Mexico City, March, 2018 – A 2030 WRG delegation recently traveled to Mexico to meet with the World Bank Group country team in Mexico, and other relevant stakeholders. The delegation included new 2030 WRG Program Manager, Karin Krchnak, 2030WRG Mexico Representative, Roman Gomez Gonzalez Cosio, and 2030 WRG LAC Regional Head, Cesar Fernando Fonseca Sarmiento.

The meetings included discussions with the World Bank team in Mexico to align our strategy, coordinate and foster synergies with stakeholders and partners, as well as meeting with IFC counterparts to discuss joint efforts to develop PPPs in the agri-water sector. The study on PPPs for Agri-water was also the focus of the team’s meeting with CONAGUA.

The team also met with Jesus Reyes Heroles, President of Consejo Consultivo del Agua (CCA), a multi-stakeholder water advisory council, to discuss the CCA working groups that 2030 WRG is supporting.

This includes the Green Infrastructure Solutions Initiative, focused on developing the business case for green infrastructure solutions and identifying barriers and opportunities for implementation. The Initiative plans to organize a best practice exchange workshop in mid-2018. Representatives of the working group on Water Security and Legal Certainty Risks Integration in the Industrial Sector discussed the value of water security and legal certainty risks integration. The team also met with private sector stakeholders to discuss potential areas of collaboration in the area of strengthening water governance systems.

Another area of focus has been concern regarding increasing groundwater overexploitation and pollution in the region of Toluca. 2030 WRG has been working with CONAGUA, CEVAT and the Rio Lerma Commission to reestablish and then strengthen this multi-stakeholder groundwater management committee and to support sustainable groundwater management.  The Toluca Metropolitan region is also severely polluted and 2030 WRG has identified the opportunity to incorporate integrated wastewater management. 2030 WRG will align its efforts with existing initiatives in Water Resilience and Integrated Urban Water Resources in the Greater Metropolitan Area of Toluca, and will seek to coordinate also with World Bank Water GP and IFC in particular to develop synergies in groundwater management, resilience and integrated wastewater management.