The United Nations Security Council unanimously voted on September 30, 2024 to extend the authorization of the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti until October 2, 2025, providing the mission with a continued mandate to support Haitian police in combating gang violence and creating conditions for elections. The unanimous vote reflected sustained international consensus that the mission needed to continue and expand despite its current limitations.
The extension came as the mission’s initial year of authorization had produced mixed results. In areas where MSS and Haitian police had conducted joint operations, some security improvements were documented. The reopening of the airport and partial restoration of supply chains had been facilitated by mission support. But the overall security environment remained catastrophically bad, with gang networks still controlling the majority of the capital and violence continuing at extremely high levels.
The Security Council’s action was accompanied by renewed calls for international donors to fully fund the mission, noting that the gap between pledges and actual disbursements had limited the mission’s operational capacity. The United States, Canada, France, and other major donors were urged to accelerate the delivery of promised financial and logistical support.
The mission’s renewal on the same day that famine conditions were declared in Haiti illustrated the compounding nature of the country’s crises. Security, politics, and humanitarianism were inseparable dimensions of a situation that could only be addressed comprehensively, not through isolated interventions in individual sectors. The Security Council’s vote was one piece of the international response; the food crisis, the displacement crisis, and the governance crisis required equally urgent attention from the same international community.