As Haiti prepares for another attempt at national elections, CARICOM’s Group of Eminent Persons is back in Port-au-Prince. Its repeated involvement raises legitimate questions: What does CARICOM actually want from Haiti? Who pays for these missions? What has years of mediation accomplished? And has CARICOM become part of Haiti’s political problem—or is it being asked to solve a crisis that Haitian institutions and much more powerful international actors have repeatedly failed to resolve?
HAITI POLITIC | Foreign Policy Analysis | September 3, 2026
CARICOM is back in Haiti.
Again.
On September 2, 2026, a delegation from the Caribbean Community’s Eminent Persons Group, or EPG, arrived in Port-au-Prince for another round of consultations as Haiti moves deeper into preparations for elections.
The delegation includes three former Caribbean prime ministers who have become familiar figures in Haiti’s political negotiations: Kenny Anthony of Saint Lucia, Bruce Golding of Jamaica and Perry Christie of The Bahamas. They are accompanied by CARICOM officials, including Ambassador Colin Granderson and Assistant Secretary-General Elizabeth Solomon.
According to Haiti’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, discussions are focused on the political and security situation, progress in the electoral process and the conditions required for elections that are free, credible, inclusive and secure.
Reports indicate the delegation plans broader consultations with political parties, coalitions and civil-society actors during the mission.
But after years of CARICOM meetings, delegations, communiqués, negotiations and “good offices,” Haitians have every right to ask a harder question:
Why does CARICOM keep coming back?
And an even harder one:
What has CARICOM actually accomplished?
The answer requires separating four issues that are too often mixed together:
CARICOM’s legitimate regional interest in Haiti; CARICOM’s role as political mediator; the influence of larger international powers working through CARICOM; and Haiti’s own responsibility for its political failures.
Those distinctions matter enormously.
First: Haiti Is Not an Outside Country to CARICOM
One misconception should be eliminated immediately.
CARICOM is not simply a foreign organization arriving uninvited to supervise Haiti.
Haiti is itself a CARICOM member state. CARICOM’s membership rules give member states the right to participate and vote in Community institutions, while also requiring them to contribute to the Secretariat’s budget.
That changes the diplomatic equation.
When CARICOM discusses Haiti, it is discussing instability inside its own regional organization.
The equivalent is not exactly the European Union because CARICOM is far less integrated, but the principle is similar: severe instability in one member inevitably becomes a regional concern.
And Haiti is not a small peripheral member in demographic terms.
With more than 11 million people, Haiti represents an enormous portion of the population of the Caribbean Community.
If Haiti collapses further, its neighbors do not get to pretend nothing happened.
They experience the consequences.
What Does CARICOM Want From Haiti?
There is no evidence that CARICOM’s principal institutional objective is to “take over” Haiti.
Its interests are much more practical.
A functioning Haiti is better for the Caribbean than a collapsing Haiti.
Political instability in Haiti can contribute to irregular migration, refugee pressure, arms and drug trafficking, transnational organized crime, humanitarian emergencies, economic disruption and wider regional security problems.
Caribbean leaders have increasingly described gangs and transnational criminal networks as a threat extending beyond Haiti. In 2025, regional leaders publicly called for greater cooperation against gangs, illegal weapons and organized crime while identifying Haiti as the region’s most extreme security crisis.
So CARICOM has a clear national-security interest.
Stabilizing Haiti is not charity for CARICOM. It is regional self-interest.
That is not necessarily sinister.
Countries almost always conduct foreign policy according to interests.
Why the Elections Matter So Much to CARICOM
The current mission becomes easier to understand when placed inside Haiti’s institutional crisis.
CARICOM’s objective is not simply to get Haitians to vote.
It is trying to help move Haiti from transitional government back toward a government possessing electoral legitimacy.
That distinction is important.
CARICOM said in May 2026 that the EPG would continue using its “good offices” to support stability, good governance, free and fair elections and the restoration of constitutional order.
And the September delegation is specifically discussing the conditions required for credible and secure elections.
Why?
Because almost every other problem becomes harder when nobody possesses an uncontested democratic mandate.
Who legitimately negotiates international agreements?
Who appoints senior officials?
Who controls the security apparatus?
Who establishes national priorities?
Who represents Haiti abroad?
Who can claim authority to reform the Constitution or state institutions?
Eventually, the answer cannot continue to be:
another transitional arrangement.
CARICOM understands that.
So do the United States, Canada, France, the United Nations and the OAS.
But CARICOM Helped Create the Previous Transition
This is where CARICOM cannot escape scrutiny.
The organization was not merely watching Haiti’s transition from the sidelines.
It played an important role in constructing it.
