The 2016 Water Crisis in San Andres Island: An Opportunity for Change?

During the first half of 2016, the “Nino” Phenomenon reached severe conditions in San Andres Island, Colombia. On April 2, people, mostly the Raizals, an ethnic minority group, and people from poor neighborhoods started 11 road protests asking for water. The water crisis affected, differentially, more than 14.000 people. The institutional response focused on distributing free water trucking during dry periods, increasing the water frequency, and incrementing water production. This study analyzed the crisis response and explored, in the short term, whether there was a change in access to water. In August 2016 were conducted 34 semi-structured interviews and 45 in November 2018. Findings suggest that crisis response used a conservative philosophy embedded in a technocratic perspective; as a result, it is still limited water access in the way it was before the crisis. This study contributes to the understanding of the factors that influence crisis response.