In Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, chronic malnutrition is widespread among poor people and it's getting worse. 

The suffering of Haiti’s poor has only increased with the recent hikes in food prices. In April 2008, a week of riots against rising food prices left at least five people dead and 20 wounded.

Haiti was self-sufficient in rice production as recently as 30 years ago. This changed as a result of SAPs imposed on Haiti in the early 1980s. In 1986, after the expulsion of Haitian dictator Jean Claude Duvalier (commonly known as "Baby Doc"), the IMF provided Haiti with a desperately needed loan of US $24.6m. However, loan conditionalities required Haiti to reduce its tariff protections for their rice and other agricultural products in order to open up the country's markets to international competition.

Within two years, US subsidised rice flooded the market and destroyed domestic production. Today, Haiti remains a net importer of food, and its people are feeling the consequences directly as they desperately try to feed themselves and their families with imported food that increases in price almost daily.

In Haiti, the food crisis is compounded by another crisis – that of HIV and AIDS. Haiti has the highest prevalence of HIV infec tion in Latin America and the Caribbean. Of the estimated 280,000 people estimated to be living with HIV and AIDS at the end of 2003, approximately half were women.

Marie-Chantal Georges, HIV-positive and a single mother, describes her daily struggle:

"It’s been more than a month now since the President of Haiti promised to find a solution to the high cost of food. I haven’t seen any changes – on the contrary all the prices are going up. This morning I had to take my medicine without eating, and Lord only knows if I am going to find something later.

"We have a saying here in Haiti: 'Chen grangou pa jwe' - don’t play with a hungry dog. If the state doesn’t take some action soon, we’ll have more riots and more people infected with HIV."

Around 60 percent of women living with HIV, like Marie-Chantal, are single parents. Yet many don’t have the means to provide for themselves or their children. With the rising cost of food, increasing numbers are exchanging sex for small amounts of cash or food, risking a further spread of the virus. And with approximately 80 percent of the population living in abject poverty – the crisis is crippling.

The World Bank's 2008 World Development Report, titled "Development for Agriculture," acknowledged that greater investment in agriculture is needed to bring the millions of rural poor out of poverty.

A press release issued by the World Bank itself stated that, "...the international goal of halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 will not be reached unless neglect and underinvest- ment in the agricultural and rural sectors over the past 20 years is reversed."

Essentially, the World Bank is critiquing its own failed approach. And until this approach is reversed, the crisis will deepen. The time for the G8 to act is now.