Indigestible Recipe: Rice, Chicken Wings, and International Financial Institutions Or Hunger Politics in Haiti

Food riots in Haiti in early April 2008 brought to the attention of the international community the plight of the Haitians. These events are neither unique to Haiti nor the product of happenstance. Instead, policies imposed on Haiti by international financial institutions (i.e., the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) since the 1980s, such as currency devaluation and trade liberalization, had a “double whammy” negative impact: They negated Haitian agricultural performance and the capacity of the Haitian state to manage the economy, thus exacerbating the current food crisis.