Dominican Republic

Saint-Domingue, l'action de l'AFD en République dominicaine — © Ricardo Mueses/AFD

In order to meet AFD’s mandate to support green, inclusive growth in Latin America and the Caribbean, AFD concentrates on four primary objectives in the Dominican Republic: developing sustainable and inclusive cities, sustainably managing natural resources, strengthening human capital, and adapting to climate change.

Context

The Dominican Republic is located in the Caribbean Sea and occupies almost two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola, which it shares with Haiti. With over 10 million inhabitants, it is the second most populous country in the Caribbean.

It is the leading tourism destination in the region and has an annual growth rate of 5%, i.e. one of the best performances in Latin America. This growth rewards an economic strategy focused on tourism, the pillar of the national economy, agricultural production (sugar, coffee, tobacco and cocoa) and mining exports. The island also benefits from remittances from its diaspora, which account for some 7% of GDP.

However, the foundations remain fragile: the Dominican Republic is still highly dependent on the international economic environment, mainly in the USA, infrastructure is insufficient and there are persistent inequalities, with 41% of the population living below the poverty line.

In addition, the country’s biodiversity is threatened by the excessive exploitation of natural resources.

AFD has been a partner of the country since 1997 for programs with strong social and environmental impacts and extensive sustainable infrastructure projects. It operates via long-term loans to the Dominican State, grants, technical assistance missions, financing for the private sector and bank guarantees (ARIZ) to facilitate access to credit for SMEs.

AFD's Dominican Republic office is directly attached to the Atlantic Ocean regional office in Fort-de-France.

Our approach

"AFD and the Dominican Republic: promoting an environmentally friendly social economy"

AFD has been active in the urban mobility and transportation sectors in the Dominican Republic since 2011. Over the years, AFD has positioned itself with the Dominican government as a strategic partner and major funder for urban transportation through a series of actions:

modernizing urban transportation: we funded the Santo Domingo metro (construction and then extension of line 2) and the first urban cable car in the Caribbean
strengthening public policy on urban mobility and transportation: by the mobilization of a European Union grant, AFD provided technical support for developing the Santo Domingo urban mobility plan as part of the Mobilise Your City initiative
improving housing conditions for vulnerable populations through the program to rehouse residents of the poor neighborhood of La Barquita. The project provided decent subsidized housing to people living in a neighborhood that was threatened by regular flooding.

Since the start of its activities in the Dominican Republic, AFD has been supporting projects that help promote sustainable management of natural resources, particularly water, in this especially vulnerable island country:

Reforestation and integrated management of water resources: since 2000, AFD has been working with the Plan Sierra non-profit group and with the Ministries for Agriculture and the Environment on a project for reforestation, sustainable agriculture, and integrated management of water resources in the mountainous area in the north of the country.
Improving the quality of water and sanitation services: through a program supporting water and sanitation infrastructures and capacity building, AFD supports INAPA (Instituto Nacional de Aguas Potables y Alcantarillados) and CORASAAN (the Santiago water and sanitation corporation). Technical support is funded through a European Union grant.
Protecting ecosystems and biodiversity: via the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), AFD supports initiatives by local NGOs aiming to preserve biodiversity. Some 50 projects have been funded on the island of Hispaniola since 2009.

Since 2010, AFD has developed a particularly varied portfolio of actions to support the development of a high-quality offering of services—in health, higher education, and technical sectors—that is widely accessible (programs for social inclusion and facilitated financial access to these services):

Supporting the development of a range of high-quality social services: we have funded multiple foundations and private non-profit entities with the aim of supporting the development of an offering of high-quality health and education services, specifically emphasizing inclusion programs for particularly vulnerable populations.
Facilitating access to employment: we financed the construction of a vocational training center for the hotel and culinary industry for Infotep (public entity in charge of vocational training) in order to improve the fit between the technical training available and the job market in the tourism sector.

The violent hurricanes that struck the Caribbean in 2017 (Irma and then Maria) led AFD to implement a facility Adapt’Action to support countries in this vulnerable region along development trajectories that are resilient to climate change:

We support the national strategy for adaptation to climate change. Through technical assistance and capacity building, Adapt’Action aims to accelerate investments that offer co-benefits in terms of adaptation to climate change. By signing an MOU on October 16, 2017, the Dominican Republic became the first country to benefit from this facility. There is a special emphasis on adapting agricultural practices and on the vulnerability of coastal ecosystems to climate change.
We support climate change-related transitions. AFD systematically orients its funding programs to support to support climate change-related transitions, for example in the transportation sector and the energy transition, with programs promoting the development of renewable energy and investments in energy efficiency (such as the SUNREF line of credit).