Knowledge Management and Communication

Good practices and lessons learned that allow us to improve the work done

Knowledge Management and Communication

Knowledge management encompasses the broad set of activities carried out by the Water Fund to compile and systematise the work done, extracting good practices and lessons learned to improve the work done and to continue advancing in the progressive fulfilment of access to Human Rights to Water and Sanitation. It also has an important component of socialisation and dissemination, not only of the organisation’s internal knowledge but also of any reports or studies of interest generated by other leading institutions in the sector. This area is one of the Fund’s priorities, and throughout 2021 work has been carried out on a number of actions to further develop this area.

On the one hand, work has continued on the preparation of various monographs on the aspects on which the Fund has worked most over the years: governance, cultural diversity and interventions with indigenous people, innovation, gender, sustainable cities, among others. The objective of these analyses is to compile the Fund’s accumulated experiences and to reflect the positioning and orientations for future work. The first of these documents addresses the human rights approach to water and sanitation and was published at the end of 2021.

On the other hand, the Water Fund Knowledge Network has been established, an internal AECID online space (headquarters and field) created as a meeting place to share and disseminate events, activities, news and reports that may be of special interest to the professionals who make up or collaborate with the Cooperation Fund for Water and Sanitation.

Finally, another aspect on which most emphasis has been placed throughout 2021 has been on strengthening the relationship with our strategic partner, the Inter-American Development Bank, with whom numerous programmes are jointly executed. For this purpose, country-specific workshops have been held to address issues related to the systematisation of the products generated in the multilateral portfolio. On this basis, along with the Technical Cooperation Offices of each country, a line of knowledge products has been prioritised to be developed in the coming year.

Related News

The Fund Shares its Experience and Lessons Learned in Working to Advance Human Rights to Water and Sanitation

El Fondo del Agua nació con un claro enfoque de derechos en el que ha ido profundizando desde su nacimiento en 2009. Por ello, los programas de agua y saneamiento impulsados por el FCAS van mucho más allá de la provisión de infraestructuras. Un ejemplo fue el Proyecto de alcantarillado faltante en el Barrio Nelson Mandela, de Cartagena de Indias. Este barrio, con un 80% de familias desplazadas por el conflicto armado, era un asentamiento urbano en el que se conjugaban la pobreza y la contaminación ambiental.

Read article (Spanish)

Communication

Communication has been highlighted as a particularly important element for the Water Fund in two respects. On the one hand, within the programmes carried out in the partner countries themselves. On the other hand, as a means of accountability to provide the public with all available information regarding the progress of the programmes.

For programmes on the ground, a guide of recommendations has been established for programmes to allocate a portion of funding and resources to raise awareness of the work being done and, especially, to document the actual changes made by the initiatives implemented.

With regard to accountability to the public, in 2021 an effort was made to compile and summarise the work carried out in each of the countries in which the Fund is present. This work was recorded in the “Country Fact Sheets” document, which allows you to consult, at a glance, the interventions carried out in each country, the beneficiaries, the entities we work with and the main lines of action in each of them.

Videos

At the same time, in 2021, collaboration with the IADB on communication has been strengthened and the development of animated videos to communicate the impact of the programmes has been reinforced. The Fund also aims to take more photos and record more videos on-site, although this has been hampered by the restrictions on movement that have remained in place for much of 2021.

All Water Fund videos can be found on the “Water and Sanitation” playlist on the AECID’s YouTube channel, here:

Water Fund video list

News

49 articles on the Fund’s work were published on the Fund’s website and the newsletter is regularly sent to the more than 500 subscribers. In 2021, the website reached 13,000 unique users, an increase of almost 20% compared to the previous year. The majority of users came from Spain (36%), followed by Colombia (8%) and the United States (6%). The rest came from Latin America, particularly El Salvador, Guatemala, Ecuador and Bolivia

Subscription to the Fund’s newsletter

iAgua

As part of the Water Fund’s dissemination work, and in an attempt to also raise awareness of the work carried out by all the entities that in one way or another contribute to making Spanish cooperation in the water and sanitation sector a reality, since 2020 the Spanish Cooperation Microsite has been up and running on the iAgua website, where content is published weekly.

You can visit the space by clicking the following link:

iAgua

Meetings, forums and other means of communication

In addition, the Water Fund has reached out to as many people as possible by participating in numerous national and international meetings and forums, as well as by sharing its experience on various media outlets.

