Latin America and the Caribbean must invest 1.3% of GDP to guarantee access to water: ECLAC

Generating an orderly and sustainable management of water resources increases resilience to climate change and reverses environmental pollution.

Rayén Quiroga, head of ECLAC’s water and energy unit.

To guarantee access to water and safe sanitation in Latin America and the Caribbean, it will be necessary to spend 1.3% of the regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) each year for at least a decade, was what was heard in the “Regional Dialogues of Water in Latin America and the Caribbean 2023: Towards the United Nations Water Conference 2023”, organized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal).

Put another way, it takes approximately $51 billion annually for 10 years to provide universal access to water and provide safe sanitation.

In addition, with the investment, 3.6 million green jobs would be generated, which would improve annual family income and would generate an equalizing element of society since it would improve health, increase well-being and promote gender equality, said Rayén Quiroga, head of the ECLAC’s Water and Energy Unit on the panel “Global and regional context of water as a vector of development”.

“And it would also recover the economy that is in a new lost decade in the region. While generating an orderly and sustainable management of water resources increases resilience to climate change and reverses environmental pollution,” said the head of unit.

At the inauguration, José Salazar-Xirinachs, Executive Secretary of ECLAC, also urged countries to promote investment in water services to improve the well-being and quality of life of the population and reactivate the region’s economy.

Salazar-Xirinachs warned in his presentation that although water has been recognized as a human right since 2010, in Latin America and the Caribbean a large part of the population still lacks safely managed water and sanitation services. In this sense, Rayén Quiroga explained that this year the region has 161 million people without access to safely managed drinking water and there are 431 million, 66% of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean, who lack access to water sanitation. safely managed.

Quiroga also explained that access to drinking water and liquid sanitation are also unequal. Data shown by ECLAC detail that quintile 1, the one with the highest vulnerability, has 25% less access to safely managed water than the richest quintile.

The ECLAC official also commented that people in quintile 1 have to pay up to twice as much as the richest quintile as a result of the lack of access and they have to buy water in pipes or cisterns. “Which shows this reproduction of inequality.”

Crisis and poverty have repercussions

ECLAC recognized that the “cascading” crises, that is, what has caused the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the disruption of supply chains and food inflation, are increasing poverty in the region, which will worsen access to drinking water. Added to the above is the imposition of fiscal restrictions, which will hinder public investment.

“This further affects the access of the most vulnerable population to water and sanitation services and also makes it difficult for the State to make the investments it requires, so a public-private-community pact is essential to carry out the investments,” Quiroga urged.

At the end of 2022, poverty affected 201 million Latin American people, 32% of the total, and extreme poverty increased to 82 million, 13% of the region’s inhabitants.

Governance challenges

The region also has to face a challenge in water governance since national authorities do not have a hierarchy at the highest level of government.

“There is a dispersion of water management in multiple institutions and with many overlapping roles such as extractors, producers, distributors, regulators or users,” Quiroga explained.

According to ECLAC, in Latin America and the Caribbean a person has water availability four times greater than the world average, however the region suffers from high water stress, especially in large cities and areas with greater economic activity.

Likewise, it was reported that as a consequence of climate change, the freshwater surface of Latin America and the Caribbean has been reduced by almost 7,000 square meters, which is equivalent to four times the size of São Paulo, Brazil.

Quintile 1, the most vulnerable, has 25% less access to safely managed water than the richest quintile, and pays twice as much for the liquid

santiago.renteria@eleconomista.mx