Water Supply and Sanitation in Peru - History and Recent Developments

History and Recent Developments

The institutional framework for the water and sanitation sector has undergone many successive changes, including some reforms that were never implemented and some that considerably changed the responsibilities in the sector. Two reforms that had a lasting impact were the transfer of the responsibility for water supply and sanitation from municipalities to the national government in the late 1960s and the creation of a national water holding company in 1981 consisting of utilities in the large cities. In 1990, the government gave service responsibility in urban areas back to the municipalities. The new government of Fujimori introduced a policy of promoting the private sector and of commercializing the municipal utilities. In 1994 an autonomous regulatory agency was created at the national level. In the meantime the program to promote the private sector stalled: Only in 2005 the first and so far only water concession in Peru was awarded in the city of Tumbes. In 2006, a new government launched a massive investment program called Agua Para Todos (Water for All).