PIWAREC Haiti Research

The coastal plain of Leogane has historically being a key producer of sugarcane which dominates the local agro business to this day. It is the commercial and political center of the district with the same name and has about 70,000 inhabitants (the number varies depending who counted). The town lies about 30km west of the capitol Port-au-Prince in the Department Quest along Route Nat'l 2, the main thoroughfare and connection to the southern and western parts of the country. The district is subdivided into 13 Sections of which the first three form the coastal plain while the other 10 are spread out over the surrounding mountains. 

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The January 2010 earthquake wreaked havoc on the town with some estimated 30,000 people dead or displaced and countless structures being rendered uninhabitable or being destroyed entirely. The already weak infrastructure took a severe hit with roads and bridges being impacted in addition to the already weak pre-earthquake small water distribution system being rendered largely dysfunctional. Yet, since then quite a bit of effort has been expended to fix or rebuild which has let to a small electricity and water distribution grid, however only for the central parts of the city of Leogane. Much of the infrastructure is under constant threat to collapse as maintenance is poor due to lack of regular and steady revenue generation that could maintain the infrastructure systems. 

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The city also suffers from frequent flooding events because the conveyance system of the local stream, Rouyonne River, is clogged due to the sediments washed down from the mountains. Also, the shallow underlying water table is prone to being cross contaminated due to the many pit latrines in the city that are often not sealed and leak into the GW layer thus causing spread of bacteriological agents such as E. Coli.

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