Impact of DINEPA in Haiti - Improved data management

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. The first part of this interview can be found here:

https://www.mwater.co/blog/impact-of-dinepa-in-haiti

The impact of violence in Haiti on their water and sanitation sector

The current crisis with gang violence and defensive vigilante violence has impacted all aspects of Haitian life, including work in the water and sanitation sector. I asked Carly for his insight into the situation.

Let me give you a typical scenario. Usually we have TEPAC who go to the field and collect data…because of the increase in violence in the country they can’t go to the field to get that data. It’s one of the biggest challenges. The thing is too, because of the violence a lot of professional DINEPA people have left the country and we don’t have resources, they can’t hire new resources to get the job done. It’s a big challenge for us now for running SIEPA. One department had 5 people and now 4 have left the country, leaving 1 person to work by themselves

The loss of people and access to frontline data is presenting significant challenges for DINEPA.

There’s a difference in value between simple data collection, and having systems in place that allow that data to be analyzed and used to create needed improvements in the field. Carly shared his feelings on the importance of DINEPA, as a government department, having a growing capacity for data analytics.

Without data systems and analytics capacity you cannot make decisions. You could have bad data, and you can’t make any decisions, you don’t have reports. Definitely you have to collect the data but what are you going to do with it? That’s the question. What are the results we can have with the data collected? With flexible, adaptable tools where data is well collected, you can have better decisions, you can have great reports and dashboards where government can make plans for the future. It’s one of the reasons I say we need to promote the idea to put more money in the sector for the government to have the data system and analytics. You can scale your network, you can make decisions.

I asked Carly if there was anything else he wanted to share about the work that mWater has been doing in Haiti. His response addresses not only the value of the SIEPA system for the government, but also how SIEPA has helped communication and data sharing between Haiti’s government and international partners.

I think mWater give DINEPA a better life because with that data system and with added capacity the government can make better decisions. Also the (aid) agencies when they come into Haiti can have better interfaces. With the mWater system we have all the data and the agency can use the platform to say ‘at Jacmel (a city in the Sud-East region) we don’t have a well network of water, let’s put some money there, let’s improve that and give more people access to the water services’. The challenge is big in Haiti where we don’t have great Governance or great leadership. We don’t have the right person who can make great decisions. It’s for that reason that I think mWater is very important now and for the future, for DINEPA to make good decisions and to improve the water services in Haiti