Bolivia socializes strategy to bring drinking water to rural areas

The Bolivian government held today a workshop on the socialization of a strategy prepared with the support of Spanish cooperation and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to expand the coverage of drinking water and sanitation services in rural areas and small towns.

La Paz, Nov 22 (EFE) .- The Bolivian government held a workshop on the socialization of a strategy prepared with the support of Spanish cooperation and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to expand the coverage of drinking water and sanitation services in rural areas and small towns.

The workshop, held at the headquarters of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AECID) in La Paz, was inaugurated by the ambassador of Spain, Enrique Ojeda; IDB representative, Alejandro Melandri.

The document discussed in the workshop is the "National Strategy for Water and Sanitation for Rural Areas and Small Towns", an instrument that It will guide the country's public policies with a view to consolidating the goal of universal access to basic services by the year 2025, Ortuño said.

He pointed out that Bolivia prides itself of having increased water and sewerage coverage, especially in urban areas, but acknowledged that there are still "significant gaps in certain sectors of our population," Particularly in rural areas.

"A third of the population lives in rural areas and it is precisely in this area that the greatest deficits in access to the service are presented. potable water and basic sanitation. "

The strategy captures the progress made in the sector in the last 20 years and identifies the lessons learned, good practices and areas for improvement of the experience of ten state programs implemented with the support of aid workers such as AECID, IDB and CAF - Development Bank of Latin America, according to a cooperation release Spanish.

The document will give the lines of action to the Government and cooperation agencies for the implementation of drinking water and sanitation programs in rural areas and small towns.

The Spanish ambassador stressed that although the current world has increasingly advanced technologies, "water, just as it did ten, one hundred, one thousand years, 3,000 years ago, it is still the vital source of development. "

Ojeda indicated that in rural areas and small communities" development in the water issue is fundamental ".

" It makes the difference have a small community have access to water, have healthy water. as a whole, "he added.

The Bolivian Government's National Social and Economic Development Plan for the 2016-2020 period aims to achieve 95% access to water services in the area urban and 70% in sanitation.

For the rural area in this same period is intended to achieve coverage of 80% in water and 60% in sanitation, according to information from the Ministry of Environment Environment and Water.