Water supply and sanitation in El Salvador

El Salvador El Salvador El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America... : Water and Sanitation

}
}}
|-
!align="center" bgcolor="lightblue" colspan="3"|Data
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Water coverage (broad definition)
|valign="top"| 87%
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Sanitation coverage (broad definition)
|valign="top"| 87%
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Continuity of supply (%)
|valign="top"| Low
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Average urban water use (l/c/d)
|valign="top"| 118
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Average urban water and sewer bill for 20m3
|valign="top"| US$6/month
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Share of household metering
|valign="top"| 64%
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Share of collected wastewater treated
|valign="top"| 2%
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Annual investment in WSS
|valign="top"| US$2/capita (2003–2004)
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Share of self-financing by utilities
|valign="top"| 21% (1990–2002), almost zero in 2005
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Share of tax-financing
|valign="top"| 16% (1990–2002)
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Share of external financing
|valign="top"| 63% (1990–2002)
|-
!align="center" bgcolor="lightblue" colspan="3"|Institutions
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Decentralization to municipalities
|valign="top"| Limited
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|National water and sanitation company
|valign="top"| Yes
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Water and sanitation regulator
|valign="top"| No
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Responsibility for policy setting
|valign="top"| Presidency of the Republic
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Sector law
|valign="top"| No
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Number of urban service providers
|valign="top"| 97
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Number of rural service providers
|valign="top"| 800
|-
|}
Access to water supply

Water supply

Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavours or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes...

and sanitation

Sanitation

Sanitation is the hygienic means of promoting health through prevention of human contact with the hazards of wastes. Hazards can be either physical, microbiological, biological or chemical agents of disease. Wastes that can cause health problems are human and animal feces, solid wastes, domestic...

in El Salvador

El Salvador

El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...

remains low, despite recent increases in coverage, which leads to negative impacts on productivity and health in particular of the rural poor. Water resources are heavily polluted and the great majority of wastewater is discharged without any treatment into the environment. Institutionally a single public institution is both de facto in charge of setting sector policy and of being the main service provider. Attempts at reforming and modernizing the sector through new laws have not borne fruit over the past ten years.

Access

Access to water and sanitation in El Salvador remains low by regional standards. Access to safe water stood at 84 percent in 2004 and access to adequate sanitation at 62 percent. Access is particularly low in rural areas, where about 39 percent of the population lives. It stands at 70% for safe water and 39 percent for adequate sanitation.

		Urban (61% of the population)	Rural (39% of the population)	Total
Water	Broad definition	94%	76%	87%
Water	House connections	80%	42%	65%
Sanitation	Broad definition	89%	83%	87%
Sanitation	Sewerage	62%	2%	n/a

Source: Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation of WHO

Who

Who may refer to:* Who , an English-language pronoun* who , a Unix command* Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism- Art and entertainment :* Who? , a 1958 novel by Algis Budrys...

and UNICEF

Productivity and public health impact of lack of access to water supply and sanitation

The lack of access to water impacts not only the quality of life of the poor, but also productivity and health. According to a survey carried out in 2001 by the Salvadoran think tank FUSADES the rural poor in particular spend a significant share of their productive time collecting water. Families without household access to water spent on average 8.5 percent of their productive time fetching water, while even those with household access spent 4.9 percent of their productive time fetching water. For the structural poor the values were much higher with 13.6 percent and 7.1 percent respectively.

A lack of access to water and sanitation in rural areas has a demonstrably adverse effect on infant mortality, child mortality and stunting. The infant mortality rate among households without a house connection is 40 per 1,000 births, compared to 30 for households with a connection. Similarly, the infant mortality rate among households without a toilet is 37, compared to 30 for households with toilets.

Service quality

Water supply in most localities served by ANDA is intermittent, varying from 16 hours per day in some areas to less than 4 hours per day or even once every four days, according to a Demographic and Health Survey (called FESAL by its Spanish acronym) carried out in 2002. Most localities, however, seem to receive water at least once a day. The microbiological quality of water is insufficient.

Water resources and pollution

El Salvador's water resources are highly polluted, owing in part to the almost total absence of municipal wastewater treatment. In addition, the country suffers from water scarcity during the dry season and conflicts among users.

It is estimated that 90 percent of the surface water bodies are contaminated. Nearly all municipal wastewater (98 percent) and 90 percent of industrial wastewater is discharged to rivers and creeks without any treatment. The highest priority for pollution abatement is estimated to be in the basins of the Río Acelhuate and Río Sucio, an area that supplies a third of the water supply of the Metropolitan area of San Salvador

San Salvador

The city of San Salvador the capital and largest city of El Salvador, which has been designated a Gamma World City. Its complete name is La Ciudad de Gran San Salvador...

.

Over the past 20 years the yield of a sample of springs declined by 30 percent due to deforestation

Deforestation

Deforestation is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a nonforest use. Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, or urban use....

. This has reduced water availability for the rural population, in some cases obliging them to rely on more expensive wells pumping from aquifer

Aquifer

An aquifer is a wet underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock or unconsolidated materials from which groundwater can be usefully extracted using a water well. The study of water flow in aquifers and the characterization of aquifers is called hydrogeology...

s whose water table has declined by as much as 1 meter per year in some localities.

History

There have been various efforts to reform the water sector and to create a new legal framework since the mid 1990s. The most comprehensive effort was abandoned after the 2001 earthquakes when political and reform priorities shifted. That reform package would have included the setting of tariffs based on the goal of cost recovery, the creation of a regulator and the introduction of private sector participation. The government of Antonio Saca

Antonio Saca

Elías Antonio Saca González is a Salvadoran politician and was the President of El Salvador. He was elected President in 2004 to serve a five-year term that ended in 2009....

