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Operations
A severe earthquake hit Haiti in
2010, killing more than 200,000 and
leaving 1 million survivors homeless. In
helping with the recovery of Haiti, the
Taiwanese government proposed the
Haiti Earthquake Calamity Recovery
Assistance Project, which included the
construction of New Hope Village.
In 2012, the TaiwanICDF began to
promote Phase II of its Haiti New Hope
Village Residents Resettlement Project in
cooperation with the Red Cross Society
of the Republic of China (Taiwan),
looking to support the long-term
livelihoods of the 1,500 residents living
among the village’s 215 households. The
TaiwanICDF helped residents overcome
their difficulties by improving agricultural
production and vegetable extension
operations, by providing bamboo
handicraft training and instruction to
farmers’ organizations, and by restoring
the water supply system at the site.
Certain features of the project were
implemented by Haitian counterparts,
with assistance from the TaiwanICDF,
so as to support the goal of sustainable
development. The New Hope Village
Water Supply System Project, a sub-
project of the resettlement project,
is one such example, having initially
been designed and planned by
the TaiwanICDF in cooperation with
Haiti’s Ministry of Agriculture and the
National Directorate for Water Supply
and Sanitation at Haiti’s Ministry of
Public Works, Transportation and
Communications. The TaiwanICDF
dispatched a project manager to
assist with the implementation of the
project.
Establishing Organizations and
Effectively Managing Water
Resources through Education
And Training
Ju Jia-jeng, the TaiwanICDF project
manager responsible for the water
supply project, explains that the project’s
hardware construction can be divided
into three parts. The first part involved
accessing and distributing water; and
the second and third parts involved
setting up water storage and supply
systems. Personnel therefore selected
rivers whose water met health standards,
and initially went about constructing
weirs. Having created enough water
storage, they built filter chambers and
water conveyance canals and pipelines
that would deliver the water to New
Hope Village.
In order to ensure project ownership,
the residents of New Hope Village
took over the management of the
project after it was completed. In
addition to hardware construction,
residents were taught how to repair
the water supply facilities, establish
management committees, plan the
system’s operational management and
maintenance mechanisms, and manage
water sources more effectively through
the strength of organizations, promoting
sustainable development in the hope of
successfully phasing over the project in
the future.
The water supply system was
completed in April 2014, proving for
the TaiwanICDF that implementing the
principles of ownership, alignment,
mutual accountability and managing
for results espoused by the Paris
Declaration on Aid Effectiveness really
can improve aid effectiveness. The
project directly benefitted local residents
with a stable, clean water supply and
improved livelihoods, with the system
capable of supplying water to a school
and health center in the village, as
well as irrigating about 50 hectares of
neighboring farmland, safeguarding
residents’ health and agricultural
livelihoods. Children who would
previously spend 4-5 hours carrying
water from the river can now save time
and resume their studies.
“If you asked what was the greatest
reward of implementing this project,” Jia-
jeng concludes, “I’d say spending seven
years abroad with the TaiwanICDF, I was
originally a technician within a mission
and focusing on my own profession.
But after I took on this project, working
more independently on cer tain
project processes, my perspective on
project management, my capacity for
communication and negotiation, and
even my way of thinking about aid as a
profession, all became more rigorous
and well-rounded. But most of all, seeing
the gratitude of the Haitian government
and the smiles on residents’ faces, that
was my greatest accomplishment!”
Ju Jia-jeng, TaiwanICDF Project Manager in Haiti
Haiti’s Recovery from Earthquake
Yielding Sustainable Development
Through Ownership
Interview
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