In February, a joint editorial was published by the FCAS and the Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) initiative, led by former UN rapporteur for water and sanitation, Caterina de Alburquerque, analysing the impacts of the pandemic on human rights to water and sanitation.

Related News:

Water and Sanitation: A Priority That Cannot Be Ignored by COVID

Hoy es más importante que nunca garantizar que todos tengan acceso a una correcta higiene de manos. Sobre todo en centros sanitarios: un cuarto de ellos en el mundo carece de estos servicios básicos

Read article (Spanish) >>
In March, the month of water par excellence due to International Water Day being celebrated on the 22^nd, the Fund participated in Water Week in the Dominican Republic and was present in the Somos Cooperación programme on Spanish National Radio doing an interview with the then director for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, Carmen Castiella:

Related programme:

Water, the Source of Life and the Key to Development

No le damos importancia al agua cuando tenemos a mano un grifo, pero, para los 2000 millones de personas que carecen de suministro, es vital en su desarrollo, pues casi 300.000 niños mueren al año por enfermedades debidas a la mala calidad del agua

Listen programme (Spanish) >>
In April, the Water Fund was awarded by iAgua withe the “iAgua Latam prize” in recognition to its work in the region.

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El Fondo del Agua, premiado por su contribución en América Latina

El Fondo de Cooperación para Agua y Saneamiento (FCAS) ha recibido hoy el premio iAgua LATAM 2021, que reconoce a las entidades que más aportan a la seguridad hídrica, al tratamiento de aguas residuales y a las mejoras en agua y saneamiento en América Latina y el Caribe.

Read article (Spanish) >>

On the other hand, the Spanish Cooperation participated in the event “INVESTAGUA, why you should invest in water”, with a round table on investments in rural and peri-urban areas of Latin America to close the inequality gaps in access to the resource.

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The FCAS Demonstrates Progress on Water in Rural Areas of Latin America at INVESTAGUA

De la mano de AECID, INVESTAGUA ha dedicado la última sesión de su novena jornada, celebrada hoy jueves 22 de abril, a conocer los mecanismos de acceso al Fondo de Cooperación para Agua y Saneamiento, las grandes operaciones de inversión para los próximos años y los casos de éxito en enclaves emblemáticos

Read article (Spanish) >>
On 19^th November, International Sanitation Day, the Fund was once again present on Spanish National Radio, where the Somos Cooperación programme interviewed an expert from the Fund’s Department and one of the heads of the Municipal Water Company of Santa Rosa de Copán, in Honduras, who has been actively involved in the Fund’s programmes.

Related Programme:

Sanitation, the Key to Global Health

La pandemia mostró que lavarse con frecuencia las manos es la vacuna más barata, pero un tercio de la población carece de ese servicio, pero la falta de saneamiento es aún mayor: afecta a la mitad de la humanidad, lo que origina innumerables enfermedades, y agrava la pobreza. En el Día Mundial del Retrete, recordamos su importancia en el desarrollo con Eva Martino Gómez del Fondo de Cooperación para el Agua y el Saneamiento (FCAS), de la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID), y con Vanessa Ardón, asesora de la empresa municipal de aguas de la ciudad hondureña de Santa Rosa de Copán, donde se ejecutó un proyecto para sus 70 mil habitantes.

Listen programme (Spanish) >>
The Fund also played an important role in the 1^st Latin American Environmental Week, organised by the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB) as a result of the commitment of the Ibero-American Heads of State and Government to tackle the environmental crisis through cooperation and joint work. The participation consisted of the organisation, with CODIA, of several sessions related to one of the themes addressed during the week: water resources.

Related News:

The Cooperation Fund for Water and Sanitation participates in the 1st Ibero-American Environmental Week

La Semana Medioambiental Iberoamericana, organizada por la Secretaría General Iberoamericana (SEGIB), surge del compromiso de los jefes de Estado y de Gobierno de Iberoamérica para hacer frente a la crisis medioambiental a través de la cooperación y el trabajo conjunto.

Read article (Spanish) >>
Likewise, the FCAS was also present at World Water Week, organised by the Stockholm International Water Institute, with a session on the importance of public toilets to ensure citizens’ rights to water and sanitation beyond the home, especially for highly vulnerable groups such as street vendors, the homeless, etc.

Video of the session:

Watch video >>