Introduction: Haiti’s governance challenges and the international community

Haiti may well be the only country in the Americas with a last name. References to the land of the “black Jacobins” are almost always followed by “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere”. To that dubious distinction, on 12 January 2010 the world’s first black republic added another, when it was hit by the most devastating natural disaster to occur in the Americas, a 7.0 Richter-scale earthquake. The latter, whose epicenter was in the Caribbean Sea just outside Port-au-Prince – in a shallow area, which made its surface tremors stronger – ripped with deadly force through the Haitian capital and its adjoining areas, reaching as far as the southern city of Jacmel.

相关主题: Economic and Social Development

Countries: Haiti