Water

Tools for Designing and Implementing Green Infrastructure for the Latin American Water Sector; an update on Course Edition V.

Global, Training Course

Forest Trends, the Latin American Association of Water Regulators (ADERASA), and EcoDecision are pleased to announce a training series on the practical application of green infrastructure for water utilities and regulators in Latin America. Water professionals and their allies working on green infrastructure projects and policies in Latin America are cordially invited to register for the training.

Water users, governments, and businesses worldwide are increasingly recognizing the importance of “green infrastructure” — the ecosystems that capture, filter, regulate, and deliver water– to complement gray infrastructure in addressing today’s water challenges. In Latin America, this recognition has inspired the development of dozens of water funds and other programs to fund conservation. Additionally, leaders from the water sector in Latin America are transforming paradigms of water resource management to explicitly include a role for the water utility in the conservation and management of the watersheds that provide their water supply. Groundbreaking policies and financial commitments from Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and elsewhere have demonstrated significant leadership and commitment in the region to scale up investment in green infrastructure by the water sector.

In light of this opportunity and remarkable leadership, in 2015, Forest Trends partnered with ADERASA, the Latin American Association of Water Regulators, to expand and strengthen the work of its Green Infrastructure Working Group. This training is a continuation of that partnership and will aim to build the capacity of Latin American water professionals to unblock the bottlenecks to scaled and effective green infrastructure in their own countries, facilitate exchange between water professionals and experts working on green infrastructure in the region, and generate specific roadmaps and needs assessments for implementing green infrastructure in partnership with the Latin American water sector.

The training will cover the design of green infrastructure for achieving hydrological objectives, legal and institutional frameworks for green infrastructure investments; evaluating the cost-effectiveness of green infrastructure, and designing financing mechanisms for funding good green infrastructure projects. The online portion of the training will take place from May 23 – July 31, 2016; selected participants will be invited to join a final portion of the training in Quito, Ecuador in September 2016.

The training will be presented in Spanish and is coordinated by Forest Trends’ partner organization, EcoDecision. The financial support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation has made this training possible, as well as Forest Trends’ broader collaboration with the ADERASA Green Infrastructure Working Group.

An update on the 5th Edition of this course!

The fifth edition of the course Tools for the design and implementation of natural infrastructure in Latin America started on Sept 9 with our 77 participants coming from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.

The majority of our participants come from water regulators in the region: ADASA – Brazil, SUNASS – Peru, SISS – Chile, CRA – Colombia, and AERESEP – Costa Rica. Some participants have even come from NGOs that have fieldwork in water issues in their countries!

Students have been eager to learn about natural infrastructure and ways to promote investments in their watersheds. So far, they have finished the first two modules: an introduction to NI and hydrological analysis. This week we started the third module: an economic analysis.

For more information visit aulavirtual.ecodecision.com.ec