In 2019, the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (MARN) and the Guatemalan Secretariat for Planning and Programming of the Presidency (SEGEPLAN), with the support of GWP Central America, brought together stakeholders from national and county government agencies, development partners, NGOs, civil society, academia, and the private sector to define a series of strategic actions for advancing on IWRM in Guatemala. The objective was to develop strategic institutional and governance actions to advance in IWRM implementation to contribute to the fulfilment of the objectives of national development policies on water, including SDG 6 and other water-related sustainable development goals.
The Action Plan was revised in 2020 and 2021 to reflect legal and institutional changes and was updated and officially approved by the Vice-Ministry of Water in June 2023.
The following action was defined as part of that process and identified as a priority action to be included in an action plan. The purpose of this action is to promote the formation/strengthening of the Digital Unit attached to MARN with functions such as: a) Facilitate the adoption of technologies and the modernisation of data infrastructure among actors involved in IWRM, b) Promote the permanent exchange of data from/to/among state actors, private entities, academia, research centres and others, through the generation of protocols and computer standards for dedicated interfaces or other mechanisms; c) Advise and accredit trainers, developers, websites and information services according to defined standards in procedures and instruments for IWRM indicators, considering the degree of reliability and quality; d) Centralise and safeguard aggregate data, historical records, statistics and studies, providing access to decision-makers and users, by developing the appropriate platform for this purpose; e) Perform data analysis by generating and disseminating periodic integrated reports.. This is in support of the National Information System on Water Resources.
