Restructuring the water service in the slum areas of Port-au-Prince

Context and stakes

Port-au-Prince is a city of 2 million inhabitants which has experienced very rapid growth over the last thirty years. The water resource used to supply it is fairly high (110,000 m3 per day). Despite this significant availability of water (50 to 60 litres per day per inhabitant), the public service is very poor:

— many neighbourhoods (containing half the inhabitants) have no service at all and only 10 to 12% of families have a piped connection to their home; other neighbourhoods receive a poor service (a few hours a week), resulting in major wastage and bad water quality;

— not a single standpost was still in regular service in the city in 1994;

— the public company (Camep) has a major financial deficit; it charges for its services without metering water and its debt recovery rate remains low.

With the low credibility it enjoys, this public service mirrors the State of Haiti itself, after 40 years of state appropriation under the Duvalier governments and the years of political instability which followed. Since the return to democracy in 1994, there have been attempts to upgrade this public service, with difficulties again mirroring those of the State, still trying to find its feet; (at the time of writing, Haiti has had no government for over 6 months, as a result of the failure of the members of parliament of the various parties to reach agreement).

Given the difficulties the State has to guarantee public service, there has been an intense increase in private water distribution in Port-au-Prince.

Some half-dozen private boreholes supply water (using hundreds of lorries) to the city's thousands of private cisterns, a large proportion of which are used to sell the water on to the end-users. These have therefore replaced the standposts abandoned by the public company. A very large number of individuals also sell water on their doorsteps and there are a great many pirate connections.

The total length of these alternative distribution networks has been estimated at 600 km, i.e. three times the length of the public network.

These private operators meet the demand for water from the underprivileged sections of the population fairly well, but at a high cost: 15 to 25 FF/ m3, compared with 3 FF for the public network.

Objectives of the action

Against this difficult background, the programme steered by the Group for Research and Technological Exchanges (Gret) (with technical assistance from Hydro Conseil) focuses precisely on supplying water to the slum areas, i.e. areas which still have no public services. The objective is to introduce a distribution system using paid standposts, managed by neighbourhood associations.

Description of the action

The action summarised here consists of three successive, integrated programmes, funded by the European Union (Echo, DG8) and the Caisse française de développement (CFD). These three programmes all had the vital and unfailing support of Camep, thus demonstrating its capacity for change and its determination to meet the needs of the poorest end-users. 14 neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince, with a total population of 200,000, have been reached by these programmes, which took place as follows, with amendments and improvements gradually being incorporated since 1994:

u analysis of demand from the neighbourhoods with Camep, of its technical feasibility (the discharge rate and pressure available in the network) and of its social feasibility (consensus with the neighbourhood);

u mobilisation of all the community based organisations of the neighbourhood, to prioritise needs, identify sites for standposts and a reservoir, and introduce a management system;

u installation of a distribution network within the neighbourhoods, according to the following principles:

— the neighbourhood networks are fed from Camep's main network, using a direct connection fitted with a meter;

— a volume of water corresponding to at least 24 and preferably 48 hours is stocked in the neighbourhood, to overcome the daily pressure cuts;

— responsibility for monitoring and maintaining the secondary distribution networks handed to the neighbourhood committee;

— public standposts, water supplied to cisterns and sold on to the public, and soon, home connections (paid for by the end-users);

u these networks are managed by the neighbourhood using the following principles:

— the entire network within the neighbourhoods (1.5 km on average) is the responsibility of the water committee, representing all the neighbourhood's community organisations;

— Camep's responsibility ends at the general meter installed at the entry of the neighbourhood; the water is charged at a "wholesale" rate: 2 FF per m³;

— a water seller, selected by the neighbourhood, distributes the water to each standpost, at a cost of 5 FF per m³; he is paid or remunerated according to the volume sold;

— the committee collects the money taken in, settles Camep's bills, pays the water sellers' wages, as well as for repairs, bleach for chlorination; the margin achieved (15 to 20%) is invested in small local sanitation works (ditches, gullies, etc.)

