Haiti’s Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé has underscored the national government’s unwavering commitment to expanding reliable access to clean drinking water for all Haitian citizens during an official working tour of the country’s Grand South region. On Tuesday, April 7, the prime minister conducted an on-site inspection of the ongoing drinking water infrastructure upgrade project in the coastal city of Les Cayes, a stop that coincided with a landmark contract signing for new stormwater management facilities in the area.
The contract signing ceremony marks a critical milestone in Haiti’s efforts to boost urban climate resilience, as the Grand South region has repeatedly faced growing climate-related flood risks in recent years. During his inspection, Fils-Aimé walked through the construction site to review the progress of installation works, holding detailed discussions with engineering and technical teams about the ongoing challenges to delivering sustainable, long-term drinking water access for local communities. Following these conversations, he publicly reaffirmed that the Haitian central government has placed the expansion of basic public services in under-served regional areas at the top of its national development priority list.
The Les Cayes drinking water system upgrade is a core component of the country’s national Water and Sanitation Infrastructure and Development Program, which is being executed by Haiti’s National Directorate of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DINEPA). The initiative receives substantial financial backing from the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), through the agency’s Water and Sanitation Cooperation Fund (FCAS).
With a total program budget exceeding $101 million U.S. dollars, this large-scale development initiative carries a dual mission: to extend coverage of drinking water and sanitation services to unconnected communities across Haiti, and to strengthen the institutional capacity of national agencies working in the water sector. As of the end of December 2025, more than 80 percent of the total program budget has already been committed to ongoing projects across the country, reflecting steady and significant progress in national-scale implementation.
Unlike many infrastructure initiatives that only target major urban centers, this program spreads investment across multiple cities and regions in both urban and rural Haiti. Its overarching goal is to deliver sustained, measurable improvements to quality of life for hundreds of thousands of Haitian residents across the country. Maintaining the program’s forward momentum, a separate assessment delegation led by Charles Jean-Jacques, National Authorizing Officer for European Development Funds (EDF), recently traveled to the city of Jérémie to inspect a nearly completed drinking water supply project. Once finalized, that facility will provide reliable clean water access to more than 40,000 local Jérémie residents, addressing a long-standing public service gap in the area.