Project implementation:

Lead: Agua Sustentable | Partners: Mujeres Unidas para la Defensa del Agua (MUDA) 

About the project

The project strengthens the leadership of Aymara Indigenous women from Lake Titicaca and relevant sub-basins through a TDPS Water Copilot, an offline-first Progressive Web Application (PWA) designed for rural contexts. The tool enables women leaders to:

  1. navigate simplified legal content on water, the environment, and FPIC;
  2. automatically generate official documents (requests, statements, and minutes) addressed to ALT and municipalities using templates and guided forms; and
  3. record community evidence (audio, photos, and GPS location) under a chain-of-custody protocol.

Over 6 months, the tool is co-designed and piloted with 20–30 women leaders, 6 community paralegals receive certification, 3–4 evidence packages are consolidated, and a Dialogue Roundtable is held with verifiable commitments.

The intervention—focused on Lake Titicaca and its relevant sub-basins—improves water governance through practical and cost-efficient solutions aligned with BRIDGE and IUCN’s Environmental and Social Management System (ESMS). These results will have a direct impact on water governance in the Lake Titicaca basin by strengthening informed participation and the advocacy capacity of Indigenous women. The trained leaders and certified paralegals will expand women’s presence in decision-making spaces, while the evidence packages will generate verifiable information that will allow ALT and municipalities to make better-informed decisions on socio-environmental issues. The Dialogue Roundtable will consolidate concrete institutional commitments, contributing to more inclusive, transparent, and sustainable water management in the relevant Titicaca sub-basins.

Key objectives

  1. Implement the TDPS Water Copilot, a lightweight AI tool that enables Indigenous women to exercise their environmental, territorial, and participation rights, including guidance on FPIC and local administrative procedures.

  2. Strengthen community-based legal capacities through the use of the Water Copilot so participants understand and exercise their rights and can use AI as practical support in the defense of water and territory.

  3. Promote a community monitoring network that integrates legal training and AI use to generate verifiable evidence (photo/audio/GPS) in environmental cases in relevant sub-basins of the Titicaca region.

  4. Advance advocacy processes through Dialogue Roundtables that allow Indigenous women to participate in an informed manner, using the evidence generated with AI support and their legal learning to negotiate commitments with ALT and municipalities.

COUNTRY

Bolivia–Perú

BASIN

Lake Titicaca and relevant sub-basins

GOAL

Strengthen the leadership of Indigenous women in water governance and the defense of environmental rights, water rights, territorial rights, Indigenous peoples’ rights (including FPIC), and women’s rights to full and effective participation in water governance.

This project is part of the BRIDGE (Building River Dialogue and Governance) initiative grants: Gender Mainstreaming Grants / Women Leadership Grants. The BRIDGE Grants aim to address barriers to gender equality and women’s empowerment in transboundary water governance. The grants support practical actions to strengthen inclusive institutions and promote women-led solutions for managing and restoring freshwater ecosystems. BRIDGE is made possible through the Water Diplomacy Programme of the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC).