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This chapter explores the impact of delivering culturally community family therapy with strength-based strategies, to transgenerational Black Haitian families living in Haiti and the Dominican Republic following the 2010 earthquake. A series of workshop intervention over several years, which were co-facilitated by community pastors and leaders provided a cultural-based intervention drawing on Black British and Caribbean culture, Haitian culture, Christian spiritual belief systems, in conjunction with some bi-cultural attachment and systemic methods and techniques. Community feedback through testimonies contributed to evaluation and outcomes in developing new strategies to manage stress, and family conflict and distress, together with developing new strategies in sharing a vision for the future across the community.

Purpose – This chapter investigates vulnerability to poverty in the Republic of Haiti.

Methodology – We use a hierarchical modeling technique to allow the assessment and decomposition of vulnerability to poverty by exploiting the short-panel structure of nested data in a cross section.

Originality – Specifically, a three-level hierarchical model with a partially Bayesian restricted maximum likelihood is used in the estimation procedure. This is novel in this literature.

Findings – The decomposition method adopted in this chapter reveals that vulnerability in the Republic of Haiti is largely a rural phenomenon and is correlated negatively with schooling. The results also disclose the lack of equality in various aspects of circumstances or opportunities, including education, as the salient factor determining the status and level of vulnerability of households. Most importantly, among the different shocks affecting household's income, it is found that meso-level shocks are in general far more important than covariate shocks. This finding points to some interesting policy implications in terms of decentralizing policies and delegating more powers and providing better means to local governments to enhance household resilience to shocks and to alleviate their vulnerability to poverty.

When the 13 colonies in North America, the slave colony of Saint-Domingue, and the colonial territories of the Portuguese and Spanish Americas all rose against their imperial rulers, a new postcolonial order seemingly emerged in the Western Hemisphere. The reality of this situation forced political theorists and practitioners of the early 19th century to rethink the way in which they envisioned the nature and dynamics of international order. But a careful analysis of this shift reveals that it was not the radical break with prior notions of sovereignty and territoriality, often described in the literature. This was not the emergence of a new postimperial system of independent, nationally anchored states. Rather, it reflected a creative rethinking of existing notions of divided sovereignty and composite polities, rife with political experiments – from the formation of a new multi-centered empire in North America to the quasi-states and federations of Latin America. This moment of political experimentation and postcolonial order-making presented a distinctly new world repertoire of empire and state-building, parts of which were at least as violent and authoritarian as those of the old world empires it had replaced. The most radical ideas of freedom and liberty, championed by the black republic of Haiti, remained marginalized and sidelined by more conservative powers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Investments in agricultural research and development (AgR&D) have been an engine of agricultural productivity growth; as a result, food security and poverty situations have improved in many countries around the world. However, in Haiti, a small Caribbean country, neither has any formal agricultural research center (ARC) been established nor has a significant amount of money been invested for AgR&D. This paper aims to quantify whether setting up an ARC would be beneficial for Haiti.

A fixed-effects regression, the International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodity and Trade impact and benefit – cost ratio (BCR) measures are used to estimate future benefits from setting up a new ARC in Haiti.

A total of US$21.0m annual investment is required for the proposed ARC, which could generate up to US$1.16bn in social benefits during the next three decades. In terms of BCR, if one dollar is invested for AgR&D in Haiti, the payoff could be US$1.33-4.52. Therefore, establishing an ARC is crucial for Haiti, as it is expected to generate positive benefits for society by helping formulate pro-farmer policies as well as disseminating modern agricultural technologies among farmers.

Because, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no such study in Haiti’s perspective, this study contributes to the country’s literature evaluating the feasibility of establishing a new research center in Haiti with a partial equilibrium economic model.

The Haitian gourde is one of the most curious and exotic currencies of the world. On it is printed the striking statement: “The banknote, in conformity with the Constitution of the . Republic of Haiti, is payable to the bearer in legal money of the United States of America at the rate of five gourdes for one dollar.” Amazingly, the gourde stands exactly where it was set by the Convention of April 12, 1919 at five gourdes per dollar. This fixity in the exchange rate is a remarkable achievement of an otherwise totally squalid economy record, which has been made very much due to the total convertibility of gourdes into dollars and their easy co‐existence and use in Haiti. Such a feat runs counter to early suggestions in the newly developing currency substitution literature that currency competition promotes instability in rates. A very different story emerges due west on the largest English‐speaking island in the Caribbean, Jamaica, where monetary turbulence has been the rule since 1978. The currency there was initially backed 50 percent by pounds sterling when the Bank of Jamaica began operation in May 1961, but switched to a dollar peg in January 1973 at $1,10 US, a rate maintained through 1977. After the economic problems of 1976–77, the Jamaican dollar was devalued 15½ percent in January 1978 and, under the strong advice of the International Monetary Fund, a further 32 percent in May 1978. Following was a “crawling peg” devaluation of 1½ percent per month until October 1978, then 1 percent a month until May 1979, when the current dollar peg of 56.13 cents per Jamaican dollar was established. This dramatic decline in the currency was caused in part by expansionary monetary policies of the Bank of Jamaica monetizing budget deficits, and in part by the decline in tourism, the fall in bauxite and steel output, and the oil shocks Jamaica experienced. (From 1974 to 1979, the government budget deficit went from 168 million Jamaican dollars (J$) to 551 mill J$ with a peak of 625 million in 1978, holdings of government debt by the central bank from 72 to 898 mill J$, and net foreign assets or reserves of the central bank plunged from 141 to minus 778 mill J$ (Source: International Financial Statistics, IMF 1980 Yearbook and IFS January 1981 issue).) The International Monetary Fund set specific performance criteria such as devaluation and ceilings on government budget deficits for successive draws on a substantial loan of 351 million U.S. dollars or 360 percent of Jamaica's quota at the end of 1979.

During the last two decades, the focus of IMF involvement in the developing world, and especially in the low‐income countries, has shifted. For example, IMF involvement became not only more long term, but also oriented toward policy reform, rather than only assisting with a macroeconomic crisis. In this paper, we examine the importance of a qualitative factor, namely the perception of the local population towards structural adjustment programmes, and argue that it will have a significant impact on the success or failure of IMF‐supported programmes. In addition, we suggest that liberalisation and deregulation in low‐income countries, like Haiti, may actually reduce the rate of economic growth.

Many research findings depicted corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a strategic tool for influencing customer behavior, especially customer trust. Nevertheless, rare is research that considered a business ecosystem infested by a low level of cultural trust, political and economic problems, perceived corruption and low level of CSR awareness and engagement as obstacles that may prevent companies from influencing their customers’ behavior. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate whether CSR activities positively influence consumer/user trust toward companies operating within a low-cultural-trust context and also the consistency of empirical finds on CSR regardless of the cultural context.

The model of this study consisted of four variables: perceptions of CSR, customer trust, service quality and customer satisfaction. The target sample constituted respondents belonging to six different occupational categories namely health-care services, media services, law and public security, agriculture and earth sciences, training and education services and administrative sciences. This study used a quantitative approach based on a paper–pencil questionnaire to collect the data.

The results of this study indicated that perceptions of CSR correlated positively with service quality, customer satisfaction and customer trust. The results also indicated that perceptions of CSR, service quality and customer satisfaction are good predictors of customer trust.

This study is significant because it was conducted in a developing country (Haiti) that has long been struggling with political instability, systemic corruption, serious environmental damages and continuous economic crises and inequality along with a low level of CSR engagement and awareness.

To outline the role of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF), which has the remit to spearhead the implementation of internationally recognized anti‐money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) benchmarks in the Caribbean Basin region.

The first part of the paper sets out the mandate and structure of the CFATF, and describes the range of activities in which it has been engaged, together with some triumphs and challenges experienced over its history. The second part focuses on a critical component of the CFATF's remit, namely, the conduct of the mutual evaluation (MVE) programme, a peer review process by which member states within the CFATF family are assessed for compliance with AML/CFT requirements. The third part constitutes the conclusion and offers some observations on the way forward for the CFATF in its ongoing campaign against financial crime.

The Caribbean Basin region is ad idem with its international partners in the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Member governments of the CFATF have embraced this commitment because it is in the region's best interests to protect first and foremost the regional financial system from criminal activity and by extension the global financial system. In so doing we are able to position ourselves as well regulated, clean jurisdictions which are firmly committed to adherence to international best practices. The ongoing stance of the CFATF is one of constant vigilance with regard to international developments, their potential impact on members and the Caribbean Basin region and the way in which the region's interests could be best protected.

The task of the CFATF is to ensure that throughout the membership all the domestic stakeholders be it the National Anti Money Laundering Committee, the attorney general's department, the central bank, police, customs, immigration, defence departments, the financial intelligence units (FIUs), the judiciary and the magistracy all must take on the responsibility for ensuring that in the AML/CFT arena a culture of compliance is engendered throughout the national consciousness. The MEV reports on all CFATF members as the outcome of the monitoring for compliance process are now being published on the CFATF web site and will be of value to our international partners and in particular to the global investment community. The Caribbean Basin region through concerted action must strive for a positive and responsible international image and reputation and the publication of this paper is a step in that direction.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the context of the emergence of a skin infection outbreak in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew in Haiti and detail the role of community-based participatory research in mobilizing local action in a country with low state capacity.

While implementing a post-disaster study that combined a survey of 984 households and 69 community leaders with 23 focus groups, 60 ethnographic interviews and community mapping, a skin infection outbreak was detected. Using study results, the research team in partnership with different stakeholders responded to the outbreak with a health intervention.

The findings illustrate how pre-existing conditions shape local communities' vulnerability to health crises in the aftermath of disasters and the critical role research can play in informing the recovery processes. Community-based approaches to emergency health reinforced by multi-stakeholder partnerships with local government can strengthen post-disaster response and governance structures setting the groundwork for the development of local resilience.

The health intervention was implemented as a result of the study. Patients served were not derived from the study sample but were self-selected based on their need for skin-related medical treatment.

This article highlights the integral role research can play in identifying the health impacts of disaster events in vulnerable, hard-to-reach communities and strengthening government involvement in disaster governance.