LocationsFirst came water. Then, electricity. And with them, new reasons to stay.
“Now nobody wants to leave."
September 29, 2026
When accessing water and electricity is no longer a daily struggle, new possibilities emerge.
Photo: UNDP Dominican Republic/Julia Ramírez
Nazarena Rodríguez recalls the day she turned on a faucet and saw water coming out.
“I was so happy. I didn’t even know what to do—I was overjoyed,” she recalls.
For many years, the nearest source of water was over two kilometres away from her home. Nazarena had to walk to the river to get enough water to cook, clean, and take care of her family. Often, a donkey would help her carry it back.
“Finally, the donkeys can rest,” she says with a grin.
Her story is replicated in various remote corners of the Dominican Republic. But when access to water and electricity is no longer a daily struggle, new possibilities emerge. To take care of a family. To farm. To study. To start a business. And also, to imagine a future without having to leave.
The water that brought back time
In the municipalities of Las Tunas and Las Dos Bocas, in the province of El Seibo, residents lived for many years without running water or electricity.
Families relied on the Anamá and Soco rivers, or on people who could deliver water to their homes. Rosy Leonardo paid as much as 500 Dominican pesos a week for water deliveries — nearly the equivalent of a day’s wages for an agricultural worker.
Changing that situation required more than just laying pipes. The community itself had to pave the way. Men and women dug trenches to build a network that now stretches over 15 kilometres.
“To bury the pipes, we dug trenches using oxen and our hands,” recalls Junior de la Cruz.
Today, the system, which combines solar-powered water pumping and water purification, supplies 93 households and is being expanded to reach another 110.
To make this possible, UNDP, in the framework of the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme (GEF SGP), works alongside Dominican government institutions through the Empresa de Generación Hidroeléctrica Dominicana, El Seibo Municipality, local organizations, the Guakía Ambiente association and Banco BHD. Together we help communities secure the necessary resources, set up the facilities, and take over their management.
Rosy Leonardo
Photo: UNDP Dominican Republic/Julia Ramírez
Junior de la Cruz (right)
Photo: UNDP Dominican Republic/Julia Ramírez
The process also drove community organization and led to the creation of the Anamá Community Development Association, which today operates water initiatives and ensures their sustainability. The project entailed the improvement of 75 dwellings, making them more resistant to tropical storms, and solar photovoltaic systems were installed in another 65 households, which now have electricity, lighting, and communication services.
Santa Mercedes, known as “Doña Pura,” now 82, after a lifetime spent in houses made of wood and yagua—built with the fibrous weave of royal palm leaves—dealing with leaks and difficulties to get water, now lives in a sturdy house and can turn on a faucet whenever she needs water. She says she feels good and even allows herself to imagine that she’ll live to be a 100.
In the northeastern part of the country, in the community of Las Tres Cruces, province of Hermanas Mirabal, Ana Digna de la Cruz Jiménez used to spend almost the entire day carrying water.
In this case, the community also took the initiative. Using picks and shovels, it built a system that carries water from a spring to reservoirs 250 metres above sea level and more than 4 kilometres away. A solar plant powers the pumps, and a 12-kilometre network distributes the water.
The SGP provided technical support and a solar power plant was installed. Together with the Guakía Ambiente association and the Government of Japan, the resources were mobilized to complete the project.
Today, over 90 households have access to water, as well as local businesses and the community church.
For Ana Digna, water not only reached her home, but also gave her time for her family and for herself.
Ana Digna de la Cruz Jiménez
Photo: UNDP Dominican Republic
Nazarena Rodríguez
Photo: UNDP Dominican Republic
Water to farm, and also to return home
In the municipality of El Memiso, in the province of Azua, agriculture had always depended on a variable that no one could control: rainfall. When it didn’t come, neither did the harvest.
“We planted, but the crops were lost due to lack of water,” recalls farmer Ángel Danilo Mordan.
