News

Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. – The governor-elect of Chihuahua, Javier Corral Jurado, met with the management of the North American Development Bank (NADB) and Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC).

The meeting was led by NADB Managing Director Gerónimo Gutiérrez and BECC General Manager Maria Elena Giner. The meeting held in the offices of BECC served to review the projects that both institutions have supported and funded in the state of Chihuahua, those that are currently under development and those that could potentially move forward in the coming years.

During the meeting, Governor-elect Corral stated that this was “a very productive meeting because we are learning about all the opportunities for collaboration and work to promote an agenda committed to the environment and sustainable development and mainly because it puts the border at the top of the agenda, which is one of our priorities as governor.”

In Chihuahua, BECC has certified 33 environmental infrastructure projects, 30 of which have also received financing from NADB, mainly in the sectors of water, wastewater, waste management and air quality through roadway improvements. Altogether, these projects have received US$150 million in loans and grants for their implementation. Ciudad Juarez and the communities in the Juarez Valley have benefitted greatly from several wastewater projects, including the construction of five treatment plants that have increased treatment capacity to 100% of all collected wastewater.

“The purpose of the meeting was to review the status of all the projects that BECC and NADB have developed in Chihuahua and to identify areas where we will be working with the new administration in the future,” stated NADB Managing Director Gerónimo Gutiérrez. “In the water sector, we have agreed to work first on modernizing the water utilities and improving their energy efficiency, and secondly on renewable energy.”

Mr. Gutiérrez explained that in the energy sector, NADB is financing the first utility-scale solar energy project in Chihuahua, and the idea is to expand this area to take advantage of the state’s solar potential.

For her part, BECC General Manager María Elena Giner indicated that this “was a great meeting with Governor-elect Corral. We were able to identify opportunities for collaboration with Chihuahua, which is of special interest to BECC as we are headquartered here in Ciudad Juarez and have a long and close relationship with the state of Chihuahua. She added that “we have a great deal of experience that we can share on issues related to water, energy, waste and transportation.”

A follow-up meeting was scheduled for next week in the state capital with those responsible for infrastructure, urban development and environment to explore the following areas of collaboration that are of interest to the Governor-elect:

1.- Opportunities to help modernize water systems in Juarez and Chihuahua and arrange energy audits to identify possible improvement projects for local utilities.

2.- In the energy sector, review the State Climate Change Action Plan (SCAP) developed with the support of the institutions and identify possible renewable energy projects in the pipeline that could supply energy to the state government, state water utilities, and universities, among others.

3.- Promote the green infrastructure initiative in various Chihuahua municipalities. The Governor elect was pleased to accept the invitation to have one of his team attend the green infrastructure forum that BECC and NADB are hosting in Saltillo on September 21 and 22.