International Monetary Fund economists conducting their annual review of Haiti’s economy in September 2019 painted a picture of deep structural weakness compounded by the year’s political crisis. The IMF consultation report highlighted multiple interrelated problems: low tax revenues, heavy dependence on imports, a weak financial sector, inadequate infrastructure investment, and a business environment that discouraged formal economic activity.
The report noted that Haiti’s tax-to-GDP ratio was among the lowest in the hemisphere, reflecting both limited administrative capacity and widespread tax evasion by the country’s economic elite. The consequences included chronic underfunding of education, health, and infrastructure — the very public goods that could enable broader economic development.
IMF economists recommended a series of structural reforms including broadening the tax base, improving customs administration, reforming state-owned enterprises, and investing in human capital and infrastructure. They acknowledged that implementing these reforms required political stability and commitment that the current environment could not provide.
Haitian economists offered a more caustic assessment. Several argued that the IMF’s prescriptions, while technically sound in isolation, failed to adequately grapple with the political economy of reform in Haiti — specifically, the ability of entrenched elite interests to block changes that threatened their privileges. Structural reform, they argued, required not just technical expertise but political transformation.