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LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARRIBEAN
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The News N° 25
FRom one conTinenT To anoTHeR
Oneyearago, theNationalDirectorateof
DrinkingWater Supply and Sanitation in
Haiti (DINEPA) launched the National
Technical Reference Frame for Drinking
Water SupplyandSanitation (RTN).
This important document was written by
IOWater
in cooperation with stakeholders in
thewater sector inHaiti.
It is a powerful tool for
”DINEPA”
to fulfill the
basic tasks of sector regulation. Everyone
knows nowwhere to find theminimum requi-
rements to bemet inHaiti for eachwater and
sanitation technique and facility.
But for such a document - of nearly 3,000
pages! - a mere "launching" is not enough:
professionals have wished to be trained to
learn how to use the Reference Frame, have a
thorough view of its contents and know how
to explain it concretely to their professional
networks in the field.
InMarch and June 2014,
IOWater organi-
zed this ”RTN dissemination”
to about a
hundred professionals, under the supervision
of an independent consultant commissioned
by
”DINEPA”.
The
”DINEPA”
teams inPort au
Princewere directly concerned by this release,
but also its "field" services and theHaitian sec-
torofhigher educationandvocational training.
This assignment endedwith a series of
IOWater-facilitatedwebseminars toopen
knowledgeof RTN toawider audience.
The writing of the RTNwas funded by
UNICEF, but its ”dissemination” was
supportedbySwissCooperationand the
Inter-AmericanDevelopment Bank.
The disseminationof RTN remains today tobe
done for audiences who do not know it
enough yet, but also for public works compa-
nies, suppliers, service providers, municipali-
ties, donors, NGOs,... The steering committee
of theprojectwill identifypriority target groups
and define a strategy for training Haitian
trainers onRTN.
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Haiti
”DINEPA” appropriates the National Technical Reference Frame for DWSS
Colombia
Support to the development of Water Information Systems
A reform process is underway in Colombia to
improvewater resourcesmanagement.
This process includes, among other things,
the short-termdevelopment of strategic plans
for 5major hydrographic regions of the coun-
try: Magdalena-Cauca, Caribbean, Pacific,
Orinoco, Amazon.
To support this reform,
IOWater is imple-
menting an institutional cooperation
project, funded by the French Adour
GaronneWater Agency,
which includes:
➊
An institutional and methodological
assistance to the preparation of the Rio
Magdalena- Cauca Strategic Plan;
➋
A support to the improvement of the
needed datamanagement;
➌
A more local component seeking to
improve industrial pollution control in the
Bogota River.
Year 2014mainly focused on the ”data
management” component.
After a step of exchange of experience on
water information systems andof assessment
of the Colombian partners’ needs, a series of
recommendations was presented, in particu-
lar to improve interoperability between the
various national and regional information
systems.
The French experience in terms of creating
language/common reference frames and
improving interoperability between
existing water information systems,
seems quite suitable for the integrationof the
regional data required by
the Regional
Water Resources Assessment Program
(ERA).
The broad lines for action have thus been
identified to develop products of common
interest for improving data interoperability in
the context of the Cundinamarca ERA.
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TheMagdalena River
Field illustration of the reference frame
applied to pumping stations