On March 11, 2024, CARICOM convened Haitian stakeholders in Jamaica alongside Brazil, Canada, France, Mexico, the United Nations and the United States.
That process produced the framework for the Transitional Presidential Council.
The agreement envisioned seven voting members and two non-voting observers representing different Haitian political, business, civil-society and religious sectors.
CARICOM later welcomed the decree formally establishing the nine-member council.
This is important history.
CARICOM therefore cannot simultaneously claim credit for facilitating political compromise and completely distance itself from the weaknesses of the arrangement that emerged.
If you help design the bridge, people are entitled to ask questions when the bridge fails to reach the other side.
But Did CARICOM Choose Haiti’s Leaders?
Not exactly.
This is where criticism can become historically inaccurate.
CARICOM facilitated.
CARICOM pressured.
CARICOM convened.
CARICOM negotiated.
International governments participated.
But Haitian political organizations themselves nominated the representatives who formed the council.
The March 2024 agreement explicitly identified Haitian sectors and political formations that would supply representatives.
That means responsibility is shared.
It would be too convenient for Haitian political actors to participate in internationally facilitated agreements, nominate representatives, fight over appointments and ministries—and then later describe everything that went wrong as something foreigners imposed upon them.
At the same time, it would be equally misleading for foreign governments to call the outcome purely “Haitian-led” when international diplomatic pressure clearly helped determine the framework in which those Haitian actors negotiated.
The reality sits between those narratives.
Why the Same Three Former Prime Ministers?
The EPG consists of political heavyweights rather than ordinary diplomats.
Kenny Anthony governed Saint Lucia.
Bruce Golding governed Jamaica.
Perry Christie governed The Bahamas.
CARICOM has used them precisely because former heads of government can speak politician-to-politician in ways career diplomats sometimes cannot.
They have been working on Haiti for years.
In September 2023, for example, the same EPG returned to Haiti attempting to build upon previous meetings in Jamaica and Haiti. CARICOM itself later acknowledged that the talks had become more difficult as political positions hardened.
In August 2024, the EPG returned again.
That visit was extensive.
The delegation met Haiti’s executive authorities, police leadership, political parties, civil society, women’s organizations, human-rights groups, religious organizations, businesses, labor unions and diaspora representatives.
It also met representatives from Canada, France, the United States, the United Nations, the OAS and the multinational security mission.
That tells us something important about what the EPG actually is.
It is not governing Haiti.
It is functioning primarily as a mediator, information collector, diplomatic intermediary and political pressure mechanism.
Why Keep Visiting Instead of Letting Haitians Solve It?
This is probably the most important philosophical question.
There is a strong Haitian sovereignty argument that says:
At some point, outsiders have to stop mediating Haiti’s politics.
Every time Haitian politicians refuse to compromise, another delegation arrives.
Every time a transition fails, another international conference appears.
Every time institutions collapse, foreigners help construct another temporary governing arrangement.
That can create a dangerous incentive.
Political elites learn that they do not necessarily have to build functioning institutions capable of resolving domestic disagreements.
Instead, disagreements can eventually be internationalized.
CARICOM arrives.
The OAS arrives.
The UN intervenes.
Washington becomes involved.
Canada becomes involved.
France becomes involved.
Another accord is negotiated.
Another transitional government appears.
And Haiti starts again.
There is a legitimate argument that permanent mediation can unintentionally institutionalize political dependency.
That criticism deserves serious consideration.
Follow the Money: Who Pays for CARICOM’s Haiti Missions?
This question is surprisingly difficult to answer with precision.
CARICOM’s general financing structure is public.
Its own administrative guidelines state that the Secretariat’s operational and capital budgets are financed by contributions from member states. The same document says external support is also important for implementing Community projects.
CARICOM’s 2022 annual report provides a useful illustration: member-state resources funded a budget of roughly EC$56.5 million, while the Secretariat also received approximately EC$16.8 million—US$6.2 million—from international development partners.
So CARICOM operates with a mixture of:
member-state contributions + external development-partner funding.
And Haiti itself has historically been among the assessed contributors. A CARICOM annual report for 2019 listed Haiti’s assessed Secretariat contribution at roughly EC$3.37 million, about 6% of the headquarters assessment plus its trade-negotiations contribution that year.
That produces an irony often overlooked in Haitian political debate:
Haiti is not merely a recipient of CARICOM activity. Haiti is also a member of the organization whose budget supports CARICOM operations.
But Who Paid for This Particular September 2026 Trip?
Here the answer must be more cautious.
I have not found a publicly available CARICOM document itemizing the airfare, hotels, security, per diem, transportation and other expenses of the September 2–9, 2026 EPG mission or identifying a single outside government as the payer.
That means it would be irresponsible to write:
“Canada paid for the delegation.”
