Panama: Strengthening equity in access to safe drinking water and sanitation by empowering citizens and excluded indigenous groups in rural areas
JOINT PROGRAMME QUICK FACTS
Total Budget $4,500,000
Delivery Rate
Main Achievements
- Water Quality Monitoring Program involving a commitment from aqueduct users and requiring them to make payments on a regular basis.
- Water and sanitation infrastructure: works in three communities have advanced by 100%, and works in three others have advanced by 60%.
- Disease reduction: doctors consulted during the midterm evaluation reported a noticeable reduction in disease where water systems have been installed.
Ninety-one per cent of the indigenous population of the Ngöbe-Buglé Region suffers from extreme poverty. Their dispersion, mobility and location in remote and inaccessible areas raise the cost of traditional sanitation solutions, making investment and private participation difficult to justify on economic grounds.
The joint programme draws on an effective intercultural and gender-based approach to promote equity by developing water resource management capacities and extending development opportunities in health and education for the populations and their community organisations in the four districts of the Ngöbe-Buglé Region. In addition national counterpart organisations will enhance both their central and local institutional capacities to provide efficient basic services to communities suffering from extreme poverty. The result will reduce the human development gap by translating the empowerment of the population into an improvement in the quality of and access to public water and sanitation services.