COLOMBIA: Support for the regional water market structuring in municipality clusters in Colombia

The government of Colombia asked PPIAF for technical assistance to support the design and implementation of a regionalization plan for the water services with a possible pilot in La Guajira and general guidelines for regionalization that can be used for developing plans for the rest of the country. A diagnosis was developed to initiate a possible regionalization of operators for the municipalities of Cundinamarca, Colombia. In addition to this, guidelines were made with the steps required to regionalize operators in the country. These guidelines are currently being used by the Ministry of Housing, City and Territory.
The main activities and results of this technical assistance were:
• Analysis of existing legal instruments for the regionalization of the water and sanitation services at the national level.
• Financial model for the analysis of service providers.
• Analysis of the technical, legal, institutional, and financial viability for the regionalization of WSS services in the North of La Guajira.
• Development of guidelines for the regionalization of WSS services in Colombia.
A complete analysis for the municipality of La Guajira was carried out, and it was found that from a technical, financial, and legal point of view, the regionalization of these municipalities is viable. Although there would be an opportunity to improve to give the regionalization an atmosphere, from the institutional point of view, the political will was not favorable, and as a result, it was not possible to continue the implementation of the plan in the selected area. The government of Colombia asked the World Bank for the possibility of structuring a plan for the municipalities of Cundinamarca, which is the department where Bogotá (The Capital City) is located. So far, a diagnosis of the current situation in these municipalities has been made, and it is expected to continue the support to provide better assistance with a view to a RAS. The government of Bogota has brought forward a draft law to be approved that would sanction the use of the regionalization scheme as per the World Bank's recommendations under this activity.