Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

structure Project designed to improve social services. In
addition, the United States Agency for International Development
spent more than US$300 million in Haiti over the period
from 1994 to 1999, vaccinating people, providing food for
school children, improving hillside agriculture to increase
farmer income, grafting fruit trees, and repairing roads. In
general, however, since the restoration of democratically
elected government in 1994, Haiti has experienced political
instability and as a consequence, difficulty in attracting foreign
investment or tourists.
Progress in the Dominican Republic's economic sphere,
albeit more positive than Haiti's, has been uneven. Such sectors
as the free-trade zones in which assembly plants are located
and tourism are doing relatively well. Growth in tourism has
been significant and steady, featuring an increase of 10 percent
in 1999 over 1998 and an announcement by the Secretariat of
State for Tourism that the number of tourists for the first three
months of 2000 represented a 25 percent gain over 1999.
Despite this progress, according to the Third National Survey
of Household Expenditures and Incomes announced in
November 1999, some 21 percent of the Dominican population
is estimated to live in extreme poverty, including 33 percent
of citizens in rural areas. Most residents of such areas lack
access to potable water and some 25 percent lack electricity.
Furthermore, a significant part of the population is affected by
deficiencies in health care, housing, sanitation, and education.
General dissatisfaction over lack of water supply, power outages,
insufficient housing construction, and failure to repair
roads led to strikes and popular demonstrations in 1999 and
early 2000. The aftermath of Hurricane Georges that hit in
September 1998 has aggravated the situation. Recovery is as yet
incomplete despite international assistance, including the
deployment of 3,000 United States Army personnel in 1999 to
participate in Operation Caribbean Castle to rebuild destroyed
bridges and rural schools.
The economy of the Dominican Republic is strongly affected
by the legacy of the country's troubled relationship with Haiti
and its people. On the one hand, Haitian workers are needed
for Dominican coffee and sugar harvests and for unskilled construction
work. On the other hand, the Dominican government
institutes regular deportations of Haitians and Dominico-
Haitians born in the Dominican Republic. At present, some
2,000 to 3,000 Haitians are deported monthly. In late 1999,
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