By HDNF Editorial Team
Editorial review: HDNF Communications Team
The Global Fragility Act was a serious attempt to fund conflict prevention instead of waiting for crises to become more expensive and more dangerous. It created a 10-year framework, selected five priority contexts, and authorized dedicated funding.
The record shows something narrower: a fraction of the authorized funding was appropriated, and that funding was distributed across Haiti, Libya, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, and Coastal West Africa. Haiti received a small slice.
A small slice of a small number cannot be expected to carry a 10-year stabilization plan.
This article reviews the available record carefully. It distinguishes authorized, appropriated, requested, and reported allocated funding. It does not treat those categories as interchangeable.
The number is real, but the period is not.
That is the central correction to the commonly repeated claim that Haiti received “$13 million a year” under the Global Fragility Act.
Haiti’s history is a history of organized self-determination
The funding record matters because Haiti’s present cannot be separated from its long history of people organizing for liberty and control over their own future.
In 1679, historians associate Port-de-Paix with an early enslaved revolt, part of a longer tradition of resistance and marronage. The surviving documentation is limited, so this date should be presented carefully. The Bibliothèque nationale de France records the uprising, while Cambridge University Press scholarship examines its wider significance.
In 1779, the Chasseurs-Volontaires de Saint-Domingue, free men of color from the French colony, fought at the Siege of Savannah. The Museum of the American Revolution, “Brothers in Liberty” discusses the role of approximately 500 volunteer chasseurs from Saint-Domingue in the campaign.
In 1791, the Bois Caïman gathering became part of the organized resistance that launched the Haitian Revolution. David Geggus’s scholarly chapter, “The Bois Caïman Ceremony,” in Haitian Revolutionary Studies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), examines what the historical record can and cannot establish about the event.
In 1804, Haiti became independent.
The lesson is not that outside support has no place. The lesson is that support must strengthen local capacity, local leadership, and durable systems.
The GFA authorized more than Congress appropriated
The Global Fragility Act authorized two dedicated funding mechanisms for fiscal years 2020 through 2024:
| Funding mechanism | Status and amount | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Prevention and Stabilization Fund (PSF) | Authorized: $200 million per year for FY2020–FY2024 | Brookings Working Paper #191, October 2024 |
| Complex Crisis Fund (CCF) | Authorized: $30 million per year for FY2020–FY2024 | Brookings Working Paper #191, October 2024 |
The PSF is administered by the U.S. Department of State and USAID. The authorization established what the law permitted. It did not guarantee that Congress would appropriate the full amount.
Actual PSF appropriations remained below the authorized level:
| Fiscal year | PSF amount | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2021 | $100 million | Appropriated, enacted | Brookings Working Paper #191, October 2024 |
| FY2022 | $125 million | Appropriated, enacted | Brookings Working Paper #191, October 2024 |
| FY2023 | $135 million | Appropriated, enacted | Brookings Working Paper #191, October 2024 |
For FY2021–FY2023, the PSF authorization was $600 million, $200 million per year for three years, while the appropriated total was $360 million. The appropriated amount was therefore 60% of the authorization for that period. These are different accounting categories from the country allocations below and should not be blended.
The country and regional record
The central public record is the 2025 Report to Congress on Progress Implementing the U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability, dated January 17, 2025.
For this review, that report is the first public document HDNF located that put per-context PSF allocations on the public record. Before its publication, country-level PSF allocations were not published in a consolidated public table. Brookings criticized that transparency gap in October 2024.
The figures below are reported cumulative allocations for FY2021–FY2023. They are not the same as total U.S. assistance to each country, and they should not automatically be read as cash outlays.
| Priority context | Reported FY2021–FY2023 amount | Status and qualification | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Haiti | $43 million | Reported cumulative PSF allocation | 2025 SPCPS Report to Congress, January 17, 2025 |
| Libya | $47 million | Reported cumulative PSF allocation | 2025 SPCPS Report to Congress, January 17, 2025 |
| Mozambique | $53 million | Reported cumulative PSF allocation | 2025 SPCPS Report to Congress, January 17, 2025 |
| Papua New Guinea | $30.5 million | Reported cumulative GFA-related support; includes direct Economic Support Funds and is not strictly comparable to the PSF-only rows | 2025 SPCPS Report to Congress, January 17, 2025 |
| Coastal West Africa: Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, and Togo | Approximately $140 million | Reported cumulative regional allocation | 2025 SPCPS Report to Congress, January 17, 2025 |
| Total across all priority contexts | $358 million | Reported cumulative PSF total | 2025 SPCPS Report to Congress, January 17, 2025 |
The listed rows do not add up to the total. They sum to approximately $313.5 million, leaving roughly $44.5 million for other implementation priorities, including activities such as data acquisition and monitoring.