Or:
“The United States financed the visit.”
The evidence located does not establish that.
What we can establish is that CARICOM receives member contributions and international-development-partner resources. We can also establish that Canada and other international partners have funded substantial Caribbean and Haiti-related programs and have politically supported the EPG’s role.
But those facts do not prove that a particular donor purchased the tickets or paid the hotel bill for this specific delegation.
That distinction is important.
And CARICOM could improve transparency by publishing mission-level expense reports for politically sensitive interventions like Haiti.
The Bigger Financial Question
There is another reason this deserves scrutiny.
CARICOM frequently operates alongside countries possessing far greater financial and diplomatic power.
Look at the participants CARICOM itself listed for the decisive March 2024 negotiations:
Brazil.
Canada.
France.
Mexico.
United Nations.
United States.
This raises an important foreign-policy question:
Is CARICOM mediating for the Caribbean—or providing regional legitimacy for policies favored by larger powers?
Those are not necessarily the same thing.
For Washington, Ottawa and Paris, CARICOM has one enormous diplomatic advantage:
It is Caribbean.
A solution announced by Caribbean leaders looks very different politically from one announced by the U.S. State Department.
CARICOM can therefore provide something larger powers cannot manufacture easily:
regional legitimacy.
That does not prove CARICOM is anyone’s puppet.
But it does mean Haitians should pay attention to where CARICOM policy ends and where the preferences of its powerful international partners begin.
Is CARICOM Still Relevant?
Yes—but relevance and effectiveness are different questions.
CARICOM remains relevant because it provides a regional diplomatic platform Haiti cannot easily replace.
It gives Haiti relationships with Jamaica, The Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and other Caribbean states.
It can convene actors.
It can advocate internationally.
It can connect Haiti’s crisis to regional discussions about migration, guns, organized crime, climate vulnerability, trade and development.
And when Haiti’s political actors refuse to sit together, CARICOM sometimes provides neutral territory where they will.
That is relevance.
Effectiveness is another matter.
The Results Are Much Harder to Defend
After years of CARICOM engagement, Haiti remains trapped in political instability.
The EPG has been mediating since at least 2023.
CARICOM helped facilitate the 2024 transitional framework.
Yet the transition did not quickly produce the democratic restoration initially envisioned.
Security deteriorated severely.
Gang control expanded.
Institutions remained extraordinarily fragile.
And now, in September 2026, CARICOM is once again discussing how Haiti can organize elections.
Even today’s security environment illustrates the magnitude of the failure: on September 2, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration extended restrictions affecting U.S. flights around Port-au-Prince until March 2027 because of continuing gang violence.
So anyone claiming CARICOM has “solved” Haiti’s political crisis is arguing against the observable record.
It hasn’t.
But Is CARICOM the Root Cause of Haiti’s Political Crisis?
No.
That conclusion cannot withstand historical scrutiny.
Haiti’s political dysfunction predates CARICOM’s contemporary involvement by generations.
The country experienced dictatorship, military coups, constitutional breakdowns, contested elections, political assassinations, weak judicial institutions, corruption, elite competition, foreign interventions and cycles of authoritarianism long before the current EPG existed.
CARICOM did not create Haiti’s tradition of personalized political power.
CARICOM did not create the Duvalier dictatorship.
CARICOM did not create Haiti’s military coups.
CARICOM did not create the chronic weakness of the Haitian justice system.
CARICOM did not create corruption inside Haitian public institutions.
CARICOM did not create the country’s extreme economic inequality.
CARICOM did not create Haiti’s armed political groups.
And CARICOM did not create the long history of intervention by larger foreign powers.
Calling CARICOM the root cause would therefore be historically indefensible.
But CARICOM Can Still Be Part of the Problem
That is a different argument—and a much stronger one.
CARICOM may not have created Haiti’s political dysfunction, but its intervention model deserves examination.
If external mediation repeatedly creates transitional arrangements without building durable institutions, what is actually being stabilized?
If politicians discover that refusing compromise eventually earns them a seat at an internationally mediated negotiation, does that reward obstruction?
If transitional governments repeatedly acquire international recognition without direct electoral legitimacy, does international diplomacy unintentionally weaken the incentive to return rapidly to constitutional government?
If foreign actors continually decide which Haitian organizations qualify as “stakeholders,” who determines who represents the Haitian people?
And if CARICOM facilitates a political arrangement that subsequently performs badly, what accountability does CARICOM itself accept?
Those are legitimate questions.
They are not anti-CARICOM questions.
They are foreign-policy questions.
The Haiti Paradox
Haiti now faces a contradiction.
Many Haitians say:
Foreigners must stop interfering in Haiti.
That sentiment is understandable.
