of urban service provision is low, with estimated non-revenue water of more than 55% in managua. enacal has taken recent steps to improve efficiency, however and labor productivity has increased from 7.5 employees per 1000 water connections in 2006 to 7.04 in 2007. in 2007 operating and administrative costs decreased by 10%. enacal has accomplished these improvements by cutting back on energy usage, increasing billed revenue to 11.6% as of april 2008 through improving their commercial database, expanding metering, and identifying customers who were not previously billed. despite these improvements, enacal currently has a debt of 436 million córdobas (us$24 million) which is continuously growing as their expenses exceed their earnings by c$31.8 million (us$1.7 million) per month. financial aspects tariffs and cost recovery only 59% of operating costs of enacal were recovered through tariff revenues as of 2012. there are many illegal connections that are not billed and many billed customers do not pay their water bills. for the utility, electricity costs for pumping are a major cost item. the government subsidizes operating costs at the tune of about 35 million euro per year, out of operating costs equivalent to 85 million euro (2.57 billion cordoba). urban water and sewer tariffs charged by enacal have last been increased in 2008. there used to be substantial increases between 1998 and 2001, with annual increases of 28, 27 and 12% in 1998, 1999 and 2000 respectively. such high and sustained increases were unusual in the region. while these increases allowed the public utility to regain its financial health, in 2001 they led to protests and legal action against a proposed further 30% tariff increase. afterwards tariffs have been frozen, eroding again the financial health of the utility. this led to its near bankruptcy and required the national government to make transfers of an average of us$20 million per year to compensate net losses as of 2005. in february 2008 a water tariff increase was approved to cover the rise in inflation between 2002 and 2006. this increase is to be applied gradually beginning in may 2008, with an average increase of about 16%. future increases will be approved by inaa. enacal tariffs are complex and ostensibly aim at protecting the poor. tariffs vary depending on the city (although prices are lower in managua than in the rest of the country most likely because the cost of delivery is also lower), user category (three residential user categories and "institutions", the latter paying the highest tariffs; within the residential user categories the ratio between lowest and highest tariffs is 1:3) and consumption (higher tariffs for consumption above 20, 30 and 50 cubic meters per month respectively). the poorest who have no access to water and sewerage or are served by rural water committees are by definition excluded from these subsidies. it has been estimated that an average household in the two lowest income quintiles in the interior of the country that receives water services from enacal paid the equivalent of us$6.50 per month in 2003, which corresponds to about 7% of its income estimated at us$93 per month. while this share is very high, the bill is probably lower than the economic cost of time spent carrying the water and the burden of disease from unsafe water. in july 2007 there was a modification in sewerage tariffs for the city of managua which allows sewage treatment costs to be partially covered. this change will be applied as soon as the sewage treatment plant becomes operational, which is expected to occur by the end of 2008. investment and financing nicaraguan investment per capita in water supply and sanitation from 1991 to 2006 in constant us dollars of 2006. the government plans to invest 2 billion usd in the water and sanitation sector between 2013 and 2030 as part of its program vida - programa integral sectorial de agua y saneamiento humano de nicaragua, which was elaborated as a draft in 2012. the first phase includes about usd 350 million for 2013 to 2017, or about usd 70 million per year. this would constitute a significant increase compared to previous years. according to the nicaraguan unidad pública de inversiones or public investment unit, investments in water and sanitation from 1991-2006 were us$351 million or on average usd 22 million per year. this corresponds to 0.49% of gdp or us$4.5/capita/year. within that period investment levels increased substantially in 1997. after ranging between us$0.7 and us$1.1 per capita from 1991 to 1996, it went up to us$4.7 to us$9.4 from 1997 to 2006. all in all, the average investment level per capita and year from 1997 to 2003 is higher than in its neighboring countries costa rica and honduras, but lower than in south american countries like argentina, peru and colombia. investments are almost entirely financed by foreign donors and the government passes foreign credits on as grants to enacal and to water committees in rural areas. between 2002 and 2007 enacal invested us$162 million in the sector, of which 2% was self-financed by the utility, 5% was financed by the national government with its own resources, and the remaining 93% came from external grants and loans. there are no data on investments by ngos, which provide funds mainly for infrastructure in rural areas. ico has approved a $5 million loan to support the building of a sanitary sewerage and wastewater treatment system in telica, nicaragua. the initiative is funded by an agreement between ico and the central american bank for economic integration (cabei), which also funds other comparable projects in central america. the newly built network will be 17 kilometers long, treat 830 m3 of water each day, and serve around 11 000 people. it will save an estimated half-tonne of microplastics from entering the water each year. external support the main donors in the water and sanitation sector in nicaragua are the spanish development cooperation (aecid) which supports the sector program vida, the inter-american development bank (idb) that implements the spanish water fund fecasalc, the world bank with its program to reduce water losses in managua (prasma), a rural program called prasnica, a project for adaptation to climate change, germany through giz and kfw, as well as the swiss development cooperation (cosude) in rural areas. the united nations children's fund (unicef), the canadian international development agency (cida), the nordic fund, the japan international cooperation agency and other donors also support the sector. numerous ngos are engaged in the water and sanitation sector in nicaragua, including care, save the children, plan international, health without limits, water for life, living water international, blueenergy, christian medical action and engineers without borders. donor coordination the various donors that support the nicaraguan government in its efforts to improve water supply and sanitation coordinate in a sector table and have subscribed in 2005 to a sector-wide approach (swap) to even better coordinate their efforts. however, the sector table is not very active and the vida program of spain and the idb is now a main vehicle for the dialogue with the government on sector policies. interamerican development bank the idb supports many projects in the sector, in both urban and rural areas: the municipal social investment program is a us$50 million multi-sector project approved in 2005 and implemented by fise. kfw provides an additional us$10 million and the opec international fund us$4 million of co-financing for the project. the potable water and sanitation investment program is a us$30.6 million project, with a potential for co-financing from seco/swiss for us$9 million, and was approved in 2006. the project supports loan 1049/sf and aims to improve the technical, operational, commercial and financial management of enacal.the project is expected to be completed in 2011. the modernization of the management of water and sewerage services program was originally approved in 1999 to support reforms in the sector surrounding privatization and a service contract was given to an international operator contractor. the us$13.9 million project, with a co-financing of us$5 million from opec, has been restructured as of 2006 and enacal is now the sole contractor. the project is expected to be completed in 2010. the institutional support to the coordination and strategy secretariat includes a us$1.38 million pre-investment study with enacal to design studies for potable water and sanitation projects within managua. the studies are expected to be completed by the end of 2008. the implementation sanitation measures managua lake and the lake and city of managua environment improvement projects bring together co-financing from the idb (us$30 million), kfw (us$28 million), and the nordic fund (us$10 million), with the government of nicaragua contributing us$10 million, for a waste water treatment plant in the city of managua. the project is expected to be completed by december 2008. world bank the nicaragua rural water supply and sanitation project is a combination credit (us$0.3 million) and grant (us$19.7 million) which was approved in june, 2008. the project, which will be implemented by fise, aims to increase access to sustainable water supply and sanitation services in the rural areas of the country.