean Victor Généus (2021-2024), described the UN Security Council’s authorising of the GSF’s predecessor, the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS), as “an expression of solidarity with a population in distress” and he described the resolution as a “glimmer of hope”. At the time Généus made his comments, there were around 300,000 displaced people in Haiti. Now, at the time Guterres is echoing Généus’ remarks nearly three years later, there are nearly 1.5m displaced people in Haiti.

The depth of the humanitarian and social crisis is hard to exaggerate. According to the UN, 59% of Haiti’s nearly 12m population live below the poverty line of around US$4 per day, while 5.7m people face food insecurity. Of those, 1.9m (17% of the population) are suffering emergency levels of acute food insecurity. Geeta Narayan, the representative in Haiti of the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef), says that more than half of the 1.5m displaced in Haiti are children, and that they are particularly vulnerable. Between 30% and 50% of members of armed gangs are now children, with some as young as nine years old, according to UN estimates cited in a 12 February Associated Press (AP) article.

As Narayan explains: “The younger the child, the more you can control them. They have less ability to fight back, to be disruptive… You can coerce them to do horrible things.” She says that the boys are often used as spies and to carry ammunition and weapons while the girls are used for domestic work and often face sexual violence. Furthermore, gang violence has forced the closure of more than 1,600 schools, disrupting the education of perhaps half a million children.

The latest quarterly report from the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (Binuh), published on 8 May, says that 1,642 people were killed in the first quarter of the year, compared with 5,915 for the whole of 2025. In the report, the head of Binuh, Carlos Ruiz Massieu, describes the insecurity as “a daily and unbearable reality”, with violence continuing to spread beyond the capital, particularly in Artibonite and Centre departments. Nor, unfortunately, is the problem only with the gangs. The report highlights “the persistence of allegations of executions and attempted summary executions involving members of the police”. According to Binuh, there were 33 such incidents in the first quarter of 2026 and around 222 in total during 2025.

More positively, the newly deployed GSF does have at least three advantages over its failed predecessor. The first is that, unlike the MSS, the GSF will be part-funded by the UN Support Office in Haiti (Unsoh) which will cover the GSF’s fuel, food, water, accommodation, medical services, operational infrastructure, and strategic communications. Secondly, the authorised full strength of the force is 5,500, over twice that of the MSS’s 2,500 (of which only 40% was deployed). And, thirdly, its terms of engagement are more robust. While the MSS mission was focused on supporting and training the Haitian national police (PNd’H), the GSF has been mandated to conduct “counter-gang operations to neutralise, isolate, and deter gangs” independently or in cooperation with the PNd’H and Haitian armed forces.

Alongside the activities of the GSF and Unsoh, the focus of the Binuh is described in an April 2026 UN Security Council report on Haiti as “providing electoral assistance and facilitating ‘inter-Haitian national dialogue’ in support of political and constitutional processes in Haiti; support in the areas of community violence reduction and disarmament, dismantlement, and reintegration of armed gangs; assistance to the Haitian authorities on justice sector issues; as well as monitoring and reporting on cases of gang violence, criminal activities, and human rights abuses and violations, including sexual violence”.

One obvious point of anxiety is whether the GSF (unlike the MSS before it) will receive the support it requires, both in terms of money and personnel, to achieve its mission. As Guterres said at a press conference during his 16 June visit to Haiti: “The greatest shame is not the gang violence, but indifference – that of a world that has looked away for far too long.” Beyond that, though, is the equally obvious point that while suppressing the gangs is an essential prerequisite for political and economic advancement, it is not the whole solution. With regard to the gangs themselves, in the April issue of Security & Strategic Review we quoted the NGO International Crisis Group (ICG) as arguing in its December 2025 report, Undoing Haiti’s Deadly Gang Alliance, that “the government should stand ready to open channels of dialogue with gang leaders and propose a clear roadmap for progress”, but only once the GSF has enabled the Haitian armed forces to gain the upper hand [SSR-26-04].

Then there is the economy. The latest IMF estimates are that the Haitian economy contracted by 2.7% in 2025, the seventh consecutive year of contraction, and that it will contract by a further 1.7% in 2026. The economy has a low tax base and a large informal sector that relies heavily on remittances which are potentially volatile. The IMF warned in its May 2026 review of its Haiti programme that “potential shifts in foreign immigration policies could slow remittance inflows, with adverse implications for the external position”.

However, Haiti is not entirely without hope provided that the security crisis can be brought under control, either through the efforts of the GSF or through negotiations with the gangs along the lines recommended by the ICG. The US think tank Haiti Policy House (HPH), for instance, points to three areas of hope.The first is that a stable Haiti would have the potential to exploit its location (200 miles from Florida and alongside the strategic Windward Passage) and its population, which at 11.6m (over 60% of whom are under 25) is the highest in the Caribbean. Perhaps unsurprisingly, HPH warns against the idea that Haiti could adopt a “leapfrogging” strategy – that is, bypassing the usual stages of development and jumping into a high-tech future. The devastation of Haiti’s education system and infrastructure precludes this. Instead, HPH argues, Haiti needs to “bridge the gap” by first developing traditional sectors, particularly the garment sector and agriculture which have the potential to create a large number of jobs. The HPH asserts that “starting with labour-intensive industries doesn’t trap countries in poverty; it’s the first rung on the ladder to high-tech economies. Jobs bring stability, and stability attracts investment; investment funds education, and education powers technological advancement.”

In addition, Haiti could do more to exploit its strategic importance alongside the Windward Passage, which is a key corridor for global and regional trade. HPH argues that it could develop a logistics-hub strategy that would include developing modern port infrastructure; creating a free trade and logistics zone; and deepening integration into US and Caribbean supply chains. For the HPH, “the path forward is multi-faceted but clear. First, establish Haitian-owned industrial parks near ports for garment manufacturing and enforce strong labour laws and fair conditions… Second, use the revenue from these industries to fund education and infrastructure improvements, creating a virtuous cycle of skills and investment. Third, modernise agriculture to reduce the importation of basic foodstuffs and stimulate rural economies.”