Foreword

Water Governance in Peru adds to the rich compendium of country, region, city or thematic reviews published as part of the OECD Studies on Water over the past 15 years. This report expands the global outreach of OECD’s work, adding to regional analyses of water governance in OECD countries (2011), Latin America and the Caribbean (2012), Asia-Pacific (2021) and African Cities (2021), as well as national water governance policy dialogues in Mexico (2013), The Netherlands (2014), Jordan (2015), Tunisia (2015), Brazil (2015 and 2017), Argentina (2019), and the metropolitan water governance policy dialogue in Cape Town, South Africa (2021).

In the past 30 years, access to basic health services has increased in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially for the 21% of the urban population living in slums, informal settlements or precarious housing. However, much remains to be done to achieve clean access to water and sanitation for all, and the COVID-19 pandemic has magnified pressing and emerging challenges including the lack of access to basic handwashing facilities in part of the territory. On the economic front, GDP in Latin America and the Caribbean region is projected to contract by 9.1%, while unemployment could reach 13.5% in 2021, with 37% of the LAC population expected to live below the poverty line. Peru is no exception to this regional context, but GDP is projected to return to pre-crisis levels in 2022 and aggregate growth in the recovery period will continue to be driven by water-intensive sectors, such as agriculture.

Over the past decade, Peru has significantly raised water security in its political agenda, but wider governance failures have jeopardised policy continuity and delivery. Recent political and social turmoil have had an impact on the effective implementation of public policies, including water and sanitation. This report can support forward-looking water policies, to achieve global commitments and tackle pressing megatrends, such as climate change.