The Water Fund of the Spanish Cooperation analyses its approach to working with indigenous peoples and rural schools
The Water and Sanitation Cooperation Fund (FCAS in its Spanish acronym) has carried out a study to analyse in depth two key aspects of its global strategy through the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB): its work in schools and the implementation of the cultural diversity approach to incorporate indigenous peoples in water and sanitation programmes. The need to carry out a systematisation of good practices and to identify challenges and aspects to be improved in these two areas had been identified with the objective to design new projects.
This initiative has been funded by the European Union through LAIF and is part of AECID and the EU Global Gateway efforts to include the most vulnerable populations in their programmes to improve access to drinking water and sanitation.
In the case of indigenous peoples, this concern responds to a clear constraint: there is a great inequality between the coverage of water and sanitation services available to indigenous peoples and those who are not, and Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization establishes the need to carry out free, prior and informed consultations before launching any intervention in the territory.
Workshop on Strengthening Working Approaches for Rural Schools and Indigenous Peoples on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene held in Panajachel, Guatemala, in October 2024.
Specifically, in Latin America, it is estimated that indigenous peoples are between 10 and 25 percent less likely to have access to running water than non-indigenous population, and 26 percent less likely to have access to improved sanitation services, according to World Bank data. At the same time, the lack of access to these services perpetuates chronic poverty by contributing to poor health, infectious diseases and malnutrition. This low level of access to water and sanitation services is due to various issues, which sometimes respond to the difficulties and inaccessibility of the territory itself, but which in other cases are due to economic, cultural and political barriers that must be addressed.
Rural schools
Rural schools, on the other hand, are an essential player in the development of boys and girls, despite 15% of Latin American and Caribbean ones still lacking water services, 25% not having sanitation services or having very limited ones, and almost 40% not providing hygiene services, according to data published in 2021 by the Joint Monitoring Program for the Provision of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (JMP).
One of the activities carried out in schools was the preparation of an “opinion map” to determine the level of satisfaction of students with their sanitary facilities. In the image, students from the Juan Bautista Escalabrini School, in Villahermosa, Cartagena de Indias (Colombia).
For all these reasons, the FCAS has applied since its beginning a Human Rights approach, focused on reducing inequalities and improving access for the most vulnerable people. Through this approach, programs have been promoted in rural schools and indigenous villages. Each intervention has had its own final evaluation, and the objective now is to compile lessons learned to see how to continue deepening these processes and what good practices have been carried out.
To this end a consultancy by the delegation of the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) in Colombia was carried out. This entity has extensive experience and a recognized prestige in the sector as an organization dedicated to water research and governance. The process is in its final phase and has lasted over six months, carrying out an in-depth analysis of FCAS programs – some of which are implemented by IDB – dedicated to one or both of the aforementioned aspects.
The work, carried out between May and August 2024, consisted of the initial identification of programs and specific actions revolving around these two aspects; the bibliographic review of general and specific documentation of the programs; the conduct of online interviews with staff linked to the 8 programs identified to address the approach of indigenous peoples – in Guatemala, Panama, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay and Ecuador -, and the 4 related to work in schools – in Guatemala, Colombia, Chile and Honduras -; and field visits to two countries: Guatemala, where they were able to see first-hand two of the schools in which the programme intervened with the help of Action Against Hunger Guatemala, and Colombia, with the aim of holding face-to-face workshops with the actors involved and visiting first-hand the schools in which the intervention took place, carrying out participatory dynamics with the students and teaching staff.
Once all the information has been collected, systematized and analyzed, various publications will be produced to compile all these experiences and establish lines of action, recommendations and aspects to be taken into account in the next programs of the FCAS and to reinforce the implementation of the Global Gateway strategy of the European Union and thus provide inclusive and sustainable services to local communities.
