Impact of DINEPA in Haiti - Carly Baja

By Amanda Gibbins

Carly Baja is the training director for mWater in Haiti. mWater has aided the Haitian water monitoring sector to transform from primarily NGO efforts to government-led activity to finally utility level management.

This interview with Carly seeks to give some insight into the challenges being faced in Haiti, and the ways in which mWater’s work has supported improvements in data collection and analytics.

Over to Carly:

I’ve been working with mWater for 3 years. When I started I was the trainer director for mWater for 2 years. The first part of my job was to train people on the mWater portal and SIEPA system. Now I’m working as the data manager and point of contact between mWater and strategy people in DINEPA. I support teams with platform issues and I’ve created training tools and videos for the mWater portal and SIEPA system in French.

DINEPA is Haiti’s government water and sanitation agency, set up in 2009.

SIEPA is the Haiti specific WASH database developed by mWater. It’s now used by DINEPA and all of the regional service providers to collect and analyseanalyze water and sanitation data. The SIEPA system was designed to enable DINEPA to combine all its previous internal systems and data into this one database.

Data gathering improvements created by using SIEPA

Carly mentions TEPAC workers, these are the water and sanitation frontline workers. TEPAC is the French acronym for Techniciens en Eau Potable et en Assainissement pour les Communes).

Before using mWater DINEPA had gaps in collecting data and reporting data. They collected data in the field, then validated it back in the office and used Excel to generate reports.

With mWater it’s much easier, more consistent, more efficient. Now the TEPACs can go to the field after querying SIEPA. They can collect the data without any internet and when they get internet they can synchronize the data from their device to the server. Reports then automatically appear on the dashboard, such as graphs and pie charts. It’s easier and more efficient.

The SIEPA portal interfaces with other systems, for example the billing system for the water, so they can see in real time how many people have paid.

Carly then went on to talk about the value both front line and central government workers find in the SIEPA portal and database.

90% of the government employees are now using SIEPA. If the server’s down or they can’t access, they keep calling, they say “hey Carly, we need access to the portal” because they are attached to the portal. Without the portal they can’t make any decisions about the work they are doing on a daily basis, it’s important for them to use the portal, they can’t do their work without it

Service improvements created by using SIEPA

I remember when we…integrated the old asset management system into mWater. When we went to Mirebalais for instance the asset management tool helped DINEPA know exactly how many assets they have in their network. If one of these assets is broke the TEPAC have to report that. From that when they have this report, this issue to fix, they have to send people to the field to fix it. Without the report they can’t do that.

With services, they had another system that helped DINEPA collect data, money and fees for the services. With SIEPA they have interfaces with both systems where the data is generated and from that DINEPA can generate invoices and call people about the delayed payment.

When we have new work in the system, in Mirebalais (a city in the Centre region) for instance, or Cap-Haïtien (a city in the Nord region), they have all the information in one place. They have information about the project, the cost, and now we’re working on a new planning tool integrated into SIEPA where they can manage incoming projects. Without mWater I don’t think they can do that