From now on, Andean communities can rely on a dependable drinking water supply infrastructure

The days of drilling a well and then leaving are long gone. In rural communities across the Mayo-Chinchipe River Basin, Join For Water takes a holistic approach to ensuring sustainable access to water. Involving women and local authorities, nature conservation and more productive agriculture, establishing a binational water education programme etcetera, all these are pieces of the puzzle.

Water management in the Mayo-Chinchipe River Basin, a river flowing from Ecuador to Peru, works very differently from the system we use. There, it is often decentralised. After all, the villages in that region are very remote. Think of small mountain communities of around 400 people, spread across 95 families, living several hours’ drive from the nearest main road.
 

Small water treatment plant

That is why many communities have their own drinking water systems, including a small treatment plant that draws water from a spring higher up the hill. That mountain spring is partially covered with concrete slabs, with the water channelled downhill to the treatment plant, where it is treated. It flows through a filter, and chlorine is added. From then on, it is safe to drink and is supplied to residents.

Such a village is therefore self-sufficient in terms of water supply, but is often largely left to its own devices. Local governments are generally involved only to a limited extent. As a result, there is often a lack of both resources and technical support for maintenance.

Furthermore, it is extremely important that the source remains clean. Every week, a worker from the water treatment plant travels up the mountain to inspect the spring and remove fallen leaves, but there are some situations they cannot manage. Heavy rainfall, falling rocks, or landslides, for example.
 

Chlorine tablets

Deforestation is also a major problem in the Mayo-Chinchipe River Basin. This sometimes occurs due to illegal mining, but also to clearing additional land for livestock grazing. Cattle roaming around can pollute the spring, while trees are important for proper rainwater infiltration.

In short, communities in the border region between Peru and Ecuador are facing the loss of spring areas, deforestation, and inadequate water supplies. Due to a lack of drinking water, they often have no option but to use untreated river water and/or add chlorine tablets. Alternatively, they must walk two hours up into the mountains to collect water from a clean spring.

Because water does not stop at borders, there is a formal agreement between Peru and Ecuador to jointly manage nine transboundary river basins. Indeed, what happens upstream in Ecuador—deforestation, pollution, and so on—naturally has an impact downstream in Peru. However, little of that agreement has been implemented at the local level.

Minga

With the support of our FPS, Join For Water and its partners proposed a holistic approach to sustainably improving water supply and protecting water resources in the Mayo-Chinchipe River Basin as a way of implementing the agreement between Ecuador and Peru.

First, the drinking water infrastructure needed to be restored. However, communities are often unable to contribute financially, they only have their time and effort to offer. That is why the community, supported by Protos Andes, organised ‘minga’ (communal workdays). Men and women carried sand, stones, and wooden planks up the mountain, sometimes for hours on end, in the rain, along steep mountain trails.

Reservoirs were cleaned and renovated, filters were repaired or replaced, and pipes were inspected. The infiltration zone around the well was also cleaned and repaired where necessary. All of this was carried out under the technical guidance of Protos Andes.

So far, about 15 of the 60 drinking water systems across the Mayo-Chinchipe River Basin have been repaired. A management committee was established for each plant, comprising both women and men. They have the technical expertise required for maintenance and also receive financial contributions from the community.

Agroforestry

To help ensure the sustainability of its initiatives, Join For Water is working with its partners on a range of approaches. Firstly, training is essential. That is why binational water education programmes are organised to bring Peruvians and Ecuadorians together. There are training courses specifically for technicians, local authorities, farmers and women. There, people from both countries learn about each other’s challenges. Adaptation to climate disruption, including heavy rainfall and prolonged drought, is also addressed.

Another essential element is the closer involvement of local authorities, roughly comparable to provinces in Belgium. This proved successful! They received training, worked together to identify issues, and ultimately even contributed between one third and half of the costs.

Furthermore, collaboration with farmers was also crucial in reducing pressure on water resources and ecosystems. For example, the NGOs worked with cattle ranchers to develop more efficient practices, preventing the need to cut down trees to graze their cattle. Together with coffee farmers, they explored how they could adapt their farming systems through agroforestry. After all, this not only improves coffee cultivation but also contributes to nature conservation.

It must evidently also be possible to finance drinking water systems and nature conservation in the future. Today, water funds already exist, in which water utilities in urban areas contribute a share of their revenue to finance source protection and water infrastructure.

Next to that, Join For Water and its partners plan to establish, in the long term, a cross-border water fund. Through that fund, companies from Ecuador and Peru, as well as international companies, can invest in nature conservation in order to protect water sources.

All of these sustainability mechanisms are supported by a ‘committee of representatives from the Mayo-Chinchipe River Basin’, in which national and local governments, water managers, communities, and farmers meet twice a year. In it, they outline their vision for the river basin and reach agreements on matters such as the maintenance of drinking water systems and water sources, financial contributions, and nature conservation.
 

Cuidadoras

One final crucial element was the focus on the role of women in water management. They are the first to face water shortages, but their vision and leadership are often not sufficiently recognised.

That is why separate programmes for women within the binational water education programme were essential. In addition to technical matters, they also learned about their rights there. Afterwards, the participants continued to meet one another and even became ‘cuidadoras’, female guardians of the Mayo-Chinchipe River Basin. Local water committees should ideally be composed of 50% women.

It is clear that the days when drilling a well was sufficient are long gone. Ensuring access to safe drinking water, that essential element of life, requires a well-thought-out approach that takes countless factors into account.

Technical expertise, community participation, financial resources, recognition of women’s roles and knowledge, understanding of the impacts of nature and climate disruption, involvement of local governments, and sufficiently productive, environmentally friendly agriculture… you name it.

Join For Water hopes to continue, in the coming years, what began four years ago with the support of the FPS. Peru and Ecuador have already recognised the binational approach as innovative and necessary for regional stability and the fight against climate disruption. For this reason, the approach will be scaled up to cover a broader river basin extending towards the Amazon River.