International NGOs and Household Water Filtration in Haiti

• In Event: Water and Health in Latin America and the Caribbean

Abstract

This paper examines three international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating water filtration programs in Haiti in the context of post-earthquake reconstruction and the cholera epidemic that rapidly took hold of the country beginning in 2011. Specifically, the three organizations in this paper, located in Port-au-Prince, Leógâne, and the rural Artibonite valley, primarily built and distributed household water filtration systems rather than attempt larger scale community-based water projects. Drawing on field research and interviews conducted with the three organizations, this paper studies how the work of these NGOs fits within the larger context of internationalized aid and development in Haiti, with particular emphasis on the relationships that the organizations envisioned and developed with beneficiary communities, local and national government bodies, and the organizations’ own decision-making and funding structures. As is reflected in the literature, decades of international aid and development funding focused on NGOs and multinational organizations has inhibited the development of sustainable infrastructure capable of meeting basic long-term needs. In this context, this paper argues that household filtration programs and the transnational organizations that operate them commodify access to clean water at the individual user level, and therefore perpetuate a model of development that is unable to address the deep-rooted structural issues of an unreliable and contaminated water supply.

Author

• Kelly Stetter, Graduate Institute Geneva