Water supply and sanitation in El Salvador

Access to water supply and sanitation in El Salvador remains low, despite recent increases in coverage, which leads to negative impacts on productivity and health in particular of the rural poor. Water resources are heavily polluted and the great majority of wastewater is discharged without any treatment into the environment. Institutionally a single public institution is both de facto in charge of setting sector policy and of being the main service provider. Attempts at reforming and modernizing the sector through new laws have not borne fruit over the past ten years.

Access

Access to water and sanitation in El Salvador remains low by regional standards. Access to safe water stood at 84 percent in 2004 and access to adequate sanitation at 62 percent. Access is particularly low in rural areas, where about 36 percent of the population lives. It stands at 70% for safe water and 39 percent for adequate sanitation. (for water access data see [http://www.wssinfo.org/pdf/country/SLV_wat.pdf] and for sanitation access data see [http://www.wssinfo.org/pdf/country/SLV_san.pdf] )

"Source": Joint Monitoring Program WHO/UNICEF( [http://www.wssinfo.org/en/welcome.html JMP] /2006). Data for [http://www.wssinfo.org/pdf/country/SLV_wat.pdf water] and [http://www.wssinfo.org/pdf/country/SLV_san.pdf sanitation] based on"Inequality in Access, Use, and Expenditure in Water in Latin American and the Caribbean: Ecuador" ("Desigualdades en el acceso, uso y gasto con el agua potable en American Latina y el Caribe: El Salvador" [http://www.paho.org/Spanish/HDP/hdd/elsalvador.doc] " (PAHO, February 2001, based on [http://www.digestyc.gob.sv/Publicaciones/EHPM1998/inicio.htm EHPM 1998] ) as well as on the Household Survey of Multiple Purposes of the Ministry of Economics, Office of Statistics and Census ("Encuesta de hogares de propositos multiples" (1998) del Ministerio de Economia, [http://www.digestyc.gob.sv/ Direccion General de Estadistica y Censos] ".

Productivity and public health impact of lack of access to water supply and sanitation

The lack of access to water impacts not only the quality of life of the poor, but also productivity and health. According to a survey carried out in 2001 by the Salvadoran think tank FUSADES [http://www.fusades.com.sv/] the rural poor in particular spend a significant share of their productive time collecting water. Families without household access to water spent on average 8.5 percent of their productive time fetching water, while even those with household access spent 4.9 percent of their productive time fetching water. For the structural poor the values were much higher with 13.6 percent and 7.1 percent respectively.

A lack of access to water and sanitation in rural areas has a demonstrably adverse effect on infant mortality, child mortality and stunting. The infant mortality rate among households without a house connection is 40 per 1,000 births, compared to 30 for households with a connection. Similarly, the infant mortality rate among households without a toilet is 37, compared to 30 for households with toilets.

Service quality

Water supply in most localities served by ANDA is intermittent, varying from 16 hours per day in some areas to less than 4 hours per day or even once every four days, according to a Demographic and Health Survey (called FESAL by its Spanish acronym) carried out in 2002. [http://www.fesal.org.sv/] Most localities, however, seem to receive water at least once a day. The microbiological quality of water is insufficient.

Water resources and pollution

El Salvador's water resources are highly polluted, owing in part to the almost total absence of municipal wastewater treatment. In addition, the country suffers from water scarcity during the dry season and conflicts among users.

It is estimated that 90 percent of the surface water bodies are contaminated. Nearly all municipal wastewater (98 percent) and 90 percent of industrial wastewater is discharged to rivers and creeks without any treatment. The highest priority for pollution abatement is estimated to be in the basins of the Río Acelhuate and Río Sucio, an area that supplies a third of the water supply of the Metropolitan area of San Salvador.

Over the past 20 years the yield of a sample of springs declined by 30 percent due to deforestation. This has reduced water availability for the rural population, in some cases obliging them to rely on more expensive wells pumping from aquifers whose water table has declined by as much as 1 meter per year in some localities.

History and recent developments

There have been various efforts to reform the water sector and to create a new legal framework over the past 10 years. The most comprehensive effort was abandoned after the 2001 earthquakes when political and reform priorities shifted. That reform package would have included the setting of tariffs based on the goal of cost recovery, the creation of a regulator and the introduction of private sector participation. At this moment, the government is considering ageneral water law and a water and sanitation law. According to these two projects, ANDA will become another service provider.

Responsibility for water supply and sanitation

Service provision

Water supply and sanitation in El Salvador are the responsibility of a large number of diverse service providers.

