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The initiative combines the efforts of a private consortium, a grassroots movement
and the municipal water company working together to provide access to low-cost
potable water and sanitation in poor suburban areas.
In suburban areas around Cochabamba, the municipal
water company does not have the investment
capacity needed to build secondary water distribution
networks and household connections in the
near future. The local community has organized itself
into water committees and are building their own
water systems in an uncoordinated, inefficient way. A
private water consortium created by a plastic pipe
factory, an engineering company and a micro credit
NGO is working with the water committees but up
until now has not coordinated its work with the municipal
supplier.
This initiative aims to combine existing efforts and
capacities for a long-term solution.
The consortium will build water distribution systems
for the water committees in the suburban areas and
train each water committee in water system management.
Each system will connect between 100 and 500
households. The users themselves will pay the total
cost of the construction thanks to a micro credit
scheme provided by the NGO.
The water committees will be responsible for their
own water systems and will create, with support from
the consortium, small enterprises for managing and
maintaining their systems.
The construction of these systems will be coordinated
with the municipal supplier so that it can plan
where to direct its main water pipelines and optimize
its investments. The municipal water company will
extend a main water line to each water committee
and sell water to committees at one entry point.
Since the municipal supplier will not need to invest in
building secondary distribution systems, and has one
contract with each committee instead of one contract
with each user, the result will be a radical reduction
in the cost of water to the final user.
Currently there are five pilot systems working within
this initiative and two hundred further interested
water committees. The partnership model has tremendous
potential for replication in many parts of
the world facing similar difficulties.
Press coverage
Project to provide water to 120 families inaugurated in the Barrios Unidos zone
Los Tiempos, 20th December 2004
