Recently, the EncASa Oaxaca 2018 project has ended providing more than 1,100 households and 8 community centres with electricity, water, sanitation and cooking basic services in Oaxaca.

The project has brought access to the electricity to 1,000 households in 138 rural communities in this Mexican state where 18 ethnic groups live. Besides, 124 Oaxaca families have had access to drinking water, appropriate sanitation and improved cook stoves, as well as 5 schools, 2 municipal agencies and 1 health centre in 6 communities belonging to the Mixe, Chinanteca and Zapoteca ethnic groups in the Sierra Norte, Papaloapan and Istmo regions.

These services are provided in an affordable, reliable and sustainable way, because they are based on eco technologies being appropriate for rural remote locations.

The access to the electricity is provided with third generation solar home systems, which offer lighting and communication services, are easy both to use and to be installed by the users and are environmentally friendly.

The access to the rest of services is offered with a catalogue of solutions that the families chose according to their needs, habits, available infrastructure and weather in their communities.

These solutions make positive impacts on the activity, health economy and environment of the beneficiaries.

The water systems guarantee the availability and the reliability of the drinking water supply.
The dry sanitation systems improve the healthiness in the communities by reducing the risk of several infection diseases; in addition, in comparison with other traditional sanitation systems, they allow water saving. They also offer advantages for the local farming, such as the possibility of generating fertilizer or the reuse of grey water to irrigation.

The improved cook stoves with chimney give a cooking system that save firewood and that avoid smoke indoors.

The project offers adequate solutions to deliver basic services and it also empower the beneficiaries with the management and representation committees promoted in every community to involve in the initiative, as well as the specific training they take to install, use and maintain the systems by themselves. It also promotes the local entrepreneurship through the supply & service centres started in small shops existing in reference localities. They offer advice, repair and sale of equipment to the users.

The EncASa Oaxaca 2018 project has been carried out by the public-private partnership for development between the acciona.org Foundation, acciona.org Mexico (acciona.org a as a whole), the Government of the State of Oaxaca through SINFRA –its Infrastructure and Sustainable Territory Development Secretariat–, AECID –the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation– and AMEXCID –the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation–.

This partnership allows having the institutional, managerial, technical and economic resources that are necessary for a development intervention reaching the highest impact. It is a model of public policy that continues the one implemented, between 2013 and 2016, with the Luz en Casa Oaxaca programme, which brought access to the electricity to more than 7,500 remote rural households in the state of Oaxaca. EncASa Oaxaca extends that activity of electrification and expands the scope of services offered by adding water, sanitation and cooking for households in rural communities.

In this way, it is highlighting that EncASa Oaxaca 2018 was the winner in the “Developing Country Cooperation” category of the Spanish section of the European Business Awards for the Environment. It was recognized as “an example of partnership to support remote, isolated rural communities in Mexico by providing water, sanitation and energy with an integral view of environmental sustainability and by guaranteeing the technological transfer”.

More information about EncASa Oaxaca 2018 at https://acciona.org/mexico/encasa-oaxaca/encasa-oaxaca-18/