The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) are highly vulnerable to a range of natural hazards, includ-ing droughts, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, landslides, and volcanic eruptions. At times, El Niño meteorological events and poor land use management exacerbate the effects of potential hazards. Several countries in the re-gion also remain vulnerable to civil unrest and associated humanitarian impacts. Between Fiscal Year (FY) 2002 and FY 2011, USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster As-sistance (USAID/OFDA) and USAID’s Office of Food for Peace (USAID/FFP) provided humanitarian assistance in response to a range of natural hazards, including earth-quakes in Haiti and Chile and tropical storms and hurri-canes throughout the region.
Between FY 2002 and FY 2011, USAID provided more than $950 million in humanitarian assistance in LAC coun-tries. Of the total, USAID/OFDA provided more than $517 million for disaster response and mitigation programs in the region, including more than $406 million provided in response to the January 2010 Haiti earthquake and more than $40 million in response to the October 2010 cholera outbreak in Haiti. USAID/FFP assistance included approximately $433 million in emergency food aid.