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International Women's day celebrates the economic, political and social achievements of women . In most developing countries, women produce the bulk of the world’s food crops. Yet women face greater constraints than men, and lack the means, the services and the opportunities to increase their yields and their earnings. This year, the UN theme for the day is “Equal rights, equal opportunities: Progress for all.”
After the devastating earthquake in Haiti, time and again we witnessed how the women of Haiti took things in hand and provided the necessary for their families, friends and their community.

What can the poorest people do to aid economic development in their own communities? A great deal, when given easy access to financial services and remittance flows, says the Director of Fonkoze, Haiti’s alternative bank for the poor. This short video tells the story of two Fonkoze clients.

In 2008, global food price spikes and four successive hurricanes battered the Caribbean island of Haiti, causing an estimated US$220 million in damage to food crops. Tens of thousands of farmers were left without a means of earning an income and the country without enough food to eat. This short video looks at a special IFAD-funded programme designed to kick-start the country’s food production quickly and the support needed to make Haiti food secure.

It was not Hurricane Gustav that did the damage in Cabaret, a small town some 50 kilometres from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. Nor was it Hurricane Hanna, which lashed Haiti a week later. The town somehow managed to survive both tempests. But when Hurricane Ike passed over the Caribbean, hot on the heels of Hanna, the sheer volume of water it dumped on Haiti proved too much for Cabaret and its surroundings.
 

Around 200,000 people live in Gonaïves, and about 80 percent of the town has been submerged; there's only a small hilly part that has remained dry.

Sixty-five percent of Haiti’s people live in rural areas and more than 80 percent live below the poverty line. The majority of them attempt to eke out a living farming the severely eroded steep hills that cover much of the country.

Marie-Guirlaine Raymond is a young woman from Haiti. She had just graduated as a general physician, and she found herself practising in the commune of Chambellan (Department de Grand'Anse, Haiti). She quickly realized she would need more than what was in her doctor’s bag.

Haiti was the first country in the Americas to abolish slavery, when it won its independence in 1804 after a struggle led by Toussaint Louverture. But thousands live a life of near-slave labour because of poverty and social breakdown

At first glance, the road leading to Dade-Duvivier, a remote commune in the hills of southern Haiti, looks unremarkable:  simple, unpaved, more of a track than a road. But talk to the local people and you will understand that this road is their lifeline.

Quand Anna alla se coucher ce Samedi 6 Septembre, elle était loin d’imaginer que quelques heures plus tard elle allait frôler la mort. Enceinte de 8 mois, souffrant d’hypertension, Anna vit à Cabaret depuis son plus jeune âge.

Fernando Thermidor has the look of a toddler who is all cried out as he buries his tear-stained face in his mother’s shoulder. But this is no ordinary two-year-old’s temper tantrum. Fernando and his mother, Judith, are crammed into a schoolroom in Gonaïves, Haiti, where they have taken refuge from flash floods along with nearly 200 other people.