Agua Somos — Bogotá's Multi-Stakeholder Water Fund for Páramo & Forest Protection (Colombia)

Agua Somos ("We Are Water") is a water fund created in 2009 to finance conservation of the páramo, cloud-forest and soil cover that supplies drinking water to Bogotá and the surrounding region. It was formed as a technical and financial alliance between Bogotá's public water utility (EAAB), The Nature Conservancy, the Fundación Bavaria, Corpoguavio and other partners, following the water-fund model The Nature Conservancy has replicated across Latin America, including FONAG in Quito and Cuenca Verde in Medellín.

The fund's stated aim is to benefit at least 10 million people in the Bogotá capital region by financing conservation action that protects the water sources supplying the city, though a narrower figure of 7.2 million people served is cited elsewhere for the direct water-supply footprint.

Over its documented 2009-2019 implementation cycle, the fund mobilised COP $4,563,902,585 from a mix of public resources (COP $1.39 billion), private resources (COP $2.34 billion) and multilateral banking (COP $834 million), directed at conservation action across 24 municipalities spanning four environmental authorities and two departments, including five national and regional protected areas around the Chingaza and Sumapaz páramo systems.

Reporting from The Nature Conservancy describes 50 signed conservation agreements with local landowners and communities, protecting an estimated 3,707 acres (about 1,500 hectares) of páramo, forest and river-spring buffer areas. Reported area and beneficiary figures vary somewhat between the fund's own promotional materials, its NGO partners and third-party trackers such as the UN Global Compact's Water Action Hub.

The documented funding cycle formally ends in 2019, and current sources do not confirm whether a renewed multi-year commitment has since been secured. Unlike FONAG in Quito, which was independently reviewed by UNEP, Agua Somos has not published a single independent audited impact evaluation, so the funding and hectare totals should be treated as fund-reported rather than externally verified.