ROUNDTABLES

COMMUNITY WATER MANAGEMENT

To begin this roundtable, a sustainable development agenda was presented by an entity that operates in 20 countries in Latin America and some countries in Africa through exchange, whose job is to identify partners in countries and communities for project design.

It was explained at the beginning of the dialogue that in Latin America there are 34 million people without access to water and 106 million without sanitation, but in this territory there are approximately 30% of renewable water resources in the world, so this is not a problem of quantity, but of effective and good management of these resources.

It was highlighted that there are 145,000,000 community water and sanitation organizations (OCSAS), and many rural people have access to water only through the work of these communities.

From the panelists’ exposition, Chile’s experience is the model to be followed by other countries, not because the country has no problems, but because of the progress made so far in this area, since Chile has organized itself into its three types of organizations, all associative, so that a law was created in the country with social participation.

It also discussed the example of Africa that has a long way to go, given the country’s difficulties: nomadic culture, non-functioning water points, non-institutionalization of water committees and corruption. The exchange of experiences in this panel was a great incentive to advance the implementation of OCSAS in that continent.

There was also a presentation of the Mexican experience of how to do effective work where 24 million people depend on community management of water and sanitation services. A country where the resource is abundant and people have a distinct relationship with water, treating it not as a commodity but as a vital element, not accepting and thinking that it is not fair to pay for production costs.

Concluding this roundtable, it was pointed out that OCSAS in the global sense have several challenges to face: legalizing the service, including and accepting women’s active participation, supporting political fundraising initiatives, among others.