In November 2020, Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) organized the Finance Ministers Meeting (FMM) for Latin American Countries. The meeting brought together ministers of finance, alongside their water, sanitation and hygiene counterparts, to discuss financing for the sector. The meetings highlighted financing and investment strategies, and approaches to integrate water, sanitation and hygiene into economic and social programmes.
Haiti’s National Directorate of Potable Water and Sanitation (DINEPA) is an autonomous state agency under the supervision of the Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Communication. DINEPA was present at the meeting, and met with the Minister of Finance and his cabinet for the first time, making the case for an increased budget for WASH financing and delivering SWA’s Finance Ministers Handbook to the Minister of Economy and Finance, H.E. Michel Patrick Boisvert.
We need help in Haiti to increase interest from the government in general, and from the ministers because everyone is interested in the water resource but we don't have the help we need from the inside.
Haiti has the lowest rates of access to improved water and sanitation infrastructure in the Americas. The 2010 earthquake further damaged the already crumbling infrastructure. Between 1990 and 2015, the share of the population with access to potable water decreased from 62% to 52%. Today, more than half of the country’s rural population still lacks access to drinkable water, while only about one-third of Haitians have access to basic sanitation. The COVID-19 pandemic has left much of the population vulnerable to infection, as handwashing with soap is the first line of defense against the novel coronavirus.
DINEPA has tried to communicate the urgent need for WASH funding for a long time, including the need for maintenance and capacity-building to strengthen WASH systems in a sustainable way. But there has been a lack of government mobilization and financing, leaving the Haiti WASH sector at the whim of resource availability from donors. This has generated several other problems, including low-quality WASH services in both rural and urban settings. Service providers are not financially sustainable, as they barely generate enough revenue to cover their operating costs, let alone maintenance. And the richest people have been prioritized, leaving the poorest behind.
The budgetary process in Haiti has historically been quite inefficient. DINEPA has traditionally communicated its budget needs within the Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Communication, which then coordinates with the Ministry of Planning and External Cooperation. From there, the ask reaches the Ministry of Finance. Plus, WASH is not the Ministry of Public Works’ focus, so even though DINEPA highlighted the real demand to create an enabling environment to improve WASH systems as a whole, rather than a one-time investment, they haven’t had much traction.
The meeting at the Finance Ministers Meeting brought DINEPA closer to the Minister of Finance and his colleagues and was a breakthrough in direct communication between the two sides. H.E. Michel Patrick Boisvert, Minister of Finance, Haiti took note of the need for further financing of the WASH sector, saying:
Haiti is reforming the sector, putting together a strategy for sanitation, the decentralization of services, the financial autonomy of service providers, better budget planning, intersectoral mechanisms of cooperation between three ministries, and a commitment by each municipality to become open defecation free.
Now that DINEPA has communicated with the Ministry of Finance, they expect that the Ministry will recognize the urgent need for increased WASH funding, as well as future transparent discussions with the Ministries of Planning and Finance to make concrete plans. DINEPA hopes that the current budget for WASH can be increased with the help not only from international donors, but also from its own government, through effective dialogue with the Ministry of Finance.
I'm grateful to SWA. For us, it is a great victory that the Ministry of Finance has had an opportunity to increase his awareness and interest in the water and sanitation sector,