The World Bank's board of directors has approved a US$6-million grant to help reduce electricity losses and strengthen the financial and operational performance of Electricité d'Haïti (EDH), the public electricity utility.

This pilot project will lay the foundation for improving electricity services and enhancing revenue collection in urban centres.

"Haitian communities deserve a more reliable electricity supply with better client service," said Caroline Anstey, World Bank country director for the Caribbean. "This pilot project will contribute to improving the commercial system and customer service and increasing revenue collection for EDH."

The pilot Electricity Loss Reduction Project will implement three components over a three-year period:

. Improve the quality and reliability of services and increase revenue collection of EDH;
. Improve EDH management systems and practices towards a more customer-oriented approach; and
. Enhance the participatory approach, project management, monitoring and impact evaluation, with a view to future scaling up.
"Electricity services reach only a small fraction of the Haitian population, and are of poor quality and often unreliable," said Clemencia Torres de Mästle, World Bank senior regulatory economist and task team leader for the project.
"Less than 10 per cent of the Haitian population has access to electricity and those who have access received, on average, 10 hours of electricity a day in the last two years, with very large disparities among the areas covered," said Torres de Mästle.

The Bank's grant financing is an integral part of a multi-donor co-ordinated strategy of support to the energy sector and is aimed at delivering hope to the population and restoring credibility in public institutions by helping the Interim Government provide basic services, create jobs, and launch reforms that promote longer-term economic governance and institutional development.

This project was made possible by an International Development Association (IDA)-funded grant of US$6.0 million and a contribution of Electricité d'Haïti in the amount of US$1.47 million.

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