According to recent studies, it has been verified that in Greater Buenos Aires there exists a strong correlation between the impoverished neighborhoods and those with poor infrastructure and greater difficulties accessing basic services such as; clean drinking water; sewers; gas networks and paved streets.

The project:

The services of providing running water and water purification in the second cord of Greater Buenos Aires are found in a state of severe deterioration. In absolute terms as well as in relative terms, the levels of coverage in Greater Buenos Aires are especially low. Though the poverty indexes have fallen drastically in all parts of the country following the significant increase experienced during the economic crisis of 2001-2001, to this day there are still numerous zones of extreme poverty that face high levels of sanitary risk.

Based on the success of pilot experiences performed recently in the Province of Buenos Aires, there exist sufficient reason to believe that the problem can be resolved with focus that lends greater attention and value to the resources that the neighbors are capable of generating, as well as supporting the capacity of community organization to guarantee the payment of the services.

Target Zone:
The neighborhood of Alem, composed of 750 homes and the focus of our project, is one of the five neighborhoods that has access to gas as a result of our gasification.

Project Objectives:

The current project has as its main objective to mitigate the diverse set of problems that confront the residents of the neighborhood Alem with regard to infrastructure and maintenance of the service of drinking water and sewers within the zone. It is expected that the project will facilitate the expansion of both services, improving significantly the quality of the sanitation services that are available to the 750 families of the neighborhood Alem, and consistently improving the quality of life of the residents, providing immense benefits in the short and long term health of this target population and the surrounding environment. At the same time, the project has as purpose to leave an installed capacity to self-negotiate in a sustainable way the existing network of water in order to propose new methodologies that will attract the necessary investments for the water purification network.

Our Plan:
We propose to carry out these objectives through an innovative system of the organization of the supply and demand that guarantees the sustainability of the project in the long term through the execution of the following components and main activities:

Components:
1. Community Organization;
2. Design a plan of inter-sector financing for the construction of the water purification network;
3. Training of the members of the Cooperative in questions of environmental sustainability;
4. The systematization of the organization process, measurement of impact and diffusion of the results

The Innovation:

The initiative is innovative in the sense that it aims to solve community problems with an integral focus, articulating the supply and demand in such a way as to guarantee the sustainability of the program in the long run. Traditionally, the projects of water and plumbing networks have paid little attention to the economic and social reality of the beneficiaries of the service and have not strengthened the community ties in the development process, and consequently in numerous cases the sustainability of the projects has remained compromised.

Another innovative aspect of the proposal lies in the feasibility study that was carried out in order to evaluate a source of complementary financing for the sewage processing plant that would be provided by Emissions Reduction Certificates. The possibility of generating electric and calorific energy through the bio-gas produced by the fermentation of the sewage waste plant is an important challenge not only as a source of financing but also for the positive effects that it would have on the environment.