Cooperative Agreement # 72052718CA00002: Natural Infrastructure for Water Security Project

This shift, developed with USAID during the July 2020 Pause & Reflect workshop, has permitted a significant enhancement of focus and alignment across the NIWS team. Coupled with the foundational relationships and planning carried out in the first two years of the project, it has allowed NIWS to begin to deliver important contributions this quarter that will focus, accelerate, scale, and improve the impact of natural infrastructure interventions. For example, SEDAPAL formally approved its first investment in natural infrastructure, with a resolution approving the Expediente Técnico for a USD 0.9 M project to restore the Carampoma wetlands at Milloc, a milestone achieved in close collaboration with NIWS and which represents our first investment mobilized for natural infrastructure. Additionally, by the end of the quarter, 11 firms developing Integrated Plans for Reconstrucción con Cambios were utilizing results of NIWS' Rapid-Focus Tool to identify and justify natural infrastructure projects for inclusion, filling a critical information and capacity gap that may be the key to ensuring that natural infrastructure projects are at all included in these plans. And during this quarter, MINAM formally approved guidelines for using IOARR--an implementation mechanism for public funds that allows investments for the optimization, marginal expansion, replacement and rehabilitation of existing investments without preparing a full public investment project--to natural infrastructure. These guidelines were developed by NIWS with MINAM, and their approval opens the door to accelerating public investment to protect and rehabilitate natural infrastructure throughout the country. NIWS focused public and political attention on the urgency of accelerating action to protect critical natural infrastructure in the face of serious water and climate risks. We reached over 6 million citizens with this messaging, focusing on the emblematic case of the Carampoma wetlands, and engaged leading authorities from the water, environmental, sanitation, and agricultural sectors at the National Forum on Natural Infrastructure in November 2019 to commit to work together to breakthrough persistent bottlenecks preventing the required action. Policymaker engagement also benefited from the publication of two new briefs in this quarter, which highlighted 1) gender gaps in water and natural infrastructure management, and 2) the potential of amunas -- pre-Incan infiltration canals -- to contribute to Lima’s water supply at scale. Through 2019, NIWS developed analysis of critical bottlenecks and policy recommendations that helped to focus policy makers during the National Forum on Natural Infrastructure on specific opportunities to improve investments in natural infrastructure, and which we also contributed to the OECD Water Policy and Governance Dialogues. During this quarter, the OECD shared their draft report of recommendations to improve water policy and governance in Peru. The OECD report includes a number of NIWS key messages and recommendations, including an emphasis on the need to conserve upper watersheds, the key opportunity for investment in amunas, and the need to operationalize MERESE implementation mechanisms. Next quarter, the OECD report will be shared with Peruvian stakeholders, who will then prepare a roadmap to implement the report’s recommendations. NIWS policy engagement also bore fruit this quarter, with two new regulatory instruments approved with direct NIWS support. In addition to the IOARR guidelines mentioned above, this quarter SUNASS issued a new directive governing MERESE implemented by water utilities. The directive clarifies and streamlines a number of aspects of MERESE project development, incorporating a number of recommendations submitted by CONDESAN and SPDA. It also, notably, is the first regulatory instrument issued by SUNASS that includes a gender focus, as it requires EPS to apply a gender focus in the design of MERESE programs and projects, assuring the participation of women at all stages of design.