Integrated Urban Water Management in Lima, Peru: Building capacity for treatment and reuse of wastewater for green spaces and urban agriculture

This paper presents an assessment of progress of SWITCH in Lima. It analyses the rationale of the intervention, main findings and lessons learnt and recommendations for the last phase of the programme in the city, as well as offering insights for other SWITCH cities and for similar initiatives elsewhere.

Lima started this project as a SWITCH research city, but the intervention logic and activities (which included a demonstration project) and the success of this demo and the organisation of a learning alliance (LA) on the use of treated wastewater for urban agriculture, made it a demonstration city, which was acknowledge by SWITCH in April 2008.

The assessment includes a revision of documents produced by the local team, interviews carried out with a sample of key stakeholders (partners and members of the learning alliances in the city) and an evaluation workshop held with members of the SWITCH Lima team.

The document provides an assessment of most of the activities and results within the project timeframe but was written before the conclusion of the SWITCH
project in January 2011 and full and final lessons can only be comprehended after it has been completed.