Above: Guyana

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Guyana will be receiving just under $32 million in loans to strengthen and improve access to drinking water and sanitation services.

The funding will come from a pair of sources; it includes $16.8 million from the Inter-American Development Bank along with support from the Caribbean Investment Fund of the European Union totaling $14.8 million.

The initiative, dubbed the “Programme to Improve Water and Sanitation Infrastructure and Supply,” calls for “infrastructure projects to build, upgrade and expand water treatment plants and enhance access to adequate sanitation through measures to strengthen the supplier Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI), the design and implementation of a program to monitor non-registered water and a public awareness campaign on the use of water and proper hygiene practices,” the IDB said in a statement.

The bank said that water and sewage services in Guyana’s capital, Georgetown, and other coastal areas face “constant institutional, financial and operational challenges.”

That includes a deterioration in water distribution networks, with between 50 and 70 percent of water used going unaccounted for at the national level.

The bank said Guyana’s sewage system covered just 48,000 people living in Georgetown — or about 6.5 percent of the country’s population.

The IDB loan, which comes from Ordinary Capital and the Fund for Special Operations, is for a period of 30 years.

It has a grace period of five years, with a fixed interest rate.