WT interviews Kelly Acuña from WIN

We present an interview between the Water Transparency Foundation and Kelly Acuña, coordinator of the programs for Latin America at WIN (Water Integrity Network). In this meeting, we will delve into the crucial role of transparency in water management, the specific challenges faced by Latin America, and how WIN addresses these issues under Acuña's leadership. An enlightening dialogue on the future of water and integrity in the region.

Kelly Acuña is the Regional Coordinator for Latin America and works with regulators. She is responsible for implementing water integrity management programs in Mexico. Along with partners, donors, and public sector entities, she also advocates for water integrity in the Latin American region. She is an economist with a master's degree in Public Policy and Economics. She has several years of professional experience in regulating the provision of water and sanitation services, promoting efficiency, innovation, sustainability, and good governance.

Could you tell us about specific initiatives or strategies that you use at WIN to address water management, transparency, and integrity in this sector?

At WIN, we specifically promote integrity in the water sector. We define integrity in the water sector as the ethical and honest use of powers and resources entrusted to us for the provision of water and sanitation services in the interest of the general public. This gives us a framework to talk about integrity because these concepts are already defined in human rights obligations or even in the legislation of many countries, such as in Mexico's fourth constitutional article.

For us, integrity is practiced through four principles, which are the TAPA principles in English, Transparency, Accountability, Participation, and Anti-corruption measures. So, what WIN does is advocacy work for integrity management through the use of these four principles. Regarding transparency, of course, we work with you (Water Transparency), but the four principles are closely related. It's about opening information and making information accessible to the public. And not just opening information but allowing it to be understood, to be used. And used for what? To participate. To participate in decisions, to participate in discussions around the sustainable management of Water services.

And then, when you participate and are active in the water sector, what it allows is for institutions, responsible for the water sector, to have to be accountable because you are there, you are informed and asking what is happening and how it is happening. This creates barriers to prevent acts of corruption, which is the last of these four components of integrity.

How does WIN work?

WIN (Water Integrity Network) is a network for water integrity that works on global advocacy for integrity but with local experiences. WIN is a small organization based in Germany. We are 12 people on the WIN staff, but what we do is network work with local actors. WIN works with more than 65 partners in more than 15 countries and through this network, we generate initiatives or participate in integrity initiatives that we believe ultimately benefit more than 10,000,000 people. Specifically, WIN focuses on or has 3 focus countries in the global south. In Bangladesh since 2012, Kenya even before Bangladesh, and now Mexico since 2019. Specifically in Mexico, we have four partners: Controla tu Gobierno and Cántaro Azul, which are civil society organizations; UNAM's water network, and now, the Water Transparency Foundation.

What are the particular challenges you work on or have seen that need to be addressed?

In 2023 we built a strategy to catalyze a culture of integrity in the water sector in Mexico from 2023 to 2026, based on networking with these four partners and potential future allies: generating information, participating in the water sector with a gender focus, the need for training in integrity, the need to give a regional focus to the work they do in Mexico, so it does not stay distant in all cities, but a networked effort is made. The participation of traditionally excluded actors in the decision-making of the water sector, such as rural communities and there also community water management, as well as the nexus, water – climate – integrity.

Of all these areas of opportunity for change that we defined for Mexico, we stay or prioritize four, which are where we see there are more barriers, but also more opportunities to improve integrity management in Mexico.

Promote solid alliances between organizations to promote integrity on transparency and participation in anti-corruption issues in the water sector in Mexico, advocating for the human right to sanitation.

Implement methodologies and tools adapted by service companies and civil organizations to manage integrity internally and generate a more integral water sector.

Prioritize a gender focus in integrity management, encouraging the active participation of women in the sector and ensuring they benefit from it, especially in vulnerable communities.

Promote research and data generation on integrity to develop resilient communities in the face of climate change, identifying the specific challenges in Mexico and working on solutions from water management.

How do you measure improvement in transparency and integrity and social responsibility?

This is a difficult question because measuring changes that are intangible, like the culture of integrity, is difficult. So, there are two options, we can focus on measuring specific actions we take to improve integrity, or measure precisely the results of those actions that we promote from the network.

Recently we are doing strong work around thinking about how to measure those changes in integrity. We have metrics focused on specific actions. What is known as outputs. But we are also increasingly developing ways to measure the results. We think about what results from those integrity actions that we try to manage and implement in the territory? We relate this to case studies because that's where

 we can see the sensitivity of changes in these processes. So, often we make interventions and after a while, we have to measure the impact, because profound changes require more time. We measure them through interviews or testimonials on how people who have been involved in the processes perceive these changes. Above all, how did their community benefit from this change? Because in the end, the communities that live that process are the most important and are the ones we want to benefit.

We say that integrity is not an ultimate goal, but it is a tool. So our intention is that integrity allows the human right to water, and sanitation to be guaranteed.

Lastly, I think it is a sector that is just coming to light. What does the network expect that in the future will happen or how from our current actions do we see as improving the current context in issues of integrity, transparency, and intermittency in the water sector?

We would like WIN to contribute to the water sector in Mexico, to an active citizenship through the use of information, a citizenship that demands its rights and makes decision-makers account for the decisions they make in the water sector. That would generate barriers to prevent acts of corruption. So what we want in the end is for each person who has some kind of power in the sector, to use that power and those resources in an ethical and honest way. And we believe that this can only happen if there is an active citizenship that demands its rights in the water sector.