Following FCAS experiences in this area, the Fund’s portfolio in Panama has been especially oriented towards rural and indigenous areas of the country, which has an indigenous population of 12.4% of its national population. Although Panama has not ratified Convention 169, it has regulations for collective rights over indigenous lands and territories with high levels of autonomy and has generated valuable specific documents for intervention in supply and sanitation with indigenous peoples, communities that have been the focus of the portfolio being implemented in the country.
It has been very fruitful to complement the approach already developed by the FCAS partner, the Ministry of Health, through the Directorate of the Subsector for Drinking Water and Sanitary Sewerage (DISAPAS), in terms of working with indigenous communities, with the systematic incorporation of the gender perspective, a hallmark of Spanish Cooperation, both in the programmes it is developing and within the institution itself.
The need for gender mainstreaming in DISAPAS and its work guidelines to guarantee the sustainability of the results of its interventions in the communities responds to the results of the “Diagnosis of gender relations in the communities and regions benefiting from the Water and Sanitation Programme in rural and indigenous areas with emphasis on local bilateral management “1 . This document provides the basis for the gender plan, elaborated as a form of action for the bilateral programme implemented in the Ngäbe-Büglé comarca, and the hiring of a gender specialist for the incorporation of a gender perspective and gender equity.
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From the work experience in Panama, it can be concluded, once again, that when efforts and resources are devoted to understanding the needs of communities according to the confluence of the distinctive traits of the people who make them up, good results are obtained.
The processes developed in the Panama programme have also made it possible to corroborate how crucial it is for the better management of actions and their subsequent sustainability that the communities’ population identifies with the solutions adopted, in a process that is participatory and involves collective construction in line with their indigenous worldview.
From the work performed with community organisations, it is confirmed that the generation and strengthening of capacities and local associative mechanisms and organisational and institutional collaboration not only result in the appropriation of results and their sustainability, but are also catalysts for the demand for the protection and guarantee of other rights before the corresponding duty bearers.
