| This action submitted in Local Actions at 4th World Water Forum (2006). | |
| Date | Mar.2,2007 |
| Region | America |
| Country | Colombia |
| Actor(s) [Nation (Ministry, Agency)/Organization] |
CONSAM LTDA – Consultoría sanitaria y Ambiental |
| Partner(s) | Fondo de las Naciones Unidas para la Infancia (UNICEF) Ministerio de Ambiente, Vivienda y Desarrollo Territorial (MAVDT) y alcaldías municipales |
| Title | Local Development in the Colombian Pacific Coast |
| Objective | Results: That community-based organizations shall be constituted for managing their rural aqueducts in the ten towns. That municipality mayor's offices subscribe and legalize Public service agreements with the community enterprises (ECSP), accepted by the community, where they have clearly established the commitments acquired by the parties as for: investment, subsidies from the State and goals to be achieved in improving the service management indicators, by the enterprises. That future validity terms of the resources for the general participation system are commited to prevent them from being allocated to different programs. Giving labor stability to employees, so that all received training and accumulated experience results in improvements to enterprise management. Spaces that strenghten local democracy were generated, through the participation of the community in concrete aspects. That women get involved in decision making, and that they have representation at the meetings. That women manage technical aspects of aqueducts. Impact in the social aspect: • Sensitization of the community started, supported on the materials produced within the framework of the Water Culture Program of the MAVDT. • The project execution achieved the joint participation of the State, represented by officials and Mayors • It visualized and took advantage of the great leadership of women at these towns. Their involvement was outstanding, so allowing to have a clear distinction between needs, interests and expectations of women and men, and being in charge of specific administrative tasks, • A good women's representation is achieved in the constituted community-based enterprises -36% of the members from the ten meetings are women, so having important positions such as the treasury • The community is receiving water of better quality and a better service. • The community has become the owner of the aqueduct system, and it has taken the lead in its management and operation. • It was agreed with the community to pay a fee for the aqueduct, since they were not paying for the service. • The guarantor given in the plumbing course by the National Learning Service (Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje, SENA), was important in the workers' certification process, which moves ahead in the sector settling of drinking water and sanitation, led by the MAVDT. In the economic aspect: • It was possible to start the self- support perspective for rural aqueducts, but pragmatically, it could be cheaper for the Government to cooperate with subsidies in this kind of communities, which includes conflict factors that may induce the abandonment of areas and the thickening of poverty and misery belts at the cities, with social, political and economic costs implied. In the environmental aspect: • Tools were given to the community, the organizations, women, and to plumber in the water culture area, for environmental protection and the proper use of water. Mayors have compromised resources for financing the work plans and investments, and subsidies, for protecting microbasins, and the optimization of the technical part |
| Contents | The project was carried out in the Colombian Pacific coast, specifically in ten rural towns of three municipalities of el Choco department: (Litoral San Juan, Puerto Pervel and San José del Palmar), a department with great natural richness, with an enormous potential in biodiversity and culture; nonetheless, it is the poorest in our country, with 82.8% of the unsatisfied basic needs (year 1993). Just like many of our departments, it suffers from the phenomenon of violence due to drug trafficking and the presence of armed groups that are beyond the law. The main problems that the community had were: Technical defficiencies y service rendering: low coverage, high technical and commercial losses of water, improper fee systems and inadequate water production for human consumption. Lack of result and impact management indicators: Service rendering does not have quality indicators that facilitate permanent improvement; mayors do not have efficient controls on their management in the water and sanitation area. Incipient participation culture: in general, the community does not know its rights and the citizen participation mechanisms, it does not have the spaces for participating and they insist on the not paying culture. Women do not participate in decision making mainly in the indigenous community. Women do not have proper knowledge or skills to take leading or organization roles, you can see a low self-esteem. Women want to take care of their aqueducts, but they do not know how to do it. Public resources used for private propaganda aims. Involvement of the current municipality managers in decision making; high overturn of technical and managerial staff for covering political fees. Public resources deviated to other sectors: financial resources of the general participation system, transferred to the municipalities, and having a specific destination for water and sanitation are used for functioning expenses, payroll lagging, or they are transferred to cover programs different from water and sanitation. The problems mentioned above lead the community not to have proper water for human consumption, or with proper hygiene and sanitation conditions, so leaving a high risk situation for diseases and low life quality. Actions: The project consisted of