You Break It, You Fix It: What the Global Fragility Act Promised Haiti : and What It Delivered

Haitian farmers working together in a field, representing locally led resilience and long-term development

By HDNF Editorial Team

What happens when a 10-year strategy designed to prevent fragility from deepening is implemented in a country that becomes less secure, less governable, and more vulnerable during that same period?

That is the question the United States must answer about Haiti.

The Global Fragility Act (GFA), enacted with bipartisan support in 2019, created the U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability (SPCPS). Haiti became a priority country during the strategy’s implementation. The purpose was clear: prevent crisis from becoming collapse and build the conditions for long-term stability.

Yet Haiti’s measurable conditions worsened.

The United States did not create Haiti’s fragility. Haiti was already in freefall by 2021, following the assassination of the country’s president, a devastating earthquake, political paralysis, and the consolidation of armed gangs. Those conditions explain why the strategy was written.

But explanation is not exoneration.

The GFA promised to help reverse fragility. During implementation, homicides rose, displacement expanded, hunger deepened, and gangs increased their territorial control. That is a legitimate failure to own: not the sole cause of the crisis, but a promise unkept.

The United States did not create Haiti’s fragility, but it promised to help reverse it: and its strategy did not deliver.

Haiti’s History Begins With Self-Liberation

Haiti has never been a society waiting for foreign instruction.

Its history is a record of independent-minded people organizing against systems designed to extract their labor, wealth, and freedom.

The backbone is clear:

  • 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.
  • 1779: The Chasseurs-Volontaires de Saint-Domingue, free men of color from the French colony, fought at the Siege of Savannah.
  • 1791: The uprising that began the Haitian Revolution transformed resistance into a revolutionary movement. Bois Caïman remains a powerful part of that history, even though detailed accounts were recorded later and are debated by historians.
  • 1804: Haiti won independence from France after defeating colonial rule and became the first independent Black republic in the modern world.

These milestones matter because Haiti’s current economic condition is not evidence of a lack of Haitian capacity. It reflects centuries of extractive systems, political interference, unequal economic structures, debt, environmental damage, and repeated external interventions.

HDNF does not demand reparations from France. We report, as a documented fact, that the United Nations Secretary-General has called for reparatory justice frameworks grounded in international human rights law.

The principle is simple: partnership must begin with historical honesty.

What the Global Fragility Act Promised

The Haiti plan was designed as a 10-year effort, not a short emergency project. Its stated ambition was to help Haiti’s citizens and government develop a shared vision for long-term stability.

The plan used three broad phases:

  1. Security and justice first.
    The initial phase prioritized citizen security, police capacity, justice-sector support, and place-based programs in communities affected by violence.

  2. Address the roots of instability.
    The second phase was intended to expand toward economic opportunity, civic engagement, vocational skills, local governance, and the deeper drivers of conflict.

  3. Build Haitian-owned systems.
    The third phase promised to institutionalize progress through locally owned systems capable of sustaining results beyond individual grants, contractors, or foreign missions.

This sequencing was reasonable in theory. Security matters. Justice matters. Economic opportunity matters. Institutions matter.

But a phased plan is only as credible as its resources, execution, accountability, and willingness to change course when conditions deteriorate.

The Funding Shows the Central Tension

The United States provided substantial assistance to Haiti. But total assistance is not the same as dedicated GFA funding.

That distinction is the center of the story.

Category Period Amount Status What the figure means
Bilateral assistance FY2022 $237.4 million Enacted Total U.S. foreign assistance to Haiti; not GFA-specific
Bilateral assistance FY2023 Approximately $204.5 million Enacted Total assistance, including support for the Haitian National Police
Bilateral assistance FY2024 Approximately $291.5 million Requested Administration request; not enacted
Humanitarian assistance FY2023–FY2024 More than $362 million Enacted USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance funding for food, nutrition, healthcare, WASH, and related needs
MSS support 2023–2025 At least $380 million Pledged Foreign assistance, Department of Defense enabling support, and other support for the Multinational Security Support mission
L’Ouverture Economic Development Plan FY2026–FY2031 $1 billion annually Proposed H.R. 1114 proposal for a private-sector Enterprise Fund; not enacted or funded
GFA-specific Haiti funding FY2021 $15 million Enacted / allocated Prevention and Stabilization Fund
GFA-specific Haiti funding FY2022 $13 million Enacted / allocated Prevention and Stabilization Fund
GFA-specific Haiti funding FY2023 $3.3 million Enacted / allocated Complex Crisis Fund

The big numbers show that the United States continued to spend heavily on Haiti’s emergency and institutional needs.

The smaller numbers show the gap.

A 10-year conflict-prevention strategy received dedicated Haiti funding in the single-digit-to-low-double-digit millions while the broader U.S. response continued to operate largely through familiar crisis-response channels.

Emergency funding is necessary. It saves lives.

But emergency funding is not the same as building a self-sustaining society.

Immediate relief is essential. Lasting capacity is the goal.

A Haitian community gathering outdoors, representing partnership and locally owned development

The Results Were Worse, Not Better

The strategy itself recognized that Haiti’s crises could complicate implementation. That is true. But acknowledging difficulty does not eliminate the responsibility to measure results.

