The Dialogue on Water and Climate in the San Juan River Basin

The dialogue took place during the second half of 2002, when the ministries of environment of the governments of Costa Rica and Nicaragua initiated activities to identify and describe the government, community, and household coping strategies used to face the negative aspects of climate variability in the San Juan River Basin. The SJRB was chosen because of the experience of PROCUENCA-SAN JUAN project in the use of dialogues for the formulation and implementation of a strategic action program for this transboundary region. With the technical assistance of the OAS’ Unit for Sustainable Development and Environment, work was divided into three phases. The first task was to characterize the climate, climate variability and socio-economic situation of the basin. This was done in order to prioritize the areas and sectors of the basin and its institutions, which would then be investigated further in a field study. All of the cantons and 16 of the 37 municipalities (primarily around the lake) were chosen. Priority sectors were potable water, health, municipal governments, rural communities, agriculture and livestock producers, irrigation, and industry. Gender and migration were considered as crosscutting issues. The principal objective of the investigation was to identify community and institutional coping responses to threats posed to the water resource by climate variability. The last event was a bi-national workshop held to review and add to the findings of the field investigation. Nearly 70 individuals from municipalities, official institutions and NGOs working in the supply, storage, distribution, and use of water, health, disaster relief and preparedness, and civil defense; agriculture and livestock production, research and development and producer associations attended the two-day workshop. The results of these three events follow.