Bilateral Cooperation
Cooperation between states
Bilateral Cooperation from the AECID (State-to-State Cooperation)
In addition to the programmes promoted by the Cooperation Fund for Water and Sanitation, whose budget comes from the State Secretariat for International Cooperation, the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) carries out bilateral programmes with its own funds aimed at strengthening the water and sanitation sector. Many of them, of course, are carried out in coordination with the Water Fund, and incorporate the same guidelines and approaches.
Thus, two bilateral programmes are being developed in Cuba to complement and expand the Fund’s impact. One of them, developed with the National Institute of Water Resources, seeks to strengthen water management capacities through technical cooperation activities aimed at the sector’s main institutions and operators. The other, in coordination with the Havana Bay Working Group, focuses on the treatment of industrial discharges. These programmes open up new areas of collaboration aimed at improving the technical and management capacities of the State institutions with competencies in the water sector.
In Colombia, a bilateral programme called Methodological Proposal to Identify Citizens in a State of Social Vulnerability, in order to make them beneficiaries of the vital minimum water subsidy (COL-037-B), It consists of an AECID grant of 96,000 euros awarded to the District Secretariat of Habitat of the Mayor’s Office of Bogota, which provides 24,000 euros as a counterpart.
The programme, which was completed in 2021, has allowed to characterise the beneficiaries of the “Vital Minimum” programme based on different variables, and to establish a map of the vulnerable population of the Capital District, which will allow us to extend coverage to citizens in a state of disconnection or new conditions of vulnerability. This mapping will allow the establishment of a roadmap for the implementation of the vital minimum water subsidy for the city of Bogotá.
This project has a small budget but can have a high impact, not only because it will help guarantee the human right to water for the most vulnerable population in the city of Bogotá, but also because it can become a benchmark for extending this type of practice to other municipalities in the country.