ANDA

The dominant service provider is the Administración Nacional de Acueductos y Alcantarillados (ANDA), which provides services to 40 percent of the total population of El Salvador in 149 out of the country’s 262 municipalities, including the metropolitan area of San Salvador and the country's other two main cities, Santa Ana and San Miguel. As an umbrella institution ANDA defines policies, regulates and provides services. ANDA’s Board Chairman has the rank of a Minister and reports directly to the President of the Republic.

Other service providers

Other service providers include municipalities, decentralized service providers, housing developers and rural cooperatives. 83 mostly small municipalities provide services directly. More than 13 decentralized service providers have signed agreements under which ANDA has given them the right to manage their services autonomously. More than 100 housing developers have often built their own autonomous urban water systems because ANDA was unable to connect them. They now operate these systems themselves or have delegated service provision to user associations. In rural areas services are provided by more than 800 community-based organizations, including Juntas de Agua and cooperative development associations (Asociaciones de Desarrollo Comunitario). The latter serve about 30 percent of the population.

Non-governmental organizations

The Water and Sanitation Network of El Salvador (RASES) provides a forum for the exchange of experiences in the sector, in particular concerning rural areas.

Financial aspects

Tariffs and cost recovery

ANDA tariffs

ANDA tariffs average US$ 0.30/m3 and are below levels found in many other Latin American countries. Furthermore, ANDA tariffs are not socially equitable since the subsidies implicit in the low tariffs predominantly benefit the non-poor. First, users without access to the network, which are usually the poorest, do not receive the consumption subsidy. Second, users served by other providers than ANDA do not receive a subsidy for consumption. Third, among users that have ANDA service, the poor receive fewer subsidies than the non-poor as a consequence of the tariff structure. Tariffs are for both water and sewer services. As a result, there is a cross-subsidy from users without sewer connection to those with a sewer connection who are usually better off.

For political reasons, adjustments of ANDA water tariffs have been infrequent. During the last 12 years ANDA tariffs were only adjusted twice, in 1994 and 2001. The inflation-adjusted tariff, however, barely changed.

Tariffs by other service providers

Tariffs paid by water users in rural areas do recover financial operating costs, since no direct subsidies are available. They are often much higher than tariffs paid by ANDA customers. Some rural water users in pumped systems receive a subsidy through the Fondo de Inversión Nacional en Electricidad y Telefonía (FINET), which subsidizes electricity tariffs.

Cost recovery of ANDA

The current financial situation of service providers does not provide any more for self-financing of investments. ANDA's working ratio is close to 1, indicating that the company barely covers its operating and routine maintenance costs.

The reason for the reduced self-financing capacity is a significant increase in the unit costs of ANDA from US$0.21/m3 in 1994 to US$0.46/m3 in 2001, and US$0.63/m3 in 2004. The reason for the important increase of the unit cost in 2004 is not clear, but there is a possibility that the energy-intensive Río Lempa system began its operations.

In order to finance the investments needed to achieve higher coverage and better service quality, the self-financing capacity of ANDA would need to be restored. Once that has been achieved, commercial financing could be tapped.

Investment

Investment levels in water and sanitation in El Salvador stood at about US$20-40m/year from 1995-2001, but declined significantly to less than US$10m/year in 2003-04, compared to annual investment needs of US$50-100m to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Many of the poorest municipalities may soon see a marked expansion of service as the result of a government initiative in the 36 poorest communities entitled Red Solidaria and carried out by the Social Investment Fund (FISDL).

Financing

In 1990-2002, 63 percent of investments were financed through international loans and grants, 21 percent through self-financing by ANDA, 16 percent with government resources and 0 percent through commercial financing.

References

Further reading

World Bank: Recent Economic Developments in Infrastructure, 2006, Water and Sanitation Chapter, p. 172ff. [http://go.worldbank.org/MRZBPQRJP0 World Bank REDI] (This article is a summary drawn from various sections of that report)

Organización Mundial de Salud (OMS): Evaluación de los Servicios de Agua Potable y Saneamiento 2000 en las Américas [http://www.cepis.ops-oms.org/eswww/eva2000/salvador/informe.html El Salvador]

External links

*Official Website of the national water and sewer utility (in Spanish) [http://www.anda.gob.sv ANDA]
*ANDA Statistical Bulletin 2006, including data at the national level (in Spanish) [http://www.anda.gob.sv/2007/estadistica.asp]
*Water and Sanitation Network of El Salvador in Spanish [http://www.rrasca.org/salvador/index.html RASES]