Honduras to host regional forum on access to water and sanitation in Latin America.
Delegations from ten Latin American and Caribbean countries will meet on Wednesday in Honduras to launch a regional offensive against the lack of drinking water, a problem that affects millions of people and has a direct impact on child malnutrition, organisers said on Tuesday.
The meeting, called the Regional Forum on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), seeks to promote ‘plans to provide clean water and basic sanitation to the most vulnerable communities,’ Jorge Galeano, director of the NGO World Vision for El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, told EFE.
‘We seek to design a joint working model that allows us to join forces and mobilise funding and technical support to solve the water problem,’ he emphasised.
According to the organisers, delegations from Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and the United States will participate in the meeting, as well as representatives from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP), among others.
During the meeting, the “Agua Nexus” initiative will be presented, conceived as an innovation laboratory to mobilise funding and technical solutions adapted to difficult geographical contexts, from arid areas to the highlands, Galeano explained.
He warned that, despite the progress made in the region, a significant proportion of the population still ‘lacks drinking water and sanitation systems,’ especially in rural and highly vulnerable areas.
In the Central American dry corridor, he said, nearly 20 million people live, many of whom face persistent problems accessing water.
The executive highlighted the direct link between the lack of clean water and child malnutrition, gastrointestinal diseases and difficulties in accessing education, given that in many communities water collection falls to women and children, who must travel long distances.
Galeano stressed that access to safe water is linked to several Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda and highlighted the central role of states.
‘The government is the guarantor of rights in each country; it plays a transcendental and fundamental role,’ emphasised the World Vision executive, pointing out that NGOs do not seek to replace the authorities, but rather to support them for the benefit of those who ‘suffer most’ from the shortage.
