Colombia : IWRM Assessment and prospects
Updated : 20/12/2015
IOWater, with the support of the Adour-Garonne Water Agency, assisted the Colombian Government during the 2013-2015 period in 3 large lines of work:
- Support to the implementation of the National Policy on Integrated Water Resources Management (NPIWRM) and to the establishment of the first Strategic Plan for the Magdalena River Basin, the largest river basin of the country. It also contributed to the organization of a "Regional Environmental Council" in the macro-basin. Financial tools were also dealt with to facilitate the operational implementation of the NPIWRM.
- Consolidation of the National Water Information System, of which the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies of Colombia (IDEAM) is a leading technical member. The assistance given by IOWater highlighted the importance of the interoperability of databases and of the development of a language common to all data producers.
- Pollution control, and more particularly the consolidation of the decrees on taxes for water use and sanitation and the organization of industrial pollution control, topics that are respectively developed with the Ministry of the Environment and the Regional Environmental Authority, the CAR of Cundinamarca.
Many working sessions led to technical presentations on IWRM tools in line with the Colombian context, to training courses, to the production of reference documents supporting the proposed guidelines. These sessions involved nearly 140 officials coming from 17 Colombian organizations.
During the assessment made in March 2015, the Vice-Minister of the Environment expressed his interest in continuing this cooperation project, in the very particular context of a possible Colombia’s integration into OECD.