Wòch nan Soley: The Denial of the Right to Water in Haiti

The report argues that widespread lack of access to clean water is among Haiti's most significant obstacles to meeting basic human rights standards. It states that close to 70 percent of the population lacks direct access to potable water at all times, that the share without safe drinking water rose by at least seven percent from 1990 to 2005, and that Haiti ranked 146th of 177 countries in the 2007 Human Development Index.

Chapter II reconstructs how, in its account, loans approved by the Inter-American Development Bank in 1998 for water and sanitation, including a USD 54 million loan, had still not led to projects in Port-de-Paix in 2008. The authors attribute the delay to efforts by US personnel to hold up disbursement as a means of pressing for political change. Chapter IV presents a 2007 community study in Port-de-Paix with a household survey, focus groups, medical history interviews and water quality analyses; the effective household sample was 45. The report also reviews the legal basis for the right to water under international law and recommends that the Haitian government and all actors in the water sector adopt a rights-based approach.