Latinosan Panamá 2013 – 3rd Latin American Sanitation Conference, 29-31 May 2013

The Republic of Panama is organizing the Third Latin American Sanitation Conference on 29-31 May 2013. The theme is:  “Universal Sanitation: New Challenges, New Opportunities”.

Latinosan is held every three years.

Latinosan 2013 consists of two events: a technical conference and a meeting of senior officials that will result in the Declaration of Panama.

Main topics:

• the status of sanitation at regional and country levels
• institutions and public policy
• human rights and sustainable development
• post-2015 goals: regional and global

For more information visit the conference website: latinosanpanama2013.com (Spanish only)

Colombia: delegation of project approval to certified water utilities

Vivienda minister Germán Vargas Lleras and Bucaramanga state water utility (AMB) general manager Ludwig Stünkel García at a public event. Photo: Julián Sabogal. MVCT

The Acueducto Metropolitano de Bucaramanga (AMB) is now the 5th certified public utility sanctioned by the Colombian government to approve water and sanitation projects.

In a press release the  housing, cities and land ministry (MVCT) said new legislation approved in 2012 had made this delegation of powers to municipal water utilities. The ministry said this cuts red tape so that projects can be approved faster.

Previous certified public water utilities were Aguas de Cartagena, Empopasto, Aguas de Manizales and Empresas Públicas de Armenia.

Related websites:

• MVCT - Viceministerio de Agua y Saneamiento
• IRC/Triple-S – Water services that last – Colombia overview

Source: MVCT [in Spanish], 06 Dec 2012 ; BNamericas.com / WaterWorld.com, 06 Dec 2012

Water Week Latinoamérica (WWLA), Viña del Mar, Chile, 17-22 March 2013

Organised by: Fundación Chile and Diario Financiero, in collaboration with  AIDIS, DesalData, Global Water Intelligence, and The Nature Conservancy

This first Water Week Latinoamérica (WWLA) provides a platform for sharing water-related experiences and practices among the scientific, business, political, and civil society.

Topics include: 1) Water & Industry, 2) Water & Food Security, 3) Water Supply & Sanitation, 4) Water Governance, 5) New Water Supply, 6) Water & Conservation, 7) Water & Energy & Climate Change, and 8) Transboundary Basins.

Abstract deadline: 09 November 2012

Contact for further information and participation possibilities: hsorasahi@fundacionchile.cl

Website: www.waterweekla.com

Colombia: testing innovative models for rural water and sanitation services

Photo: IRC

NGO “Give to Colombia” will implement several pilot projects that will serve as models for the Rural Water Supply and Wastewater Management Program in Colombia. This large-scale programme is financed with the help of a US$ 60 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

The pilot projects have four components:

• School water, sanitation and hygiene promotion (SWASH), which will implement and evaluate UNICEF’s model for SWASH interventions in at least 25 rural public schools
• Post-construction support and the sustainability of rural water projects with a focus on innovative financial models
• Sustainable models for the financing and provision of household connections
• Sustainable self-supply models for disperse rural communities

The AquaFund and Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction are financing the pilot projects. Contributors to the Aquafund are IDB, the governments of Switzerland and Austria, and the PepsiCo Foundation.

The pilot projects will cost about US$ 2.1 million. The implementing agency Give to Colombia (G2C) receives resources from the Embassy of Japan and the General Electric Foundation. PepsiCo Colombia is supporting the dissemination of the innovative models being developed in the projects.

In 2011, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre and CINARA carried out a study on behalf of IDB, about post-construction support on rural water supply services in Colombia [1]. The study [2] shows that those service providers that receive more structured support perform better.

[1] IADB publishes report on post-construction support on rural water supply services in Colombia, IRC, 21 Aug 2012 ; Webinar – Impacts of post-construction support on the performance of rural water supply in Colombia, IRC,

[2] Smits, S. et al., 2012. Gobernanza y sostenibilidad de los sistemas de agua potable y saneamiento rurales en Colombia. (Monografia; IDB-MG-133). [online] Washington, DC, USA: Inter-American Development Bank. Available at: <http://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=36986189>

Related websites:

• IDB – Rural Water Supply and Wastewater Management Program (CO-L1105)
• IDB – AquaFund
• Give to Colombia (G2C)
• IRC – Triple-S/Water services that last – Colombia

Source: Latin American Herald Tribune, 10 Oct 2012 ; IDB, 02 Oct 2012

Haiti: first ever National Sustainable Sanitation Conference

Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL) and UNICEF are organising Haiti’s first ever National Sustainable Sanitation Conference. It will be held in Port-au-Prince on 12-13 June 2012.

The conference aims to share information about innovative waste treatment technologies such as composting toilets and bio-systems, among NGOs and the Haitian government.

Agenda:

• Overview of National Sanitation Strategy presented by DINEPA’s Sanitation Office (DA)
• Presentations of lessons learned from previous projects and ongoing sustainable sanitation projects in Haiti
• Ateliers focused on different components of sustainable sanitation
• Stakeholder feedback
• Open forum to discuss National Standards for Composting Toilets and Biogas
• Production of a public document summarizing the findings of the conference

SOIL, US-registered non profit, has been promoting ecological sanitation solutions in Haiti since 2006.

