The Diplomat
The director of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), Antón Leis, and the director of the Cooperation Fund for Water and Sanitation (FCAS), Carmen Jover, will participate this week in the Latin American Sanitation Conference (LATINOSAN 2022), which is held every three years and will be held between October 12 and 13 in the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia.
The Latin American Sanitation Conference has been held every three years since 2007. The sixth Conference has been organized by the Plurinational State of Bolivia through the Ministry of Environment and Water and in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. With the slogan Saneamiento, un llamado a la Acción (Sanitation, a Call to Action), this year’s meeting aims to “guarantee access to quality and sustainable sanitation services in urban, peri-urban and rural areas of Latin American and Caribbean countries, ensuring their prioritization in the countries’ public policies”, in order to make effective the human rights to drinking water and sanitation, in the scenario of climate change and the direct relationship with health.
To this end, the event will address some of the strategic lines on which it will be necessary to work, such as investments, governance, management and innovation and Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM), as well as the cross-cutting areas that must permeate all actions: recognition of the human rights to water and sanitation, resilience and adaptation to climate change, capacity building and education, information and transparency, and cooperation, coordination and research for action.
As in previous editions, Spanish Cooperation will be present on this occasion through the directors of AECID and FCAS, Antón Leis and Carmen Jover, who will participate in different sessions in which they will address issues related to governance, human rights, innovation, gender and integrated management of water resources.
On Wednesday, the Water Fund will present the tool for the incorporation of Human Rights to Water and Sanitation in Municipal Management, and will participate in two other presentations on sectoral sanitation plans and sectoral regulations to ensure protection and enhance development. On the last day, Thursday, October 13, Carmen Jover will give a lecture on the Role of cooperation in management and innovation for the fulfillment of the human right to water, and will participate in the presentation of the Latin American Water and Sanitation Observatory (OLAS), carried out by the Inter-American Development Bank.
Finally, Antón Leis will be in charge of closing the keynote speech with which the Congress will end, with the participation of Pedro Arrojo, United Nations Rapporteur for Water and Sanitation; Fiona Gore, author of the Regional Report on the Analysis and Assessment of Water Supply and Sanitation 2021-2022 in Latin America (GLASS); and Catarina de Alburquerque, President of Sanitation for All.
