For the first time, GWP Central America signed an agreement with a regional development bank to advance IWRM as an essential approach for water security, climate change and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in the region.

GWP El Salvador, together with the National Foundation for Development and Lutheran World Relief, organised the National Forum on Climate Change in San Salvador on 23-24 February 2011.

Costa Rica is making progress in expanding access to water supply and sanitation, but the sector faces challenges when it comes to sanitation connections, poor service quality, and low cost recovery.

An interregional workshop on “Women and Water Management” was held in Guatemala in October, organised by UNESCO and supported by GWP Guatemala, GWP Central America and GWP South America. (Photo: Participants at the workshop)

The Panama Canal, the 77 km long canal joining the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans is a key conduit for international maritime trade. In light of the decision to widen the canal, improvements in how the canal basin is managed has taken on increasing importance.

In 2010 the El Salvador Ministry of Environment started to prepare a climate change policy. GWP El Salvador and the National Foundation for Development (FUNDE), with financial support from Lutheran World Relief (LWR), arranged national consultations to encourage an exchange of ideas between the government and other stakeholders on a national climate change policy.

In June 2010 the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARN) El Salvador proposed that GWP Central America and GWP El Salvador should facilitate processes to develop a water policy, a national water strategy and an IWRM plan. 

Central America has 120 major river basins, of which 23 (36 percent of the regional territory) are shared. In June 2010, GWP Central America and Zamorano International University, Honduras, organised a regional training workshop on how to apply economic and financial instruments such as tariffs, taxes and transfers in shared basins, some of which cross national borders.

In 2010 GWPCentral America approached the University of Panama to discuss putting water issues in the journalism curriculum.

GWP Central America and its partners participated in the First Central American Fair on Community Water Management, 19-24 March 2010, in San Jose, Costa Rica. The aim was to create interchange among the main actors dealing with community water management in the region.