constituting ten community-based companies for the management and operations of its rural aqueducts making emphasis on an equitable gender participation, the entreprenurial focus and the sustainable operation and maintenance of systems, including financially, technically, community and environmentally. The process was made around three cross aspects: -Constitution of organizations for management, -Training on plumbing, and -Methodology transfer for applying it in other municipalities from the region, and in three phases: - Phase 1: Baseline setting: they carried out activities regarding the participating diagnostics such as: Meetings with majors and administrative staff from each municipality, acknowledgement of the water supply systems, visit to microbasins, inlets and other components from the aqueduct systems. The participation of women, and boys and girls was more important, always acompanying visitors, since the beginning, and learning the technical part. - Phase 2: Implementation: in implementation, meetings took place with the municipality administrations for agreeing on the commitments with the new community-based enterprises. Several meetings were made with the community to select the people that would be part of the new enterprises and their positions, making emphasis on women's representation, and demonstrating the women's skills for money administration - Phase 3: Process assessment: activities were focused on a participating assessment of the meeting progress, and they would also be supported in different areas and aspects: technical, administrative, financial, operational and accounting. difficulties: for reaching the product: For a widespread participation - Most towns do not have phone communication so making meetings and works coordination difficult. - Men go hunting to the rainforest and it takes between 3 and 8 days, making it difficult to have time for meetings and workshops. For gender balance - With the indigenous community, it was difficult to communicate with women, since they speak very little Spanish and their organizational scheme is characterized by the low participation of women in the social life. For planning with indicators - There is a low school level mainly in women. - Historiy of low payment of services (100% subsidies). - Little applicable legal framework for this kind of towns. - Design and selection of technologies not according to the context: they facilitate wastes, they make operation and maintenance difficult, they increase costs. Difficulties for it to be a sustainable project: - Scarce technical support. - There are no resources for follow-up and assessment. Little has been made wih owned resources. - Lack of continuous transport means for going to the towns |
| Means of Implementation |
StakeHolder; For this particular project, there was nationawide participation through the managing organization of the sector, the MAVDT and the National Development Fund (FONADE), in charge of facilitating the money from an international organization –UNICEF- and of local instances -Mayor's offices, municipality council and community leaders-. Women and our advisory firm participated as a process facilitator. Means; State and international organizations: they participated with the contribution of financial resources and auditing, and with teaching material for educational conferences. Municipality organizations: they supported logistics and participated actively in the process and made commitments. Community leaders: they participated dynamically during the whole process, by choosing the members that would comprise the community-based enterprises and their positions, they defined statutes, fees for paying for the service, they established the goals and action plans at short and mid term, they were in charge of communicating the process and they chose the staff that received support in training in the plumbing works. Women supported widely the call for the workshops and the process multiplication, they were very attentive to the learning, both to the technical part and to the administrative one, and they got the boys and girls involved in the educational, conferences with the teaching material of water culture from the MAVDT. Ideas; We can consider as an innovative action the emphasis on the institutional and the community aspects, beyond what is merely technical. The gender focus that is being introduced in the water and sanitation topic. The acknowledgement of work logic and public administration, mainly in indigenous culture, by integrating them in administration models. Costs; The contract value in the year 2000 accounted for ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN MILLION COLOMBIAN PESOS. Approximately TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS (US 2.500), 250 US per community |
| CSD Decision |
D-a-(i):Prioritizing water in national development plans and facilitating access to water for all; D-b-(i):Building capacities of local communities in operation and maintenance of water systems, and training educators, managers and technicians in different aspects of water management; D-c-(ii):Developing capacities in the area of water desalination, treatment of contaminants, rainwater harvesting and water efficiency through technology transfer and sharing of best practices; D-b-(ii):Tapping local and indigenous knowledge in project development and implementation; |
| Attachment | |
| Situation | Ongoing |
