Education and Research for Integrated Water Resources Management in Peru

Although Peru is a water-rich country, mountain ranges separate the country’s in-land Amazonian water supply from the people and economic activity on the coast. Increasing population growth, climate change, and a legacy of unregulated mining activity and water use contribute to a growing urgency for a coordinated national strategy to manage this precious resource. The Peruvian government has begun to invest in and request assistance with integrated resource management.

• In partnership with the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP), CIRDI developed a certificate program in IWRM that was included in a new Diploma in Water and Mining program at PUCP (began in March 2017).
• In October 2016, CIRDI in partnership with Peruvian partners brought together 200 participants from industry, government, and civil society to support citizen participation in environmental monitoring in Peru’s mining regions. Sixty-eight of the participants were men and women representing 22 committees from seven different regions in Peru. The project documented and provided public access to open‐source resources on participatory environmental monitoring groups, including a baseline that captures the presence and scope of existing monitoring groups.
• Over 180 participants from government, industry, academia, NGOs, and civil society gathered in Lima, Peru on February 16 & 17, 2017 to discuss gender issues in mining with an emphasis on the use of water resources. The conference aimed to raise awareness of the challenges and impacts of mining on the lives of women, and to identify ways to increase local capacity, welfare, and economic benefits for women.
• In August 2018, the Peruvian National Water Authority (ANA) created the Academic Roundtable on Water (resolution # 237-2018) in which ANA, 18 Peruvian universities, and CIRDI are members. This came as a result of the educational programs and continuous collaboration between CIRDI’s team, project partners, ANA, and several Peruvian universities. ANA and the universities acknowledged that CIRDI’s team has helped to create “an important collaborative space to advance integrated water resources management in Peru”. In addition, on February 5, 2018, ANA created the Technical Unit for Dams, attached to the Water Resources Planning and Development Directorate of ANA. The creation of this unit is key for the future and security of water management in Peru.
• In late September 2018, the project team published an academic paper in the peer-reviewed, open-access journal, Water. The title of the paper is, “What Participation? Distinguishing Water Monitoring Programs in Mining Regions Based on Community Participation.”
• In October 2018, more than 40 participants from 13 countries gathered in Panama to share their perspectives and experiences at the Regional Workshop on Participatory Environmental Governance for Sustainable Natural Resources Management in Latin America, with a focus on Participatory Environmental Monitoring Committees (PEMCs). The Panama Workshop brought together the PEMC representatives from four countries included in a Regional Study on PEMCs (Argentina, Bolivia, Panama, and Peru) as well as NGO experts and UNDP officials from the Latin American region. The workshop served as a space for collaboratively developing ideas to improve PEMCs and to validate the results of the 9 cases studied. The report entitled “Participatory Environmental Monitoring Committees in Mining Contexts: Lessons from Nine Case Studies in Four Latin American Countries” presents the results of simultaneous investigations conducted in Argentina, Bolivia, Panama, and Peru.
• The Cerro Verde case study of the Cerro Verde mine’s development of a wastewater treatment plant in Arequipa, Peru was developed to illustrate how a collaborative approach can create an innovative solution to a business need, a community issue, and an environmental challenge – and ultimately how mining can contribute to sustainable development.
• CIRDI supported the UBC’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs in implementing the Global Policy Project: a Capstone Project that was developed by five students from the Master of Public Policy and Global Affairs Program. This work, in addition to developing students’ capacity, resulted in specific policy recommendations to support ANA and its mandate.