The community decided not to wait for rain, contributing more than 4,900 workdays to clear nearly 20 kilometres of land and build an irrigation system. Today, the reservoir can store up to 9.5 million litres and supply water to about 650 hectares of land, where Guinean plantains, other plantains, cassava, avocados and vegetables now grow. The water is pumped using 418 solar panels, reducing more than 250 metric tons of CO₂ emissions per year.
At the same time, through the SGP and under the leadership of the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources, UNDP worked with the Association for the Development of San José de Ocoa (ADESJO) and Hope International to provide the community with financial support and install a pumping system that ensures access to water, helps farmers adapt to climate change and improves livelihoods. UNDP also helped families who previously had no land gain access to it and supported the community in organizing itself to ensure the initiative can be sustained over time.
These changes made it possible for José Mordan to return to his roots.
At 18, he had left El Memiso to seek opportunities outside rural areas. He lived and worked in the city and obtained a bachelor’s degree in marketing. Some years later, he came back with his wife and two children.
“After the community received this assistance, I decided to return to the countryside with my family,” he says.
Katerin Custodio, president of the Memiso Women’s Association, sums it up: “This project ensures that we won’t have to migrate elsewhere. We have the stability required to stay in our community and attract other people.”
And that possibility is also empowering women: nine women landowners granted part of their land to six other women so they could farm it.
Water, which once determined the limits of what could be planted, is thus beginning to change who can produce as well. And who can return and grow roots.
Katerin Custodio
Photo: UNDP Dominican Republic/Julia Ramírez
José Mordan
Photo: UNDP Dominican Republic/Julia Ramírez
After darkness
For nearly 20 years, the residents of the community of Los Limoncitos, in the province of La Vega, waited for something that, for many people, happens with the flick of a switch: that night no longer meant darkness.
The answer lay in the stream that runs alongside the community.
Today, a micro-hydroelectric plant harnesses the river’s flow to generate electricity for some 420 people. To make this possible, UNDP, with our partners, provided technical and financial support for the purchase and installation of the equipment and helped strengthen community structures so that the residents themselves could manage it.
The Dominican Ministries of Energy and Mines and of the Environment and Natural Resources, Guakía Ambiente, Fundación Popular and Fondo Marena joined the initiative, making it possible to build the water intake structure, the transmission pipeline and the electricity grids.
“The first time we had electricity, we were exultant—there was light everywhere,” recalls Clemencia Suero de la Cruz.
Electricity brought along things that had been out of reach for many years. Joely de los Santos Victoriano can use her washing machine and find out what’s happening beyond the mountains on TV. Santos Rosado can store products and sell cold drinks at his grocery store.
At school, the change was even more evident.
There were tablets, computers, a television set and a water fountain, but without electricity, a large part of that equipment couldn’t be used. “Everything was dark,” recalls teacher Santos Ramírez. “Everything changed thanks to the project. The children are happy using their tablets.”
Before, Ramírez explains, a lot of people were thinking of moving to the city. After the arrival of electricity, they began to improve their homes, buy appliances and make plans to stay.
“Now nobody wants to leave,” he says with a smile.
The power to build together
When people participate, provide their labour, and manage their own solutions, changes are more likely to last.
This is the approach we have been promoting for over 30 years at the UNDP office in the Dominican Republic, through the GEF SGP, under the leadership of the government and jointly with over 200 partners: act where challenges are greatest and support communities so that they devise solutions that meet their needs, strengthen their livelihoods, and, at the same time, protect the natural resources on which they depend.
This effort has helped ensure that more than 100 rural communities now have water and electricity, more than 8,000 hectares of forest have been safeguarded. It has contributed to the preservation of over 20 protected areas and reduced CO₂ emissions.
Over these three decades, it has also made possible the construction of more than 50 micro-hydroelectric plants that provide renewable electricity to more than 25,000 people, solar-powered aqueducts that supply more than 1,500 households, and climate-resilient agricultural systems that have benefited more than 300 farmers.
Every figure involves people like Nazarena, Junior, Ana Digna and Clemencia. And every solution engages communities that have found the tools to transform their territory and build a future in which staying is also an option.
