Port-au-Prince Urban Baseline

The Port-au-Prince urban livelihoods baseline contains detailed, quantified
information on the food, income and expenditure patterns of the urban poor. The
assessment was conducted at a time of relative security and price stability from April
to May 2009. Thus this baseline provides a picture of the urban poor as they were
following the hurricanes, price rises and food riots of 2008. In conjunction with
monitoring data, the baseline is a powerful tool that can be used for ongoing analysis
of food and livelihood security in the slums of Port-au-Prince. It can also be used to
assess the appropriateness of interventions aimed at alleviating urban poverty.
Undertaken by FEWS NET in collaboration with CNSA, this survey employed the
Household Economy Approach (HEA). Since the focus of the survey was the urban
poor, the assessment took place only in the city’s shanty-towns, known as
bidonvilles. Three teams of interviewers undertook 30 interviews with community key
informants and 110 focus group interviews with representatives of households from
the slums. During the focus groups a total of around 500 households were surveyed.