That difference should remain visible. It should not be smoothed away.
Haiti’s year-by-year figures require careful wording
The Haiti figures are reported differently across the available documents.
According to the Congressional Research Service report Haiti: Recent Developments and U.S. Policy, R47394, Haiti received:
| Fiscal year | Haiti amount | Status and source |
|---|---|---|
| FY2021 | $15 million | GFA-related allocation; CRS R47394, August 21, 2023 |
| FY2022 | $13 million | GFA-related allocation; CRS R47394, August 21, 2023 |
| FY2023 | $3.3 million | GFA-related allocation; CRS R47394, August 21, 2023 |
| FY2021–FY2023 total | $43 million | Reported cumulative allocation; 2025 SPCPS Report to Congress, January 17, 2025 |
The CRS year-by-year figures above sum to approximately $31.3 million. The 2025 State Department report states a cumulative FY2021–FY2023 allocation of $43 million for Haiti. The two figures come from different sources counting different funds and do not reconcile; HDNF is reconciling them and states the discrepancy rather than choosing between them.
Haiti’s $43 million cumulative total over FY2021–FY2023 works out to approximately $14.3 million per year when averaged across those three fiscal years. That is an average, not a standing annual commitment.
The commonly repeated claim that Haiti received “$13 million a year” is therefore a compression of the record. The number is real, but the period is not.
No published per-country PSF breakdown for FY2024 appears in the sources reviewed for this article. What R47721 does establish is that GFA assistance is not included in the bilateral country totals in that report. It does not convert the earlier $13 million into a permanent annual commitment.
Haiti’s total assistance envelope was much larger
The dedicated prevention funding sat beside a broader U.S. bilateral assistance envelope.
| Fiscal year | Total U.S. bilateral assistance to Haiti | Status and source |
|---|---|---|
| FY2022 | $237.4 million | Actual; CRS R47721, August 6, 2024 |
| FY2023 | $230.9 million | Estimate; CRS R47721, August 6, 2024 |
| FY2024 | $291.5 million | Requested, not enacted; Biden Administration request; CRS R47721, August 6, 2024 |
CRS states that the FY2024 request was intended to support democratic institutions, security, health, economic conditions, and environmental challenges. The PSF figures were separate from the bilateral totals shown above.
This means the dedicated prevention funding was one component beside larger emergency, health, development, and security channels. The documents show the size and structure of those funding streams. They do not, by themselves, establish whether the streams were coordinated effectively.
What we could not verify
What We Could Not Verify
HDNF was not able to obtain and verify the later State Department Prevention and Stabilization Fund obligations-and-expenditures report covering FY2025. We therefore offer no post-FY2023 per-country figure in this article.
This piece stops at FY2023 by choice, not omission. The FY2024 Haiti PSF line is included only because it is separately identified in CRS R47721; it is not used to construct a new country-by-country comparison.
HDNF’s earlier published article on this subject carries three discrepancies with this piece, and all three are being reconciled. HDNF states them rather than choosing between them.
The FY2021–FY2023 Haiti total differs: approximately $31.3 million from this piece’s year-by-year CRS figures versus the State Department’s $43 million cumulative figure in the earlier article. These are different sources counting different funds.
The FY2023 total U.S. bilateral assistance to Haiti also differs: approximately $204.5 million labelled enacted in the earlier article versus $230.9 million labelled estimate here. That is an approximately $26.4 million difference with a different status label.
The FY2023 GFA fund attribution also differs: the earlier article attributes Haiti’s FY2023 figure to the Complex Crisis Fund, while this piece describes it as a GFA-related allocation without fund attribution.
