On Monday 20 September, the Chamber of Commerce Lima (CCL) held a forum entitled "Access to safe water and sanitation, the sustainability of its operations: The role of local government", which brought together specialists from various fields to discuss current and future management water in Lima. Furthermore, six of nine candidates submitted their proposals to address the management issues and coverage of potable water.
CCL's president, Carlos Chahud, opened the session by describing the current state of access to drinking water in Lima, said that an estimated 250 thousand people have no recourse in the capital and that this related to unfulfilled goals in the reversal of social inequalities as additional data, said the index of inequality in the country shows that social distances neighboring countries like Bolivia and Ecuador are getting shorter.
On this view, Víctor López Orihuela, Vice Chairman of Sedapal, presented interesting data on the status of water and sanitation services provided by Sedapal.
| Background, current status and projections for 2014 water service (Sedapal) |
|
| July 2006 | August 2010 | 2014 Plan |
| Coverage | 90.1% | 92.7% | 100% |
| Water unbilled | 38.2% | 37.7% | 30% |
| Micrometering | 71% | 70% | 100% |
| Continuity of service | 20.7 h / d | 21.7 h / d | 23 h / d |
The figures show slight gains in coverage, reduction of unbilled water and continuity of service is concerned, and a decrease in the area of \u200b\u200bmetering (installation of household meters) between July 2006 and August this year, ie, the current government and its flagship Water for All (PAPT) have not achieved the expected goals and have even lost step in extending the service despite having almost doubled the budget of S /. 1 099 700 000 (during the government of Alejandro Toledo) to S /. 1 999 million (over what government will García).
A positive aspect of the investment made during this administration has been the creation of mega-projects that will support the sustainability of water services to Lima in the future: Huascacocha, Huachipa and North Branch, Taboada, La Chira , among others.
However investment in infrastructure, the government has shown little concern for institutional restructuring and capacity building techniques in accordance with the present problems of water resource management. From this point of view, international cooperation is an exceptional source of support to overcome the toughest obstacles in expanding coverage of potable water and sanitation, therefore, the chairman of the FTC highlighted the work of the German technical and financial cooperation through agencies such as GTZ and KfW.
fact, one of the most important programs developed by the GTZ and KfW is the Water Supply and Sewerage (PROAGUA) established in 1996, whose main objective is "to contribute to improving the capacities of sectoral actors to manage sanitation services in a sustainable manner. " Michael Rosenauer, and PROAGUA GTZ representative, was responsible for presenting the experiences in program development and the problems he sees as fundamental to the management of drinking water.
According to Rosenauer, there are three main problems in building a sustainable service system for Metropolitan Lima:
- The inconsistency in the legal framework is the main obstacle to establishing clear roles and responsibilities different social actors linked to the water getión, not only on service access, including in relation to urban development, territorial and environmental.
- Inability to build and strengthen institutional capacities and job skills that would achieve efficiency and efficiency in public administration.
- There is a gap between public investment and the upward curve of the needs of the population. There is a historical gap not yet traced between the resources invested by the state and the growing public demand for basic sanitation.
Taking as a starting point this analysis suggests that a group of solutions to these problems would be to establish mechanisms linking of shared responsibilities in corporate governance and planning are concerned.
A grades speaking, governance problems could be solved by making exploitation contracts where clearly define the responsibilities of each actor involved, establishing a system of accountability, a code of good governance and multi directory in EPS's.
Regarding the planifiación, it is necessary that the EPS's develop Master Plans Optimized, that regional and local governments have management plans related to general public policies, and budgets are technically sustainable and consistent with the proposed plans .
Referring to the topics addressed above, José Salazar, chairman of the board of SUNASS, said the main challenges face the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima are nine:
- Define land based on the watershed. Coordinate
- municipal works with local operators.
- increase water supplies to 30 years for ordering the expansion of Lima. Reduce
- ecological disaster risk by mine tailings.
- Investing in water mills along the basin. Capitalizing
- mayor's political leadership to create a culture of water.
- Reduce pollution by garbage, sewage in water bodies.
- promote wastewater reuse ecobusiness .. Promote new
- investments in generation and maintenance of water bodies.
According to Salazar, the SUNASS intends to collaborate with local governments becoming a stable partner local authorities to achieve universal service, sustainability of the SPE's and democratic governance. To achieve this raises a number of measures among which the creation of a coordinating committee of mayors to the river Rimac-Lurin-Chillon, creating a Aquafondo for investment in projects and a partnership with the FTC and local governments to promote good governance.
comments about the forum
Attend such meetings is always interesting, even if the organization was initiated by an institution such as the FTC would not apparently greater role in water management in Lima, but it reveals the concern of an industry that can contribute much to the subject. However, as often happens in such events, the presentations are short and relatively superficial analysis. For example, none of the speakers touched on the subject of the tariff structure and the need to reform to achieve greater equity between service users. Neither played in depth the issue of territorial reorganization, or what will happen to the service tanker trucks that supply water to the outlying towns of the city.
Despite missing issues, the forum made interesting ideas to solve specific problems. Two key concepts were about the exhibition: integrated watershed management and the institutional stakeholders.
All speakers came more or less the same conclusion: it is impossible to think of water management in Lima if not intended to articulate interests, needs and resources of actors and territories of the three watersheds that feed the capital, namely the river Rimac, Lurin and Chillon.
Also agreed that water management in Lima not only borne by the government, there are a huge number of stakeholders with needs, interests, goals and agendas of their own, with which it is necessary to conclude. The biggest obstacle in this regard, as noted by Rosenauer, is unclear regulations we have and the limited institutional capacity of government agencies to implement it consistently. These problems result in a confusing institutional environment for social and private sectors end up spending over rules that ignore or face bureaucratic hurdles. What is worrying about this aspect is that the government does not make the reforms of the case, since the new law water resources is not very clear in establishing certain responsibilities (eg, conflict resolution mechanisms) and on the other hand, maintains a rural bias that previous laws also incorporated.
To conclude you can make two final comments. First, the unreliability of the figures presented by Sedapal is disturbing. First, because the averages conceal persistent problems presented have been unsuccessful, but intend to make up to justify a program has very low water for all. It is true that progress has been made, but the reality is that there are many areas in Lima that have no connection to the public Sedapal and worse, water quality and the service is of poor quality. It is totally inaccurate to say that the continuity of the service spends 21 hours / day, as in several districts of the capital, the service is less than 8 hours / day. This apparent paradox is explained when it is averaged with areas where continuity is 24 hours, therefore, the results do not reflect reality.
This leads us to raise another issue, that of the unreliability of the figures of Sedapal, INEI and other state agencies even contradict each other. With such disparate data is veery hard to measure the progress of outreach programs and improving the quality of water service. As
second and last comment is to mention the candidates proposals made at the meeting. Unless the candidates plans and Social Force A-PPC, the other candidates raised these limited proposals, poor and very little ambitious for a mega-city like Lima.
