- Access to water and sanitation is also access to opportunity: it improves health, reduces the burden of unpaid care, and gives families a better chance to build a more secure future.
- Communities are already developing solutions: Women like María and Mercedes demonstrate how community leadership can turn urgent needs into opportunities for change.
- Resilience requires investment in infrastructure and strong public systems that can scale up community-based solutions, strengthen management and environmental sustainability, and improve responses to extreme weather events.
“Eating is important, of course, but water… oh, there’s nothing like water!”, says Mercedes Torres, a community leader in Villa Esperanza, Higüey, Dominican Republic.
When heavy rain comes, Mercedes keeps a close eye on the Duey River. “When it rains, I get worried. I go out to keep watch,” she says. For years, she has also worked to bring improvements to her community, where gaps in sanitation services and the risk of flooding are a part of everyday life.
Her story is one of those featured in Mujeres Aguas Arriba, a series of stories by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), supported by AquaFund. The series puts women at the center of the story, showing through their own voices how gaps in water and sanitation services affect their lives and how they are helping advance solutions in their communities.
Across the region, 84 million women and girls lack access to safely managed water, while 15 million do not have adequate conditions to manage their menstrual hygiene. These gaps can deepen existing inequalities and limit opportunities, particularly in settings where women bear a greater share of the day-to-day responsibility of managing water.
AquaFund, the IDB’s multi-donor fund for water and sanitation, promotes greater participation and leadership by women in the sector, recognizing their critical role in developing solutions that respond to the needs of their communities. The stories of Mercedes and Ysabel Leonardo Mota, known as María Villa Playwood, show how this leadership translates into concrete action while also illustrating why investments in water and sanitation are essential to transforming communities.
The experiences of Mercedes and María unfold in communities where the Dominican Republic’s government is transforming water and sanitation services.
The National Institute of Potable Water and Sewerage (INAPA), with support from the IDB and development partners, is implementing a coastal sanitation strategy that includes interventions in Boca Chica, San Pedro de Macorís, La Romana, Higüey, and Punta Cana-Bávaro.
While operations in Boca Chica, San Pedro de Macorís, La Romana, and Higüey aim to increase national urban sanitation coverage from 24% to 33%, in Higüey, where Mercedes lives, the intervention is expected to reach approximately 66,000 households.
In Punta Cana-Bávaro, where María performs her community work, the challenge is also significant. In areas such as Verón and Friusa, more than 138,000 people lack access to safely managed water and sanitation services. Many families rely on water trucks and shallow wells. Meanwhile, overexploitation and contamination of the aquifer threaten a critical water source for local communities and one of the country’s main tourism hubs.
To address these challenges, the Comprehensive Program for Clean Water, Universal Sanitation, and Re-use in the Punta Cana-Bávaro Zone includes new water supply sources, sewerage networks for both formal and informal areas, wastewater treatment and reuse, as well as measures to monitor and protect the aquifer.
The program is expected to provide 124,200 people with safely managed water and sanitation services, with a target of 90% connectivity. It will also support the reuse of treated water for irrigation, reducing pressure on water sources and helping to protect the coastal aquifer.
Building sewerage networks, treatment plants, and water supply systems is essential. But infrastructure alone does not guarantee that families will be able to connect to services or use them effectively.
That is why the approach supported by the IDB combines infrastructure with innovation, institutional strengthening, and community engagement.
SaniHUB is one of the tools being incorporated as an open-source digital platform that supports the design and sizing of sewerage networks and other components of sanitation systems. This is complemented by a social and behavioral approach aimed at understanding the barriers people face when connecting to services and encouraging their participation throughout project implementation.
In Punta Cana-Bávaro, for example, this work includes interviews with households in Verón and Friusa to better understand their needs, motivations, and barriers. The goal is to ensure that infrastructure solutions reflect the realities of local communities and help turn investments into services that people use and can be sustained over time.
This is precisely where the stories featured in Mujeres Aguas Arriba become particularly relevant. Their experiences provide valuable insight into the real needs and challenges communities face.
Mercedes remembers a time when some families in Villa Esperanza did not even have a bathroom.
“Can you imagine living in a house where you have to get up and go into the woods to relieve yourself?” she asks.
Rather than accept this reality, she became involved in the neighborhood association and began working with local authorities to find solutions. Her efforts helped secure 40 bathrooms for families in the community.
Her leadership is also closely connected to the Duey River. When heavy rain arrives, Mercedes and other residents monitor the rising water levels and the risk of flooding.
Her experience highlights the knowledge communities have built around their own challenges—and why their participation can help ensure that water, sanitation, and resilience solutions are better aligned with local realities.
Mercedes Torres
Villa Esperanza, Higüey
Community leader. Through her neighborhood association, she has championed sanitation solutions for her community and plays an active role in protecting the Duey River.
“Saving the river means protecting life.”
In 2008, María noticed that many children in her community were not attending school regularly and she decided to take action. “That’s how the little school got started,” she recalls.
She opened her school with 10 children. At the same time, she returned to her own education by completing high school, training as a teacher, and earning a law degree at age 58. Today, she draws on that experience to encourage other young women in her community to continue their education.
Her leadership is also closely tied to access to water. María says she shares water from her well with neighbors who need it and her family purchases bottled water for drinking and cooking. Her experience shows how gaps in basic services can affect families’ time, resources, and opportunities.
Ysabel Leonardo Mota “María Villa Playwood”
Villa Esperanza (Villa Playwood), Bávaro
Community leader and educator. She founded a small school for children in her community and returned to her own studies, eventually earning a law degree at the age of 58.
“I’m not going to stop. I’m going to keep fighting.”
Mercedes and María have spent decades working to find solutions within their communities. Their stories are different, but they share an important lesson: expanding access to water and sanitation requires infrastructure, but it also requires understanding local realities, listening to communities, and involving them in shaping solutions.
That approach is at the heart of the coastal sanitation strategy the Dominican Republic is advancing with support from the IDB and its partners. This effort is helping to expand service coverage, improve quality, protect water resources and ensure lasting results.
Mujeres Aguas Arriba offers another perspective on this transformation. Women are not simply beneficiaries of improved services. Stories like those of Mercedes and María highlight their role as leaders, community advocates, and agents of change.
Click on the link below to read more stories from Mujeres Aguas Arriba and learn how women across Latin America and the Caribbean are helping transform the way their communities relate to water and sanitation.