| Target Year | In general, agreements were mae in the framework of participating planning. Communities themselves set their objectives and goals at one year terms. It is worth noticing that one of the most fragile points in the project cycle in Colombia is follow-up and assessment, they are very scarce because the necessary resources are not aimed for that. Projects, very well planned, many times are left just to local dynamics, and as it has been said, it has structural problemas related to political maneuvering, lack of economic resources, a little technical education and a scarce organization and the political culture of communities, the little acknowledgement of the Colombian legal framework for the conditions of small municipalities and rural areas. For this project, state and international organizations did not define a follow-up stage. Advisors got in touch with them for almost two years after finishing the project, supporting them without having any contract in the middle. In short: • Nine Aqueduct Managerial Meetings and a Community Action Meeting were constituted and legalized at several state agencies, with basic training for moving ahead in administrative, technical, financial and commercial functions. As a fundamental contribution for the sustainability of the systems, Management Contracts were signed between the Major's offices and the Meetings. • It is considered necessary to generate educational strategies for allowing to agree with the community the water consumption control mechanisms. Users reject the placing of gauges due to the fear of charging excessively for the service, and in this aspect, Meetings must have external support. • Constituted meetings must have some continous support for the training of their members and of the operational staff in administrative, accounting, sector standards, project management, operation and system maintenance aspects. Resources must be provided to start their functioning. • In all the study towns, it was detected that there were failures in design, construction, operation and system maintenance that make it extremely difficult to do the plumbinb and administration works, including the compliance of the Management Plan goals, or action plans formulated during the project. These failures could be overcome with relatively low investments that would sensitively improve the service to users. • Final meetings between the representatives of the constituted Meetings and the Majors allowed to: ratify the commitments acquired by the parties, leaving them set in the Management Agreements as a fundamental piece to contribute to the system sustainability; generate confidence between involved actors; integrate and create commitments of administrations in the process; cause approaching relationships between the Meeting members of several towns. • In this type of advisory, you must foresee an expost assessment, which whill allow to verify the adjustment of concepts, methodologies and toods given to the Meetings. Additionally, these projects must include resoureces for basic items of stationery, office items and others, for the first year of functioning of the community-based enterprises. • Traditional organizational forms, such as the minga (farm work done in exchange of food) (work days in which families give a whole working day in common purpose areas) at the Litoral San Juan front, they can be options for analyzing from the financial sustainability perspective of systems. |
| Target Area / Place | Region:Americas Scope:District |
| Expected Outcome(S) | These actions are still being carried out in our country in municipalities with less than twenty thousand inhabitants. It is an action that can be replicated in any of our Latinamerican countries, since water and sanitation conditions also have very low indicators and they affect importantly the community health, especially the one of women, boys and girls younger than five years old. Amont the learned leassons, we can mention: From private advice, you can develop participating processes a reasonable costs. You must respect the organizational forms of some cultures, mainly the indigenous one, even when they are not adjusted to the state legal standards. You must ensure, from the beginning of the project, the fundinng for the appropriation of the rural aqueducts for leaving them functioning under optimum conditions and so, companies can ensure a good service. This type of projects must foresee the provisioning of the initial supplies so that the organization starts to operate. |
| Relevance to the Plan of Implementation of WSSD |
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| Progress | |
| Link | |
| Other Information |
Type of Action; Isolated Relevant Agencies; Government,Civil Orientation; Corrective/Preventive Replicability; Yes 4th World Water Forum: Local Actions ID; LA0409 Forum Secretariat Recommendation ; No Kyoto Prize Finalist; No Presented in Sessions; Yes Original Language; Spanish |
| Contact Person | GLORIA AMPARO OCAMPO BARREIRO |
| Position | Soy ingeniera Sanitaria, egresada de la Universidad del Valle, universidad pública que atiende el mayor número de estudiantes en el suroccidente de Colombia. Mi vida profesional se inició con trabajos en la ciudad de Cali, una ciudad de alrededor de dos millones de habitantes, en las áreas de las aguas residuales, el diseño de acueductos, alcantarillados e instalaciones hidraúlicas, como ingeniera empleada de firmas consultoras y luego inicié trabajo de forma independiente. A cinco años de graduada (1989) fundé una empresa de ingeniería con tres socias, que se mantiene actualmente, ampliando el campo de acción hacia el pequeño municipio y las zonas rurales. En los últimos años me he dedicado al trabajo en agua y saneamiento para el pequeño municipio y la zona rural Colombiana con enfasis en desarrollo local, enfoque de género y educación en higiene y saneamiento, trabajando con las comunidades más pobres y azotadas por la violencia, en sitios ambientalmente estrategicos como paramos, selvas y costa pacífica, con comunidades indígenas, afrodescendientes y campesinos. Algo más del 85% de los municipios de Colombia tienen menos de 20.000 habitantes y los indicadores más precarios de agua y saneamiento, especialmente en comunidades afrodescendientes e indígenas. |
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