the local water committees with the local partner organization, "relaxation of system maintenance, financial instability of water committees, poor water quantity in the dry summer months, and contamination and deforestation at the source." the following other ngos are also very involved in the sector: engineers without borders lafayette college , plan de honduras, save the children, catholic relief services (crs), agua para el pueblo (eng. water for the people), world vision, care pasos 3 (project of sustainable water supply and sanitation), and proyecto aldea global (eng. global village project). economic efficiency water losses, or – more precisely – non-revenue water is estimated at 50% in the capital tegucigalpa and 43% in san pedro sula, well above an estimated efficient level. the water system in tegucigalpa has more than 9 employees per 1,000 connections, which is about three times as high as the estimated efficient level. financial aspects tariffs honduran investment per capita in water supply and sanitation from 1997 to 2006 in constant us dollars of 2006 the who estimates that average urban water tariffs in 2000 were only us$0.13 per cubic meter. a household in tegucigalpa with a house connection paid only us$2.45 per month for water and us$0.50 for sanitation. tariff increase approvals occur infrequently and are insufficient to compensate for inflation, thus resulting in an erosion of real tariff levels. tariffs in municipal systems tend to be even lower than tariffs for systems managed by sanaa, suggesting that tariff setting in municipalities is more prone to political capture in honduras than tariff setting at the national level. sanaa's sanitation tariff corresponds to 25% of the water tariff. investment according to the honduran ministry of finance, us$262 million were invested in the sector between 1997 and 2006, which is on average us$4 per capita and year. the annual investment mostly ranged from us$1.1 and us$4.6 per capita. in 2001 it was extremely high, reaching us$16.9. on the other hand, in 2006 it was at only us$0.2 per capita on average, the investment level is similar to costa rica and mexico, but lower than south american countries like argentina, peru and colombia. external financing the honduran water supply and sanitation sector receives significant support in terms of financing and technical assistance from a big variety of donors. most important donors are the world bank, the idb, usaid, the european union, german kfw and swiss sdc. some channel their support through the fhis (world bank, idb, kfw, usaid, cosude) and others through sanaa (usaid, european union). while all donors assist municipalities and their mancomunidades concerning decentralization, some implement small subprojects for the communities themselves (kfw) and others carry out subprojects of a certain size through construction companies (world bank) world bank the water and sanitation sector modernization project is a us$30m project approved in june 2007 and executed by the ministry of finance. the project supports implementing the plan estratégico de modernización del sector de agua y saneamiento or strategic water and sanitation sector modernization plan. the following municipalities are eligible for investment and technical assistance: choloma, choluteca, comayagua, danlí, el progreso, la ceiba, la lima, puerto cortés, siguatepeque and other smaller municipalities that decide to get together to create a joint public services utility. the rural infrastructure project is a us$47m project approved in 2005, of which us$10m will be used for water supply and sanitation investment in six honduran mancomunidades: cra in santa bárbara, chortí in copán, mancepaz in la paz, mamno in olancho, mambocaure in choluteca and guisayote in ocotepeque. the project is being executed by fhis. the barrio ciudad project is a us$16.5m project approved by the world bank and executed by fhis. it takes place in outlying areas of honduran middle sized towns, including comayagua, danlí, santa rosa de copán, el progreso and villanueva. the nuestras raices program was approved in 2004 with a high participatory approach and concentrates on increased participation by indigenous and afro-honduran groups. total project cost is us$16,7m. construction of water systems is one of the major foci of the program. water and sanitation program (wsp) world bank's wsp supports honduras through technical assistance and studies. for a summary of wsp publications about honduras visit the wsp website global partnership on output based aid (gpoba) the oba project is a us$4.6m project aimed at extending water supply and sanitation services to poor areas. it was approved in june 2006 and is being executed by fhis. an innovative mechanism called output based aid is used to provide services to 40,000 households in rural and peri-urban areas. resources are used for subsidies for investments to ameliorate service provision by both public and private service providers. interamerican development bank (idb) the water supply and sanitation investment program is financed by a us$30m loan approved in 2007 as supplemental financing of a former loan approved in 1999. the program supports technical assistance and civil construction works in middle sized municipalities that are reforming water supply and sanitation services. the project is executed by fhis. the support for the sector implementation of the poverty reduction strategy project is a us$0.75m project approved in 2004 and executed by the ministry of finance. the potable water and sanitation project is a us$0.65m project approved in 2004 and executed by ersaps. usaid since 1960, usaid has supported the honduran water supply and sanitation sector. since 