A bilateral border plan between Peru and Ecuador has provided services for more than 2 million Peruvians, the head of the Peruvian chapter, José Antonio Arrospide, said.
According to state news agency Andina, Arrospide said the plan has provided water and sewage for about 1.5 million people and electricity for another 800,000 people living in Peru’s northern border region.
The plan has also resulted in construction of 126 schools, 87 medical posts and more than 400 fish farms.
Foreign Affairs Minister José Antonio García Belaunde said last March that Peru had invested $1.63 billion in the plan. Besides social services, financing was also provided for construction of transportation infrastructure, and sustainable development programs in the Tabaconas Namballe National Sanctuary in Cajamarca.
The Bilateral Plan for the Development of the Peru-Ecuador Border Region was signed in 1998 for a period of 10 years. It was later extended until 2014.
The plan was created in an effort to strengthen cross-border relations and improve development in the region as part of a peace agreement that ended the territorial dispute over the Cordillera del Cóndor, the dense cloud forest mountain range that was the center of the 1995 Cenepa war between Ecuador and Peru.
