The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors granted Haiti’s Decentralized Sustainable and Resilient Rural Water and Sanitation Project US$80 million.
This financing will give 250,000 people inclusive, resilient, and sustainable potable water and 125,000 people basic sanitation, including 50% of women from small towns and rural communities, according to the Washington-based financial institution.
Clean water and sanitation are vital to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) because they boost economic growth, promote healthy communities, and sustain life. “In Haiti, recent improvements in access to quality water and sanitation have stalled and, in some areas, deteriorated due to prolonged instability, increasing violence, and insufficient sector investment,” said Laurent Msellati, World Bank Country Manager for Haiti.
“This funding supports Haiti in achieving universal and equitable access to safe drinking water and adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene, particularly in poor and remote areas.”
Haitian rural and small town access to basic drinking water is low and deteriorating, according to the World Bank. The World Bank reported that only 43% of Haiti’s rural population has access to basic drinking water in 2020, down from 48% in 2015 and 50% in 1990.
“Lack of infrastructure investment and maintenance causes this situation,” it stated.
The bank reported that just 51% of 13,626 enhanced water source facilities and 41% of 1,041 piped water supply systems servicing dense rural regions and small towns were operational in 2022.
In 2020, the World Bank reported that 31% of Haiti’s rural population used open defecation, which could damage water quality.
The bank said the Decentralized Sustainable and Resilient Rural Water and Sanitation Project in Haiti aims to provide immediate cholera response measures, strengthen sanitation and hygiene in cholera-affected communes, and empower local authorities and communities to plan and execute water and sanitation projects.
The project will fund the construction, rehabilitation, and expansion of drinking water and sanitation systems in targeted areas and institutional strengthening, including the consolidation of the programmatic sector-wide results-based approach to improve sector planning, budgeting, reporting, and accountability.
The initiative will improve rural and small town residents’ access to drinking water and sanitation, according to the World Bank.
“Focusing on the interrelationships of poverty, inequality and environmental externalities,” the World Bank’s Green, Resilient, and Inclusive Development (GRID) approach underpins the project.