Poverty & Social Development: A Caribbean Perspective

To many observers, investments in infrastructures can be seen as viable catalysts to reduce disparities and pockets of poverty in some regions.

Of course, it goes without saying that the association between growth and infrastructure development is sine qua non with a country’s specifics, and the appropriate mix of lending and non-lending assistance to remove some constraints and guarantee the delivery and provisions of supporting financing schemes. And when looking into these dimensions it is interesting to weigh in the challenges liaised with water supply and sanitation.

As a matter of fact, addressing the problem of low-access to water supply and sanitation for some countries goes a long way within time-bound objectives and indicators for international development seen in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), where the attainments of such targets imply the expansion of cumulative investments, and the mobilization of international sources to cover those requirements.
And for the viability of collaborative activities, the integration of a harmonized mechanism is a pre-requisite to convey synchronized responses in order to meet these challenges.

In Haiti for example, the disbursement of a US$15 million loan by the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) to tackle water and sanitation programs in rural communities is gearing right into those grounds with an emphasis upon the strengthening of operational and financial capacity through cost-recovery mechanisms.

This could be an interesting framework, where the implementation of such an endeavor will highlight the necessity to streamline a national coordination process, and at the same time provide monitoring and evaluation (M&E) with additional foot-prints to assess the country’s performance in terms of poverty reduction goals and results when gauging its institutional capacity to harness financing, infrastructure development and stakeholders’ involvement.