Skip to main content

Published on: 12/09/2013

The policy was developed to create a framework for increased focus to all activities and interventions towards delivering water and sanitation services that last. Luis Romero is the coordinator of CONASA and explains the rationale behind the policy, ‘the water and sanitation sector in Honduras is very much fragmented, not only in terms of activities by an enormous range of institutions and organisations, but also in the way the interventions are budgeted for’. ‘I hope that the policy will help to align the activities of the donors and that also the approaches towards water and sanitation service delivery will be increasingly aligned.’

Central to the policy is the ambition towards total coverage of water and sanitation services and that those services are sustained – water and sanitation services for everyone, forever.  The policy has been built around the vision that in 2038 every Honduran man, woman and child has access to improved water and sanitation services, meeting agreed quality standards on service delivery which will be developed by stakeholders that are able to fulfil their responsibilities in an effective and efficient way, and within a frame of sustainable management of natural resources.

Although the policy has now been approved by CONASA - which is represented by a board including the ministers of Health, Internal Affairs and Population, Finance and the representatives of the Association of Municipalities and of the water boards and users), the policy will be presented towards the cabinet of ministers in order to obtain an presidential decree – this to increase the weight of the policy and to increase the outreach activities at political events and in the media.

The best part of the process was that ownership creation and the participation of all the organisations and all the institutions

The process for the development of the policy has designed by CONASA with the support of IRC in October 2010. Luis Romero recalls ‘when we embarked on the policy development process, we made clear to our partners, the United Nations Program for Development UNDP and IRC that this was going to be a product of our own. Not a policy developed by some consultant. The best part of the process was that ownership creation and the participation of all the organisations and all the institutions and all the people that supported the process and the development for almost a year. We also carried out two validation rounds – the first one was to validate the first study and the other was to test out the policy in six provinces of the country. I think these documents have been the most shared and validated documents of the whole sector’.

At the time when the national policy was being developed, there was a parallel process ongoing in 13 municipalities developing their own municipal WASH policies. The whole experience of policy development has been brought together and was the basis for the development of a manual for municipal policy development. This manual, together with the national policy, facilitates the dissemination of the policy in other municipalities. ‘Within the new programme by the Swiss Cooperation, which will start in June, we will work in twenty municipalities, for which we also have the ambition to work on municipal policy development. That is the way we will go about disseminating the policy. We want the municipalities to adopt the national policy, and adapt it to their local context.’

To further work out the policy CONASA is taking the first next steps. At the moment they are working on a financial policy for the whole section – which includes a draft proposal for the creation of a national WASH fund to finance the needs that are being identified in two other plans that are currently being developed: the national water plan and the national sanitation plan.  

Locations

Back to
the top