LATINOSAN 2007 - The Latin American Conference on Sanitation
- A Deep Insight -
Authors: Nathalia Torres and Nicolás Escalante, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia
The Latin American Sanitation conference, LatinoSan 2007, took place in Cali, Colombia from November 12 to 16 in the Valle del Pacífico convention center. It was organized by CINARA (Research and Development Institute in Water Supply, Environmental Sanitation and Water Resources Conservation), Universidad del Valle, UNICEF, World Health organization, the Inter American Development Bank, and the Water and Sanitation Program administered by the World Bank.
The Colombian government, headed by the Ministry of Environment, Housing and Regional Development (MAVDT) promoted the conference in Colombia. The MAVDT was also the Colombian representative during the ministerial round table, which focused on the elaboration of a declaration of commitment to take action in sanitation issues.
The conference started with a description of the sanitation and hygiene situation in Latin America and the Caribbean (21 countries in total). It was demonstrated that poverty is related with the lowest levels of public services coverage in water, waste water and municipal solid waste (MSW) management; urban areas have the highest coverage of water supply and basic sanitation, but it is not the 100%, and in rural areas it is about 50%.
UN Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) for sanitation
The MDGs are a challenge for rural areas in Latin American countries:
Source: http://www.latinosan2007.net/2007/images/cdro1.gif
Given this situation some objectives were established, including:
1. Raise awareness to position sanitation as a priority in the national and regional agendas.
2. Present advances in the Millenium objectives pursuit.
3. Share experiences to take action towards reviewing, developing, and implementing sanitation programs, projects, and policies.
The objectives were developed in 5 simultaneous seminars during 3 days and the last day was dedicated to field trips to technical facilities.
The seminars topics were:
- Environmental sanitation
- Hygiene Education and excreta disposal
- Prevention of water resource?s contamination and Integral waste water management
- Integrated solid waste management
- Transparency and corruption in public basic services
Solid waste management was the ?poorest? seminar in terms of audience, while the major interest was dedicated to water and waste water. In the solid waste seminar many experiences were shared, the majority of experiences were about source separation, sorting, recycling and composting in municipalities with populations about 50.000 people in Latin American countries; no Caribbean countries were present. Some of the most important conclusions from the seminar are:
- The common factor between LA countries was the poor coverage in rural areas because of the transport costs, then, rural communities have started simple programs to handle their wastes.
- One presentation was about gender influences in waste generation and its consequences, (this work developed in Mexico). The work demonstrated that children and women are the most compromised ?stakeholders? in waste management.
- Composting is the most popular practice to handle organic waste from households. Recycling is an informal activity in all countries and there are some politics to start this activity as formal.
- In some countries the waste management is almost impossible to handle because people can?t see the importance of collection, transport and final disposal. In this way, fees are not paid by users and the waste management companies go bankrupt. That is why the public service of waste is associated with other like water and only one bill is generated for the two services.
LatinoSan ended with the Cali declaration, where 16 countries committed to fulfill the Millennium Development Goals with intergovernmental cooperation, putting sanitation as a priority in each country to elevate quality life standards.
Inter institutional collaboration
Co-sponsors of LatinoSan also are also Colombia?s Ministry of External Affairs, General National Attorney?s Office, National Public Services Superintendence, Municipal Federation, SENA; ACODAL; ANDESCO; AVINA; PAMCOL; PAVCO; CVC, EMCALI, UES VALLE, ACUAVALLE, Cali?s Chamber of Commerce, AECI; OPS/OMS; WSSCC; WASH; SDC; IWA; GTZ; SIDA; AIDIS; ABES BRASIL, OIM; SNV; ARD ADAM AID; Plan International; CEPAL; USAID; EEU; CAF; IHE; IRC; IDRC; EPFL; AMANCO; Rotoplas; and P&G.
Attendees and Stakeholders
LatinoSan is addressed to decision makers at ministerial level, public and private sectors? representatives, civil society, community leaders, local authorities, international cooperation agencies, academia and press media, from Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, México, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Perú, Dominican Republic, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
Read more:
http://www.latinosan2007.net
