Social Innovation to Improve Access to Safe Water in Rural Areas

The town of Trigopampa, nestled in the Peruvian Andes more than 2,500 meters above sea level, has an enviable climate and geography, but for years lacked an efficient clean water supply. According to World Bank figures, approximately 37 million people do not have access to clean water in Latin America, despite having about one-third of all fresh water sources in the world.

“The water was not clean. We drank it because we had to, and there was no maintenance in the system. Thanks to the authorities and engineers at Agualimpia, who explained and trained us on how to keep water clean with chlorine, how often and how much to add. Now we keep the water clean and pay 18 soles ($5) per year for each user,” says Margarita Mercedes Chinchay Rosales, former member of Trigopampa’s Board of Sanitation Services (JASS).

Rural communities where government funds are not enough to build new infrastructure and that are committed to improving their quality of life have found an alternative in Aguarural, a rapidly impacting social innovation model for the optimization of clean water supply.

The intervention model addresses the entire value chain of clean water supply, from tapping water sources to household connections with small-scale technical and social interventions aimed at the optimization or enhancing the operation of the clean water system, in addition to community management with capacity building, by proposing innovative technical and social solutions with sustainable, cost-effective results.

“Communities not only pitched in with volunteer workforce in intensive collective tasks, significantly co-financing infrastructure revamping, thus making the investment cost-efficient, but they also actively participated in service management capacity building processes before, during and after implementation, thus ensuring continuous safe water supply. We have implemented a grassroots participatory management model aimed at improving the living conditions of vulnerable communities and strengthening local territorial management, with the potential to be replicated and become a pilot benchmark for future public investment projects in Peru and the region,” said Ana Mercedes Botero, Director of Social Innovation at CAF—development bank of Latin America.

The strategic alliance of CAF and the NGO Agualimpia to implement this innovative model, tailored to the realities of the rural context, has benefited more than 7,600 people who now enjoy access to safe water in 13 rural towns in Peru, in the departments of Ancash, Arequipa and Cajamarca.

Far from 2030 SDGs in water

The United Nations (UN) warns in a recent report that even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the world was far from meeting Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6): ensuring water and sanitation for all by 2030. The numbers speak for themselves: 785 million people worldwide lack access to safe water. Among these, 8 out of 10 live in rural areas and nearly half live in the least developed countries. The current rate of progress must be quadrupled to meet the global universal access target by 2030.

“This report shows that we need to do more and much faster. Many water sources are drying out, are being contaminated, or both. Ensuring that there is water and sanitation for all people, for all purposes, by 2030, will help global society prepare for the future against the many and varied threats ahead,” says Gilbert F. Houngbo, Chair of UN-Water and President of the International Fund for Agriculture Development.

In order to accelerate actions to achieve SDG 6, UN-Water has set out five initiatives, including promoting innovative practices and using technologies for improving water, developing resources and sanitation, and administration. Lastly, it calls for increasing the level of community and user engagement. In all subsectors, only 14 out of 109 countries report high levels of user engagement for collaborative management and decision-making.