The FY2023 Haiti bilateral assistance figure in this series is confirmed in CRS Report R47721, U.S. Foreign Assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean: FY2024 Appropriations, in the version updated 6 August 2024 (Table 2 and Appendix Table A-2), where Haiti is shown as $230.9 million, labelled estimate. An earlier version of the same report, dated 1 December 2023, shows FY2023 as “NA”. This article and its successor use different FY2023 figures and different status labels, and both require alignment to the versioned source described here as part of the 31 October 2026 reconciliation.
HDNF is reconciling these figures against the underlying source documents, with a review scheduled by 31 October 2026.
We also do not claim that the reported allocations equal final cash expenditures, disbursements, or completed project costs.
What these numbers show, and what they do not
The documents show:
- The GFA authorized a PSF of $200 million per year and a CCF of $30 million per year for FY2020–FY2024.
- PSF appropriations for FY2021–FY2023 were below the authorized level.
- The 2025 State Department report identified cumulative allocations across the priority contexts.
- Haiti’s reported FY2021–FY2023 allocation was $43 million, with uneven year-by-year amounts.
- Haiti’s dedicated prevention funding was separate from its broader bilateral assistance envelope.
The documents do not show whether the money produced stability in Haiti, Libya, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, or Coastal West Africa. No published source used for this article measures GFA effectiveness across that window in a way that would justify a conclusion about outcomes.
This article therefore makes no claim about the effectiveness of GFA programming in any country.
The numbers support a narrower conclusion: the dedicated funding was substantially below the authorized level, and Haiti’s share of the reported total was smaller still.
The lesson is long-term capacity
The lesson HDNF draws is not that the Global Fragility Act had no value. Prevention is necessary. Long-term planning is necessary. Better coordination is necessary.
But a 10-year plan funded at a fraction of its authorization cannot be expected to carry the full weight of a 10-year stabilization mandate.
Haiti’s long-term development also cannot rest on one external funding stream. Durable progress requires locally owned capacity in food production, energy, preservation skills, craftsmanship, livelihoods, and community-centered economic development.
That is the purpose of HDNF’s Haiti 2050 vision: building systems that Haiti can own, operate, replicate, and strengthen across generations. Our work includes economic development and community finance and precision agriculture for Haitian farmers.
We welcome substantive, respectful comments. HDNF moderates comments for civility, relevance, spam, defamation, hate speech, and unsupported allegations about identifiable people or organizations. We may decline or remove submissions that do not meet those standards. HDNF is nonpartisan and does not endorse or oppose any candidate, political party, or administration.
HDNF does not demand reparations from France. We report, as a documented fact, on the United Nations Secretary-General’s call for reparatory justice frameworks where relevant to the historical record.
The work here is simple: follow the numbers, label the evidence, identify the gaps, and keep building beyond any single grant, strategy, or political cycle.
Follow HDNF’s reports. Support locally owned development.
Sources and methodology
This article used the following documents:
- George Ingram and Allison Minor, “Renewing Momentum Around the Global Fragility Act,” Brookings Working Paper #191, October 2024. Read the paper
- U.S. Department of State, “2025 Report to Congress on Progress Implementing the U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability,” January 17, 2025. Read the report
- Congressional Research Service, “Haiti: Recent Developments and U.S. Policy,” R47394, updated August 21, 2023. Read the report
- Congressional Research Service, “U.S. Foreign Assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean: FY2024 Appropriations,” R47721, updated August 6, 2024. Read the report
- Bibliothèque nationale de France, “Slave Uprisings in French Colonies.” Read the historical record
- Museum of the American Revolution, “Brothers in Liberty.” Read the historical record
- David Geggus, “The Bois Caïman Ceremony,” in Haitian Revolutionary Studies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002).
Methodology note: Figures are reproduced according to their source labels. Authorized amounts are not treated as appropriations. Appropriations are not treated as country allocations. Reported allocations are not treated as cash outlays. Where a source includes a broader category (such as Papua New Guinea’s figure, which includes direct Economic Support Funds) that limitation is stated.
Awaiting verification: post-FY2023 country-level PSF obligations and expenditures; reconciliation of the three discrepancies with our earlier published article (the FY2021–FY2023 Haiti total, the FY2023 bilateral assistance figure and its status label, and the FY2023 fund attribution); and any published evaluation that measures whether GFA funding produced stability during the period reviewed.