But when Haitian political factions reach an impasse, many of those same factions appeal to Washington, CARICOM, the OAS, Canada, France or the United Nations for recognition, sanctions, mediation or pressure against their domestic rivals.
That is the paradox.
Foreign intervention survives partly because Haitian political actors themselves repeatedly internationalize domestic political disputes.
The international community then acquires leverage because Haitian institutions cannot resolve those disputes internally.
Sovereignty is not simply something foreigners must respect.
Sovereignty is also institutional capacity.
A country that wants outsiders to stop deciding political outcomes needs institutions strong enough to decide those outcomes itself.
Elections Could Change That Relationship
This is why the current electoral process matters far beyond determining who becomes president.
A credible election could begin changing Haiti’s relationship with CARICOM and the wider international community.
An elected president would possess something no mediator can provide:
a direct democratic mandate from Haitian voters.
An elected Parliament would restore a constitutional arena for political competition.
Municipal elections could return legitimacy to local government.
Political disagreements could move from hotel conference rooms and foreign-mediated negotiations back into institutions created by Haiti’s Constitution.
That is the real exit strategy.
Not another CARICOM communiqué.
Not another transitional council.
Not another international conference.
Institutions.
CARICOM Should Also Change Its Approach
If CARICOM wants to remain credible in Haiti, it should resist becoming the permanent manager of Haitian political negotiations.
Its objective should ultimately be to make the EPG unnecessary.
That means shifting from:
Who should govern Haiti during the next transition?
toward:
What institutions will prevent Haiti from needing another transition?
That means stronger electoral institutions.
Judicial independence.
Professional policing.
Transparent political financing.
Functional municipalities.
Parliamentary restoration.
Anti-corruption enforcement.
Civil-service continuity.
And clear constitutional mechanisms for resolving political succession.
Those are less dramatic than flying former prime ministers into Port-au-Prince.
But they are much more important.
And CARICOM Needs Greater Financial Transparency
There is also a simple reform CARICOM could make immediately.
For each major Haiti mission, publish:
Who authorized the mission.
Who requested it.
Who financed it.
Airfare and transportation costs.
Hotels and per diem.
Security costs.
Which governments or donors contributed.
Which Haitian organizations were consulted.
Which organizations requested meetings but were excluded.
What recommendations were made.
What happened to those recommendations.
That would answer many suspicions before they become conspiracy theories.
Regional diplomacy financed with public or donor resources should be transparent enough for Caribbean citizens to understand how it works.
So Why Is CARICOM in Haiti Again?
Because Haiti is a CARICOM member.
Because instability in Haiti threatens the wider Caribbean.
Because CARICOM helped facilitate the political transition and therefore has institutional reasons to follow what happens next.
Because Haitian political actors continue engaging the EPG.
Because CARICOM wants Haiti to return to elected constitutional government.
Because international powers view CARICOM as an important regional intermediary.
And because Haiti still lacks domestic political institutions capable of resolving many of these disputes without external mediation. CARICOM itself has said stakeholders continue to request EPG involvement.
Those explanations can coexist.
The Verdict: CARICOM Is Neither Haiti’s Savior Nor the Original Villain
The easiest political narratives usually give us two choices.
One says:
CARICOM is saving Haiti.
The other says:
CARICOM is controlling Haiti.
The historical record suggests something more complicated.
CARICOM is a regional organization trying to prevent the collapse of one of its own members.
It has legitimate security, diplomatic and economic interests in Haiti.
It has sometimes provided a negotiating table when Haitian political actors could not create one themselves.
It played a consequential role in the 2024 transitional arrangement.
And after years of engagement, it still cannot point to the restoration of stable democratic government as proof that its political strategy succeeded.
Both things can be true.
CARICOM is not the root cause of Haiti’s political crisis.
But CARICOM should absolutely be held accountable for the political arrangements it helps facilitate.
And Haiti should ask an even more uncomfortable question than whether CARICOM should keep coming:
Why does Haiti keep needing CARICOM to come?
That question ultimately points back toward Port-au-Prince.
A sovereign country cannot spend decades depending upon foreign governments and regional organizations to mediate every succession crisis, every transitional dispute and every failed political compromise.
The ultimate measure of CARICOM’s success in Haiti should therefore not be the number of delegations it sends.
It should be the day when Haiti can tell Kenny Anthony, Bruce Golding and Perry Christie:
Thank you. We can handle our political disagreements through our own democratic institutions now.
Until that happens, CARICOM will probably keep returning.
And every time it does, Haitians should ask three questions:
Who invited you?
Who is paying?
And after all these years—what measurable result are you bringing home?
Those are not questions of hostility toward the Caribbean.
They are questions of sovereignty, transparency and accountability.