1980, it is particularly active in rural areas. approximately us$56m were invested between 1980 and 2006. with these resources, 3,469 potable water systems were constructed or reconstructed in all honduran departments. the main honduran counterparts are sanaa and fhis’ directorate for major infrastructure (dim). many ngos, such as fundapat, save the children, plan de honduras, catholic relief services (crs), world vision, proyecto aldea global (eng. global village project) and water for people, also received usaid support. a series of special sanitary sewage projects was constructed by dim-fhis. potable water systems were built by the communities themselves contributing labor. they use material that is bought and supplied by sanaa, whose engineers also design the constructions. the works are supervised by staff of the ngos or sanaa. they also carry out sanitary education in communities and organize juntas. the técnicos de operación y de mantenimiento (tom) or operation and maintenance engineers and the técnicos de agua y saneamiento (tas) or water and sanitation engineers, who support the juntas are a key element in this intervention method. the model was developed with usaid's support and has been adopted by sanaa for other operations. the interventions also used and ameliorated the sistema de información de acueductos rurales (siar) or rural aqueducts information system, which is used since 1986. siar classifies potable water systems into four categories according to their operating level. the system is an important instrument for investment planning and monitoring service quality. it is still working and it recently received world bank support for actualization through the rural infrastructure project executed by fhis. programs supported by usaid significantly contributed to increase potable water coverage in rural areas from 21% in 1974 to 74% in 2001. between 1988 and 1999, 80% of coverage increase were due to usaid's support. european union the european union supports the honduran water supply and sanitation sector through various projects. the programa regional de reconstrucción para américa central (prrac) or regional central america reconstruction program was equipped with €250m at the regional level, whereof €119m were conferred to honduras. it is mainly aimed at constructing infrastructure in education, health and water supply and sanitation. the anticipated investment only for the water supply and sanitation sector is €64m. the project is about to end. the prrac agua assisted the rehabilitation of aqueducts, wells and basic sanitation at the honduran rural level at a cost of €26.3m. 34,419 latrines, 2,333 wells and 567 aqueducts were constructed, resulting in sanitary education and provision of 56,702 families and strengthening juntas in 1,364 rural communities in the departments of gracias a dios, colón, el paraíso, francisco morazán and valle. within the €11m prrac liquid and solid sanitation in middle sized towns framework, a modern sanitary landfill in talanga was constructed and sanitation systems as well as sewage plants were renovated or extended in six middle sized honduran towns: talanga, tocoa, catacamas, puerto lempira, paraíso and nacaome. in those towns, municipal water supply and sanitation structures were strengthened. the €26.7m project prrac san, which supports water supply and sanitation in the outskirts of tegucigalpa installed potable water systems in the northeast area of the honduran capital, providing 108.000 inhabitants. furthermore, blackwater sewers (hydrographic salt water basins with a capacity for 360,000 inhabitant's sewage) were installed in southeastern tegucigalpa, from which wastewater will be carried to a modern purifying plant, contributing to the purification of choluteca river. the european union also financed a project for local development and decentralization that directly provides municipalities with budget. germany germany is supporting the honduran water sector through a program for multi sector local development in rural areas which is called fhis-kfw vi and vii program. it is granted by the kreditanstalt für wiederaufbau (kfw) or reconstruction credit institute and executed by fhis. the project transfers financial resources directly to communities, enabling them to execute subprojects chosen by themselves under a method called proyecto de ejecución comunitara (pec) or community execution project, which is also used in projects financed by the world bank and usaid. the project takes place in the mancomunidades mancurisj en la cuenca del río san juan in the department of intibucá; colosuca and cafeg in the department of lempira; and río higuito in copán. switzerland the swiss agency for development and cooperation (sdc) supports the water and sanitation program in honduras which is currently in the 3rd phase (2004–2007). this phase has a budget of 3,382,000 swiss francs (approximately us$3.05m). the project attempts to ameliorate access to potable water and sanitation in the rural sector. it uses direct support activities, such as participation in political debates in the sector. the project tries to be successful using two strategies: supporting the sector's institutions from a poverty reducing perspective to implement the sector reform ameliorating access to potable water and sanitation honduran's poorest population through direct help. a decentralization model is used that makes local organizations to executers of their own projects, supported by a facilitator to strengthen their capacities and ameliorate the approval and sustainability of the projects. unicef unicef has helped sanaa for many years. it will help sanaa and various municipalities in elaborating municipal water plans.