(2005–2009) considered a general water bill and a water and sanitation bill. According to the water and sanitation bill, ANDA would have limited its functions to service provision. None of the bills was passed until Mauricio Funes

Mauricio Funes

Carlos Mauricio Funes Cartagena is the President of El Salvador. He won the 2009 presidential election as the candidate of the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front political party and took office on 1 June 2009.-Biography:Funes is married to Dr. Vanada Pignado, who was involved in...

assumed the Presidency in June 2009.

Service provision

Water supply

Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavours or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes...

and sanitation

Sanitation

in El Salvador

El Salvador

are the responsibility of a large number of diverse service providers.

ANDA

The dominant service provider is the Administración Nacional de Acueductos y Alcantarillados (ANDA), which provides services to 40 percent of the total population of El Salvador in 149 out of the country’s 262 municipalities, including the metropolitan area of San Salvador

San Salvador

The city of San Salvador the capital and largest city of El Salvador, which has been designated a Gamma World City. Its complete name is La Ciudad de Gran San Salvador...

and the country's other two main cities, Santa Ana

Santa Ana, El Salvador

Santa Ana is the second largest city in El Salvador, located 64 kilometers west of San Salvador, the capital city. Santa Ana has approximately 274,830 inhabitants and serves both as the capital of the department of Santa Ana and...

and San Miguel

San Miguel, El Salvador

San Miguel is the fourth most populous city in El Salvador after Santa Ana and Soyapango and the second most important after San Salvador. It is located 138 km east of the capital, San Salvador. It is also the capital of the department of San Miguel and a municipality...

. As an umbrella institution ANDA defines policies, regulates and provides services. ANDA’s Board Chairman has the rank of a Minister and reports directly to the President of the Republic.

Other service providers

Other service providers include municipalities, decentralized service providers, housing developers and rural cooperatives. 83 mostly small municipalities provide services directly. More than 13 decentralized service providers have signed agreements under which ANDA has given them the right to manage their services autonomously. More than 100 housing developers have often built their own autonomous urban water systems because ANDA was unable to connect them. They now operate these systems themselves or have delegated service provision to user associations. In rural areas services are provided by more than 800 community-based organizations, including Juntas de Agua and cooperative development associations (Asociaciones de Desarrollo Comunitario). The latter serve about 30 percent of the population.

Social investment fund

The Social Investment Fund (FISDL) plans and builds water supply systems in the 36 poorest municipalities of El Salvador. This is part of a program called Basic Services Network (Red de Servicios Básicos) which in turn complements the government's Conditional Cash Transfer

Conditional Cash Transfer

Conditional cash transfer programs aim to reduce poverty by making welfare programs conditional upon the receivers' actions. The government only transfers the money to persons who meet certain criteria...

program Red Solidaria.

Non-governmental organizations

The Water and Sanitation Network of El Salvador (RASES) provides a forum for the exchange of experiences in the sector, in particular concerning rural areas.

ANDA tariffs

ANDA tariffs average US$ 0.30/m³ and are below levels found in many other Latin American countries. Furthermore, ANDA tariffs are not socially equitable since the subsidies implicit in the low tariffs predominantly benefit the non-poor. First, users without access to the network, which are usually the poorest, do not receive the consumption subsidy. Second, users served by other providers than ANDA do not receive a subsidy for consumption. Third, among users that have ANDA service, the poor receive fewer subsidies than the non-poor as a consequence of the tariff structure. Tariffs are for both water and sewer services. As a result, there is a cross-subsidy from users without sewer connection to those with a sewer connection who are usually better off.

For political reasons, adjustments of ANDA water tariffs have been infrequent. Between 1994 and 2006 ANDA tariffs were only adjusted twice, in 1994 and 2001. The inflation-adjusted tariff, however, barely changed.

Tariffs by other service providers

Tariffs paid by water users in rural areas do recover financial operating costs, since no direct subsidies are available. They are often much higher than tariffs paid by ANDA customers. Some rural water users in pumped systems receive a subsidy through the Fondo de Inversión Nacional en Electricidad y Telefonía (FINET), which subsidizes electricity tariffs.

Cost recovery of ANDA

The financial situation of service providers in 2006 did not provide any more for self-financing of investments. ANDA's working ratio was close to 1, indicating that the company barely covers its operating and routine maintenance costs. The reason for the reduced self-financing capacity is a significant increase in the unit costs of ANDA from US$0.21/m³ in 1994 to US$0.46/m³ in 2001, and US$0.63/m³ in 2004. The reason for the important increase of the unit cost in 2004 is not clear, but it could be due to the inauguration of the energy-intensive Río Lempa system that pumps water from the Rio Lempa to San Salvador in that year.

Investment

Investment levels in water and sanitation in El Salvador stood at about US$20–40m/year from 1995–2001, but declined significantly to less than US$10m/year in 2003-04, compared to annual investment needs of US$50–100m to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Financing

In 1990-2002, 63 percent of investments were financed through international loans and grants, 21 percent through self-financing by ANDA, 16 percent with government resources and 0 percent through commercial financing.

External links

Official Website of the national water and sewer utility ANDA ANDA Statistical Bulletin 2008 Boletín Estadístico 2008 Water and Sanitation Network of El Salvador Red de Agua y Saneamiento de El Salvador (RASES)

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.