Nicaragua

The purpose of this programme is to move towards a more efficient and sustainable management model in line with the guidelines of ENACAL’s Strategic Plan for Institutional Development. The total amount of this project is approximately $20 million, of which the EU is contributing €10 million through the LAIF programme and the IDB is providing the remaining amount through a loan (another $10 million).

The project within the scope of the Contribution Agreement is implemented by the Nicaraguan Water and Sewerage Company (ENACAL) and is part of the Plan for the Reduction of Non-Revenue Water (NRW) in Managua. It is being developed in one of the four delegations into which the operation of the drinking water system in this city is divided, known as the Altamira Delegation, with the objective of establishing a new sectorised, decentralised and efficient management model that can be extended in the future to all the other delegations of Managua. The project is managed by ENACAL’s Project and Investment Management, in coordination with the Altamira Delegation.

The first phase of the project, until mid-2022, was devoted to resolving the awarding of the two major engineering contracts to carry out the construction improvements to the Altamira drinking water system and its hydraulic modelling. With the approval of the hydraulic model, the construction phase began and will continue throughout 2024, with completion scheduled for the first quarter of 2025.

Nicaragua’s Comprehensive Sectoral Programme for Water and Human Sanitation (PISASH) has been a major multi-stakeholder initiative that has contributed to overcoming the sector’s structural problems and historical deficiencies, enabling the expansion of drinking water, sanitary sewerage and wastewater treatment services in 19 cities, as well as improving capacities for the operation, maintenance and integrated management of water resources. The great transformation achieved by the PISASH has been possible thanks to the joint efforts of different agencies, the origin of which is an initiative of the Water Fund which, between 2009 and 2019, allocated a total of €60 million (divided into three programmes: NIC-013-B -which was completed in July 2024-; NIC-014-B and NIC-056-M).

During the preparation of these interventions, the need to implement a long-term impact action was identified and in 2012, the European Union joined the initiative with a grant of €50 million promoted through its LAIF initiative, and implemented through the AECID.

These resources were later joined by the Spain-Nicaragua debt conversion programme (3.79 million), the Nicaraguan government (7.44 million) and other smaller financiers (1.17 million). Finally, the budget added new resources from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Government of Nicaragua and the German Cooperation (GIZ), for a final total budget of €320.9 million.

Overall, the programme has benefited a total of 575,556 people. Almost all of them have improved their drinking water service and 243,858 have improved their sanitation service; in addition, the cities now have facilities that have been designed with population growth for the next four decades in mind.