For the full announcement and more information go to: www.oursoil.org/national-sustainable-sanitation-conference

Haiti: lack of proper sanitation is real cause of cholera outbreak, Clinton says

Woman at Leogane camp saying the latrines behind her are full and smell foul. Photo credit: Haiti Grassroots Watch

Haiti should focus on stemming the cholera outbreak that has killed more than 7,000 people since 2010, rather than on levying blame against the source of the disease, UN special envoy to Haiti, Bill Clinton, said. While studies have suggested that the cholera came from a Nepalese soldier serving as a peacekeeper, Clinton pointed out that the country’s lack of proper sanitation was the real cause of the outbreak. [1]

In November 2011, the Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) filed a demand for hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation from Haitian cholera victims. [2]

Money to empty refugee camp toilets has run out

Clinton’s own foundation, together with UNICEF and USAID, supplied some 11,000 mobile toilets for the refugee camps that emerged after the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The NGOs that distributed the toilets and paid for them to be emptied are now pulling out one by one, leaving overflowing toilets behind, according to an IPS report. [3]

Donor funds are being used to set up excreta treatment centres, one is now in operation in Morne-à-Cabri while a second centre is planned for Titanye, but these are not servicing the remaining refugee camps, home to nearly half a million people.

Related news:

• Haiti: study suggests UN force source of cholera strain that killed 5,500 people, E-Source, 15 Jul 2011
• Humanitarian crises and sustainable sanitation: lessons from Eastern Chad, Sanitation Updates, 16 Mar 2012

Related web sites:

• Practical Action – Water & Sanitation Resources for Recovery and Reconstruction
• Haiti Reconstruction Fund
• WHO – Cholera

Sources:

• [1] AP, Former President Clinton urges officials to stem Haiti cholera outbreak, Washington Post, 07 Mar 2012
• [2] Haiti: cholera victims demand UN compensation, Sanitation Updates, 09 Nov 2011
• [3] Phares Jerome and Valery Daudier, Money for cleaning toilets in Haiti down the drain? – Part 1, IPS, 07 Mar 2012

Spanish Cooperation Fund for Water and Sanitation launches new web site

The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID, has launched a new website (in Spanish only) for its Cooperation Fund for Water and Sanitation, a financing instrument that supports water and sanitation initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Launched on 7 June 2011, it provides detailed information about the fund and is set to host a list of upcoming tenders carried out by Spain’s partner organisations and countries. The website also contains eligibility criteria and application instructions.

The Cooperation Fund for Water and Sanitation began operating in 2008 with a US$ 1.5 billion budget. The launch of the website is line with the Spanish government’s commitment to make the fund’s operation more transparent, AECID explains in a news release.

Web site: www.fondodelagua.aecid.es

Source: Ivy Mungcal, Devex.com, 08 Jun 2011

Uruguay: legislation approved to make sewerage connections compulsory

All households in Uruguay must now have a  sewerage connection. Uruguay’s House of Representatives passed a bill making sewerage connections compulsory on 5 July 2011.

The new bill includes provisions to provide subsidies and grants to those who cannot afford a connection, as well as fines for those who fail to comply with the new law.

In the capital Montevideo, the local government will administer the new law, while state water utility OSE will be responsible for the rest of the country.

While improved rural sanitation coverage was estimated to be 99% in 2008 (WHO/UNICEF, 2010), some 50,000 households are still not connected to a sewerage network. In some areas only 15% of households have sewerage connections.

Source: La Republica [in Spanish], 05 Jul 2011

Dominican Republic: Tourism sector takes strict measures against cholera, top hotelier says

Hotels and Tourism Association (Asonahores) spokesman Arturo Villanueva said in Santo Domingo last Sunday 29 May that his sector has adopted all the necessary control measures of international standards to prevent cholera in the country’s tourism regions and that they are on high alert.

Villanueva said the tourism sector is calm because it’s a wide ranging and efficient operation, including a prevention program in the handling of foods to newspaper Hoy in an interview.

Haiti: UN panel reports on source of cholera outbreak

The cholera outbreak that has so far killed 4,888 people in Haiti was caused by a strain “very similar but not identical” to current South Asian strains, a U.N. independent panel of experts said. The source of the outbreak was due to contamination of the Meye Tributary of the Artibonite River, used by tens of thousands of people for washing, bathing, and drinking.

Many people in Haiti blamed the epidemic on U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal, who had been accused of poor sanitation at their base near Mirebalais, the town where the epidemic first began. In November 2010, this lead to violent protests against the UN peacekeeping forces. Others believed that the outbreak was linked to voodoo. More than 50 voodoo followers have been killed since the outbreak of cholera following accusations that they spread the disease with occult power. However, U.N. panel declined to point the finger at any single group for the outbreak, saying it was the result of a “confluence of circumstances”.

“The introduction of this cholera strain as a result of environmental contamination with faeces could not have been the source of such an outbreak without simultaneous water and sanitation and health-care system deficiencies,” the report concludes.

The UN panel of experts provides several recommendations to the U.N. and the Haitian government including:

• UN staff and other relief workers travelling from cholera-endemic areas should either receive a prophylactic dose of appropriate antibiotics before departure or be screened for cholera strains
• UN peacekeeping missions operating in areas with cholera outbreaks should ensure that staff be immunized with oral vaccines, receive prophylactic antibiotics, or both,
• the UN should install and supervise their own on-site sanitation systems that inactivate pathogens before disposal
• the Haitian Government and the UN should prioritise investing in piped, treated drinking water supplies and better sanitation throughout the country; and until this can be put in place, they should promote household water treatment, hand washing with soap, and the safe disposal of faecal waste.

Read the full report of the UN Independent Panel of Experts on the Cholera Outbreak in Haiti.

According to estimates from the Health and WASH Clusters, US$ 39.38 million is still neededto respond to essential needs of the cholera response in the areas of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and health. This unfunded requirement is part of the general US$ 175 million cholera appeal which is so far 48 per cent funded, according to the latest UN Humanitarian Bulletin for Haiti.

Source: UN News Centre, 04 May 2011 ; AP / New York Times, 04 May 2011 ; Evelyn Leopold, Huffington Post, 05 May 2011 ;   Reliefweb, 07 May 2011 ; Rory Carroll, Guardian, 18 Nov 2010