Policies and strategies
- The current responsibilities and policies in the water and sanitation sector are primarily defined in the 1991 Constitution and in the Public Housing Services Law from 1994 (Ley de Servicios Públicos Domiciliarios).
- A comprehensive sector policy, introduced in 1994, aims at increasing water and sanitation investment through targeted transfers to municipalities, improving quality and efficiency by promoting private sector participation in the cities where the public companies are inefficient, establishing autonomous regulatory agencies at national level, increasing cost recovery, and protecting the poorest through cross-subsidies. The same sector policy continues to be pursued today despite several changes of governments.
- The Vice-Ministry of Water and Sanitation has initiated four new programmes: (1) the Departmental Water and Sanitation Plans (Planes Departamentales de Agua y Saneamiento) to harmonise resources and implement regional systems of service provision at the level of each department of the country; (2) the Sanitation Programme for Settlements (Programa de Saneamiento para Asentamientos) to improve the conditions of people living in extreme poverty areas; (3) the Municipal Waste Water Sanitation Programme (Planes de Saneamiento y Manejo de Vertimientos) to increase the rate of treated municipal water; and (4) the Hand Washing Programme (Programa Lavado de Manos) to promote hand washing with soap at critical times.
Institutions
- The Vice-Ministry of Water and Sanitation, created at the end of 2006 within the Ministry of Environment, Housing and Territorial Development, is in charge of setting sector policy.
- Regulation of drinking water and sanitation services is the responsibility of two autonomous institutions at the national level, the Commission for the Regulation of Drinking Water and Basic Sanitation (Comisión de Regulación de Agua Potable y Saneamiento Básico - CRA) and the Superintendence of Public Domestic Services (Superintendencia de Servicios Públicos Domiciliarios - SSPD). CRA defines criteria for efficient service provision and sets the rules for tariff revision. Inspection, control and monitoring fall to the SSPD, a multi-sector regulatory agency.
- Drinking water quality is regulated by the Ministry of Social Protection.
- Municipalities are responsible for ensuring that their inhabitants are given domestic services of water supply and sanitation. In urban areas, public utilities (but also private and in exceptional circumstances municipalities) are directly responsible for service provision. In rural and some marginal urban areas, communal water boards also offer water supply services. Recently, a decision of the Supreme Court ordered the utilities to supply water and basic sanitation services to the urban slums based on the rights given by the 1991 Constitution.
- Since 2006, innovative approaches for the spatial aggregation of municipal service providers in small towns have been introduced to benefit from economies of scale.