Results

Approximately twenty kilometres of network have been built, supplying some sixty standposts. The additional connection of 50 cisterns and 500 homes is planned for early 1998. 1,000 m3 of reservoirs have been built in the neighbourhoods, allowing 2 days' supply of water to be stocked and thus to overcome daily pressure cuts.

These 14 networks can distribute 500m3 per day and thus form the main source of supply for 50,000 people (at 8 litres per day per inhabitant) and an occasional supply for 150,000 other inhabitants. In addition, these standposts have a regulatory effect on the cost of water in these neighbourhoods, by providing the service at 5 FF/m3, compared to 15 to 25 FF/m3 beforehand. 14 neighbourhood committees manage the water service, some of them have been doing so for over two years. They include leaders from all the community based organisations (political parties, churches, youth associations, women's groups, major figures in the community, etc.). These committees have demonstrated great maturity and the rate of payment of Camep's bills is 100%.

Strong points of the experience:

The programme has had the unfailing support of Camep (and in particular of its general management), although on the face of it, it was not part of the strategy which had been presented to funders and to the Ministry responsible. The consensus commitment of all the community based organisations is also noteworthy, particularly as they are well-known in Haiti for the very fierce and bitter competition between them. Water distribution is a sufficiently important and concrete issue for these organisations to set aside their differences in order to achieve a tangible result.

It was possible to hand responsibility for the study, and for the construction and monitoring of all the building works to Port-au-Prince consultancy offices and companies, and their skills came to the fore in the very particular conditions prevailing in the slum areas, despite their lack of experience in this relatively new field.

Competition from the new standposts was accepted by the owners of cisterns, and there have been no reported cases of sabotage. This has been possible thanks to the strong mobilisation of the community-based organisations "protecting" the networks.

Problems / lessons learned:

Pressure in Camep's network is low, irregular and unpredictable, and this is the main stumbling block to increasing the quantities distributed in the neighbourhoods. The legal status of these areas is very confused (there are no cadastral plans) which means prolonged discussions and difficult negotiations when choosing each site. Camep staff are poorly trained in managing clients, meters, invoices, etc. and it is therefore difficult to apply this public service approach (which seeks to match demand closely) to Camep's field agents, who are used to exchanging money for giving adequate pressure to neighbourhoods or even for pirate connections.

The explosive political and social context makes it very difficult to run operations in Port-au-Prince's underprivileged areas. In 1994, few local NGOs had the required skills and experience, and Gret therefore had to promote a local structure which is little by little specialising in the field of social engineering in the slum areas.

Perspectives and impacts

We estimate that Port-au-Prince needs between 500 and 1,000 standposts; there is therefore still much to do. Fortunately, many funders have expressed their interest in the programme, as it is one of the rare examples of the genuine upgrading of a public service, since the return to democracy in 1994. Thus, Caisse française de développement (CFD) gave an extra 6 millions FF to Camep in December 1997.

Developing the system will, however, require a more determined strategy on the part of Camep, which has certainly included this form of distribution into its global strategy. It will also depend on the dynamism and performances of the Haitian operator(s) prepared to be committed over time to the demanding field of social engineering.

Contacts Bernard Collignon, Director, Hydro Conseil, 53 rue du Moulin des Prés, 75013 Paris (Fran-ce). Tel./fax: (33) 1 45 65 11 16. E-mail: H20conseil@aol.comAlain Pamphile, Director, Société d’ingénierie civile et d’architecture, former Secretary General of Camep. Tel.: (509) 23 83 01/45 53 17. E-Mail: plhaiti@aol.com

Possible courses of action 6, 7, 8 and 14

Localisation: 14 underprivileged neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince
Domain of intervention: drinking water distribution
Area of intervention: underprivileged urban areas
Contracting authority: Camep
Implementing agency: Gret
Donors: European Union (Echo and DG8) and CFD
Total Budget: 17,000,000 FF