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Initiative: FECASALC

FECASALC

The Spanish Cooperation Fund for water and sanitation in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Fecsalc-woman-indigenous-andes-mountains
boy drinking water from faucet with hands

The Spanish Cooperation Fund for water and sanitation in Latin America and the Caribbean (FECASALC, for its Spanish initials) is a strategic alliance between the Government of Spain and the IDB that seeks to help bring the water and sanitation human right to fruition and exceed the Sustainable Development Goals, focusing its funding on peri-urban and rural areas, where the population has fewer resources and access to water and sanitation services.

Under this inter-institutional cooperation model, which creates an alliance where goals, tasks, resources and commitments are shared, FECASALC generated 20 operations and 11 technical cooperations in 13 regional countries for over US$1.5 billion (of which US$571 million are Spanish government grants) by pursuing an integrated vision of the sector that:

Promoting access through construction and rehabilitation of water and sanitation systems in order to increase coverage for the population with fewer resources.

Institutional strengthening to increase service sustainability, promoting national frameworks that allow the rational use of resources and the safeguarding of rights.

Supporting an integrated management of water resources, with an integrated focus on river basins for water use and management that preserve the environment and take the full cycle of water and climate change adaptation into account.

Although the challenges ahead are daunting, we are working with our partners in the region to make the human right to water and sanitation and universal coverage come true. FECASALC is an instrument available to the countries and it is inspiring other effectively strategic alliances that will help the region achieve its Sustainable Development Goals.

Focusing on segments of population where the access levels are lower, contributing to the development of the country’s political initiatives, sharing tools and methodologies, and coordinating their interventions is the only possible path towards achieving the aspirations of citizens in the region of a better future. The Spanish Government and IDB alliance is the best example of this.

Woman with ceramic pot for water

2007 marks a new stage in Latin America and the Caribbean’s water and sanitation. That was when Spain created the Cooperation Fund for Water and Sanitation (FCAS, for its Spanish initials). This unprecedented initiative for the region seeks to help bring the water and sanitation human right to fruition and exceed the Sustainable Development Goals, focusing its funding on peri-urban and rural areas, where poverty levels tend to be higher.

Spain has chosen the IDB as its strategic partner to tackle this challenge and they created the FECASALC. On Jul. 24, 2009, a Technical Framework was signed between the Spanish Cooperation - through the Spanish Development Cooperation Agency (AECID) –, and the IDB, through its Water and Sanitation Division. The two institutions have since shared their financial and technical capacities to tackle the region’s water and sanitation challenges by creating the Spanish Cooperation Fund for Water and Sanitation in Latin America and the Caribbean (FECASALC), managed by the IDB. The IDB is managing through the FECASALC a part in the FCAS funds.

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