The available indicators are stark:

  • The United Nations reported that Haiti recorded 4,789 homicides in 2023, a 119% increase from 2022, as cited by the Congressional Research Service.
  • By late 2023, armed gangs reportedly controlled approximately 80% of Port-au-Prince.
  • At least 195,000 people were displaced by gang violence as of October 2023.
  • Approximately 4.4 million Haitians, or roughly 44% of the population, faced acute hunger in September 2023.
  • The United Nations reported that 5,600 people were killed in 2024, most in gang-related violence, as cited by the Congressional Research Service.
  • The United Nations reported that 1,617 people were killed between January and March 2025, as cited by the Congressional Research Service.
  • By 2025, gangs controlled up to 90% of Port-au-Prince, according to CRS.

These figures do not prove that the GFA caused the deterioration. They prove that the strategy did not prevent it.

That distinction matters.

A strategy can confront an extremely difficult environment and still fail to meet its central objective. Haiti’s security crisis was already severe. It became more severe during implementation.

Whose Fault Is It?

There is no honest one-word answer.

Haiti’s fragility has multiple causes: political exclusion, criminal violence, illicit financial networks, arms trafficking, institutional weakness, economic extraction, environmental shocks, and the failures of Haitian and international actors over many years.

Armed gangs bear responsibility for violence and terror. Those who finance, arm, protect, or politically enable criminal networks also bear responsibility. Haitian institutions have faced serious failures and corruption, but they have also operated with inadequate resources, weak public systems, and severe external pressure.

The United States is not responsible for every failure in Haiti.

But the United States is responsible for its own promise.

Outside missions and international implementers carried too much of the work while Haitian institutions remained under-resourced. Security assistance expanded, but security alone could not create legitimate governance. Humanitarian aid reached families, but it could not substitute for functioning courts, accountable police, local economic opportunity, or reliable public services.

The first phase became security-heavy while the deeper phases remained difficult to reach.

That is the structural failure: not that the United States lacked activity, but that activity did not become durable Haitian capacity.

“You Break It, You Fix It” Means Owning the Outcome

The phrase should not be used to claim that the United States created Haiti’s crisis. It did not.

It should be used to describe responsibility for an institutional promise.

If the United States says it will help prevent fragility from deepening, it must measure whether fragility is deepening. If the indicators move in the wrong direction, officials must say so plainly. If the approach is not working, the approach must change.

Accountability could begin with five commitments:

  1. State the failure clearly.
    The strategy did not deliver the intended reversal of Haiti’s fragility during its implementation period.

  2. Fund the strategy it announced.
    Dedicated prevention and stabilization resources cannot remain marginal beside much larger emergency and security budgets.

  3. Invest in Haitian institutions.
    Support must strengthen courts, local government, police accountability, public administration, agriculture, education, and community organizations.

  4. Transfer capacity, not permanent control.
    Foreign experts can provide tools, training, and technical knowledge. Haitian institutions must own the systems.

  5. Measure what communities experience.
    Success must be assessed through safety, food access, local livelihoods, trusted institutions, and the ability of families to remain and build.

You cannot build stability around communities without building with them.

Haiti 2050 Requires a Different Partnership

Foreign support can be useful. Permanent foreign management is not a development strategy.

At HDNF, our Haiti 2050 vision begins with a different premise: Haitian communities are builders, owners, leaders, and partners. Sustainable development must create systems that continue working after a grant ends, a contractor leaves, or an emergency fades from the headlines.

That means connecting:

  • Food production with soil science, farmer knowledge, and precision agriculture;
  • Energy independence with biodigesters, improved stoves, and waste-to-energy systems;
  • Preservation skills with canning, fermentation, and dehydration;
  • Craftsmanship with woodworking, sewing, tool repair, and durable local livelihoods;
  • Sustainable tourism with community ownership, cultural protection, and responsible economic opportunity.

Our Precision Agriculture Initiative reflects this approach. Satellite imagery, terrain mapping, soil analysis, and local knowledge help farmers make decisions for their specific plots: not generic decisions imposed from outside.

This is the difference between delivering assistance and building capability.

The United States should own what its strategy failed to accomplish. Then it should partner differently: with Haitian institutions, Haitian farmers, Haitian entrepreneurs, Haitian women, Haitian youth, local organizations, and the Haitian diaspora.

Not emergency versus development.

Emergency response and lasting systems.

Not dependence versus charity.

Local ownership and self-reliance.

Not a promise repeated.

A promise delivered.

Support Haiti 2050 through HDNF’s locally owned development model. Learn more about our food security work or support the mission.

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Sources and Methodology

This article uses publicly available government, congressional, humanitarian, academic, and historical sources. Funding figures are labeled as enacted, requested, pledged, or proposed and are not treated as interchangeable.

Historical claims were cross-checked against independent reference and scholarly sources. The 1679 Port-de-Paix episode and the detailed Bois Caïman narrative are presented with appropriate caution because the surviving documentary record is limited and later accounts are debated.