The Rural and Small Towns Water and Sanitation Project (EPARD) project funded the construction of a gravity-fed water system in Roche-à-Bateau, whose infrastructure includes a source capture system, a collecting pool, a sedimentation pool, five fountain terminals, nearly 600 residential branches, and a dozen kiosks where people to fill up containers with water to take home.

Overall, the EPARD project allowed Haitian authorities to increase access to drinking water for more than 560,000 people in rural areas and small towns through the construction of new supply systems, as well as the rehabilitation and extension of existing ones. It also provided access to improved sanitation facilities for more than 31,000 people.

Despite success of the EPARD project, hhttps://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-33560-icihaiti-maissade-follow-up-of-the-rehabilitation-and-extension-works-of-the-nan-salpetre-saep.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34059-haiti-news-zapping.html , Haiti has had mixed progress in improving its access to and the quality of its basic services for its 11.6 million people, resulting in limited progress in improving health outcomes. Access to drinking water supplies and sanitation services in rural areas is not only low but decreasing.

In 2020, only 43% of Haiti’s rural population had access to basic drinking water supplies, down from 48% in 2015 and 50% in 1990. This is far less than the 90% average in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2022...

Another challenge for Haiti’s rural communities is the upkeep of water supply systems. Of the 13,626 improved water sources facilities recorded in 2022 in the database of the Integrated Drinking Water and Sanitation Information System, only 51% were working.

Out of the 1,041 piped water supply systems serving dense rural areas and small towns, only 41% were functional in 2022.

This is the result of years of underfinancing of the sector and low community ownership, as well as a collapse of the infrastructure from poor operation and maintenance, deficient post-construction support, and a lack of resilience of the infrastructure to natural hazards and the effects of climate change.

There are also sanitation problems in rural Haiti. In 2020, 31% of the rural population still practiced open defecation. Public toilet facilities and water points tend not to be accessible to people with disabilities either. This deficit stems from both demand- and supply-side constraints, and it puts the population, in particular children, at the risk of diseases and malnutrition.

The World Bank plans to help change this, an effort that will be in line with its commitment to improve the water and sanitation sector, including by shoring up its infrastructure against climatic events and other hazards.

A new water and sanitation project for $80 million is soon to be launched in Haiti. The project will seek to support the key policy and institutional reforms spelled out in a 2009 reform of the sector that have yet to be put into practice.

Read also about the EPARD project :

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-33560-icihaiti-maissade-follow-up-of-the-rehabilitation-and-extension-works-of-the-nan-salpetre-saep.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34059-haiti-news-zapping.html

HL/ HaitiLibre