James CADET, the Minister of the Environment (MDE) chaired two working sessions last week around a new strategy that can help better address the problem of insalubrity through the major cities of Haiti.

These two days of work brought together, among others, Ms. Sandy FIGARO, Director of Cabinet of the Minister of the Environment, Paulémon GERMAIN Director General of the National Solid Waste Management Service (SNGRS), Kenton LOUIS, Director General of the National Equipment Center (CNE ), representatives of the Ministry of Public Works, the Ministry of the Interior, the Town Halls of Pétion-Ville and Port-au-Prince and Technical Directors of the Ministry of the Environment.

The discussions focused on solutions to bring in the short, medium and long term to the problem of insalubrity in Haiti, particularly in the metropolitan area.

Following the country-lock movement, the level of insalubrity has increased exponentially, said Minister CADET "To meet these challenges, the Government intends, through the MDE-SNGRS, to step up actions aimed at cleaning up the country and establish good waste management practices in Haiti."

In order to sustain the results of this program, the Minister advocates a participatory approach, involving all State institutions (SNGRS, CNE-MTPTC, MICT-Town Halls) and private sector actors concerned by the problem. Moreover, he would like the principle of institutional responsibility to be the pivot of this project in order to lead to concerted and effective actions for the success of this program which aims to contribute to the acceleration of the cleaning of large cities and the opening up roads and facilitating accessibility to the major arteries of the metropolitan area. Among other things, he will have to restore sanitation for the benefit of residents ; prevent waste from strewing the main arteries ; eliminate storage points ; advocate for behavior change through sensitization and strengthen the institutional capacity of the SNGRS.

The results of these two days of work around the program to fight against the insalubrity of the cities of the country, will be presented shortly to Prime Minister HENRY for his final approval.

HL/ HaitiLibre