In the Trifinio region—where the borders of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras meet—rural women play a key role in protecting water, directly impacting agricultural production, community well-being, and environmental conservation.
This new episode of Women Upstream—an initiative by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) that highlights women’s leadership in water management in rural areas of Latin America and the Caribbean—invites us to explore their daily routines, the challenges they face, and the ways they organize in an increasingly complex context. This episode is part of a collaboration between the IDB, the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS), and the Trinational Commission of the Trifinio Plan, within a regional agenda that promotes social inclusion, territorial equity, and women’s empowerment in water governance.
The Trifinio Plan is a body of the Central American Integration System that promotes sustainable development in the tri-border area shared by El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. In this effort, the OAS played a key role by promoting technical cooperation and cross-border development. Today, through its Water for the Americas Program, the OAS General Secretariat continues to support initiatives in water governance, resilience, social inclusion, and institutional strengthening.
Likewise, the IDB supports these efforts through technical assistance and financing, working closely with the Trinational Border Association of the Lempa River and local actors to drive nature-based solutions, improve water information systems, and promote investments in resilient infrastructure in one of the most vulnerable regions of Mesoamerica.
Flowing with Purpose: Women Leading with Care
Every day, the protagonists of this story rise at dawn to milk cows, plant, cook, haul water, and care for their families. Their work—often unpaid—sustains not only their households, but also the local economy.
But their contributions go far beyond the domestic sphere. These women also lead collective efforts to conserve water sources, actively participate in community boards, and promote sustainable management of their territories. However, many of these initiatives take place in contexts where water governance still faces significant challenges in ensuring full participation. In many cases, these women’s roles are symbolic, without real decision-making power.
Despite these limitations, they continue to drive essential activities for the well-being of their communities. Cleaning water sources, reforesting micro-watersheds, and providing environmental education on water and public health are part of their daily work.
Their knowledge, passed down from generation to generation, is a powerful tool for promoting the responsible and sustainable use of water in their territories.
Coffee, Water, and Resilience
In the Trifinio region, coffee farming is deeply linked to water. Women play an active role in every stage, from planting and harvesting to artisanal processing.
Nevertheless, they face barriers to accessing irrigation, technical assistance—such as programs that strengthen their skills in water management or environmental adaptation—and credit. In many cases, they work under highly vulnerable conditions and lack the support needed to strengthen their livelihoods. In response, many women promote practices such as protecting water recharge areas or using water efficiently, thereby contributing to territorial resilience.
Women Weaving Trinational and Tripartite Networks
Transcending political borders, Trifinio women share multiple challenges, such as unequal access to resources, the impacts of extreme weather events, and limited power in decision-making. These gaps are not isolated, and they deepen when they are intersecting with other vulnerabilities, such as rurality, age, or cultural identity.
To address them, they have built collaborative networks among communities in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, based on mutual recognition and collective learning. These ties support their participation in organizational processes, enabling them to amplify their voices and develop adaptation proposals that reflect the lived realities of their communities.
Protecting Water Is Also Protecting Culture
The bond between Trifinio’s women and water goes beyond everyday use: it represents a profound connection to nature, rooted in ancestral knowledge passed down through generations. Practices such as empirical water source monitoring, spring protection, or rainwater harvesting reflect a deep territorial understanding that is often not fully recognized in existing technical or institutional frameworks.
This limits the acknowledgment of their contributions and the effectiveness of policy responses. Integrating this knowledge into water management policies is not only a matter of justice—it’s also a strategic pathway to strengthen adaptive solutions from the ground up.
Caring for rivers and community springs also means preserving ways of life, social bonds, and cultural values. Every small act of care sustains collective identity, local resilience, and a living culture that defends water as a right, a legacy, and a lifeline.
Women Upstream invites us to look from the ground up and closely follow the faces and stories of those who, day after day, uphold the balance between water, land, and life. Trifinio women demonstrate that transformative change is rooted in the everyday, and that community resilience is built through experience, organization, and solidarity.
Through coordinated efforts, the IDB, the OAS, and the Trinational Commission of the Trifinio Plan support local processes that integrate community knowledge, sustainable solutions, and shared technical frameworks to address challenges in rural and border areas. From capacity building to evidence generation and political dialogue, this trinational alliance seeks to foster development models that are more resilient, inclusive, and people-centered.
Follow each story to learn more about the lives of women who have worked for the benefit of their communities with tenacity, perseverance, and by gaining leadership in spaces that were once reserved for men.
This series is supported by the IDB and AECID, who share the common goal of providing quality water and sanitation services in rural areas of the region. Learn more about the projects carried out so far with the Spanish Cooperation Fund for Water and Sanitation (FCAS) in this publication.
To learn more about “Woman Upstream,” download our publication here and subscribe to our blog here.
Woman Upstream Team:
Coordination: Anamaría Núñez, María Augusta Olmedo, Leticia Ortega, and Magdalena Méndez
IDB Gender Specialist: Naiara Martínez
Content: Andrea Ortega Carreño and Paul Constance
Illustration: Natalia Lyskina and Carolina Curbelo
Audiovisual Production: Adriana Loeff
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