Against a persistent backdrop of widespread food insecurity plaguing vulnerable communities across Haiti, state-backed social assistance agencies launched a major food distribution mission during the 2026 Easter holiday period, rolling out 10,000 emergency food kits to households in the country’s South Department.
Ahead of the field deployment, Jean Sadrack Jean François, director of Haiti’s Directorate for the Fight Against Poverty (DLCP), led a high-level coordination meeting at the Departmental Emergency Operations Center (COUD) based in Fonfrède. The gathering brought together key stakeholders from multiple government agencies to iron out operational logistics, ensuring the aid would reach intended recipients efficiently and without disruption. Attendees included Kesner Romilus, director general of the Economic and Social Assistance Fund (FAES, the lead implementing body for the mission); Lincosld Charles, the South Department’s regional government delegate; Pierre-Marie Boutin, FAES’ regional coordinator; Abner Jean-Charles, regional coordinator for the Directorate General of Civil Protection (DGPC); and Yacinthe Germain, regional coordinator for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor (MAST).
The distribution operation, which ran from April 2 to April 6, forms a core component of the national Multisectoral Emergency Program, an initiative overseen by MAST and managed by FAES that is explicitly designed to combat the severe food insecurity that has pushed thousands of Haitian households into food instability.
Beyond the food kit rollout, the interagency delegation conducted an inspection visit to the under-development Southern Rehabilitation Center in Madame Combe. The facility is set to welcome nearly 2,000 vulnerable Haitians in the near future, and the visit allowed officials to assess infrastructure and operational needs for a new on-site community restaurant scheduled to open its doors on April 6.
This latest regional relief effort is part of a far larger, ongoing national social assistance commitment by the Haitian government. Through FAES, the administration currently provides 48,000 prepared meals every day to internally displaced persons across the country, with the allocation broken out across three major regions: 2,000 meals for Artibonite, 9,000 for the Centre region, and 37,000 for the country’s most populous region, West. In addition to fixed-site meal programs, 36,000 additional meals are served daily via mobile canteen operations across Port-au-Prince, Delmas, and Pétion-ville, reaching low-income and food-insecure residents in dense urban areas that have been disproportionately impacted by ongoing economic and humanitarian instability.