Institutional Support for Integrated Water Resources Management in Ecuador - Phase 2
This institutional cooperation project between the IOWater and the Ecuadorian National Water Secretariat (SENAGUA) is founded by the Adour-Garonne Water Agency. Phase two of the institutional support project aims at assisting SENAGUA in the implementation of tools and mechanisms for integrated water resource management in Ecuador (IWRM), at the level of the UPHL MA02 pilot basin of the Rio Portoviejo, with strengthening at the level of the Manabí Hydrographic Demarcation. IOWater is involved in this project as Technical Assistant to SENAGUA, whose support missions are divided into four main components:
1 - Participation: implementation and running basin committees to ensure participatory and sustainable management of water resources.
2 - Planning: Drawing up a plan for the protection, conservation and recovery of the environment in general and water resources
3- Financing: Developing adapted planning tools and corresponding financial mechanisms for sustainable water resources management at the level of river basins.
4- Information Systems: Create and implement information a system (IS) applied to basin management: establish the diagnosis, determine priority measures, ensure the follow-up and evaluation of the programme
Participatory Governance Component: IOWater intervened to support the implementation of two main types of activities: support to the Culture and Participation Directorate at the national level for the reformulation and validation of methodological tools for basin councils; capacity building of the Manabí Hydrographic Demarcation teams
Planning component: The participatory diagnosis process carried out by the members of the Rio Portoviejo Basin Council (UPHL MA02) allowed defining the main lines of the first IWRM Action Plan for the basin. The updating of the methodological approach for participatory planning and the progress made in the participatory diagnosis allowed strengthening the strategy for convening elected politicians.
Water Information Systems Component: IOWater focused its support on the implementation of two main types of activities: on the national scale, the proposal of a diagnosis of the databases of the Public Water Register, the Water Information System administered by SENAGUA, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the integration of a "social module". On the other hand, the capitalisation of useful information to make it mobilisable in the planning dynamics. The product of this support is the elaboration of the characterization of the Portoviejo Rio basin, first part of the document of the Action Plan for IWRM in the pilot basin.
Financing component: IOWater is supporting the work of economic analysis and identification of sustainable financial mechanisms for planning at the national level, with the members of the SENAGUA Commission in charge of preparing the proposal for a National Water Fund, IOWater also intervened to support the coordination of the National Water Fund. On a pilot scale, the institutional support focused on supporting the socialization of the Portoviejo Water Fund initiative to the new elected politicians of the Province, a driving initiative to finance the orientations developed in the IWRM Action Plan.