BACKGROUND
	PROJECT OBJECTIVES
	CURRENT STATUS

Water is the most critical natural resource in Honduras, and poor water resources management has resulted in major social, economic, and environmental problems. Honduras suffers from inadequate supplies and quality of drinking water, inefficient irrigation practices in high value agriculture, sub-optimal generation of energy, sewage related health problems, flood damage and losses, and degradation of important marine and freshwater ecosystems. Improved management to increase sustainable access to water is thus expected to result in notable improvements in human health, economic growth, ecological integrity, and overall quality of life.

USAID/Honduras has concluded that a holistic approach towards water resources management can best address these problems by balancing complex tradeoffs among water use sectors, and fostering management solutions that improve economic growth while ensuring maximum benefit to human beings and guaranteeing the health of ecosystems. USAID also considers that an integrated approach provides many opportunities to take advantage of programmatic intersections and possible areas of additional synergy across its current portfolio.

The first phase of activity focused on two river basins comprised of the land area, freshwater aquatic and coastal/estuarine environments that are located in the entire drainage area of the Choluteca and Rio Negro rivers of southern Honduras. The activity included mutually supporting activity at three spatial scales: local/within municipalities; inter-municipal or basin; and, to a limited degree, national.