Month: Jun 2018

Why does accountability matter for sustainable water services?

By Louisa Gosling, WaterAid and Meleesa Naughton, RWSN Secretariat

RWSN has been exploring the question of accountability for sustainable rural water services over the past few months through an e-discussion, a workshop, and webinars in French, English, and Spanish.

What is accountability?

Accountability is a new topic for the Leave no one behind Theme of RWSN, and one that is difficult to translate in other languages: there is no direct translation of accountability in French and Spanish, for instance – we translated it as ‘responsibility’.  In the e-discussion, we initially defined social accountability as ‘an approach that refers to the extent and capacity of citizens to hold the state and service providers accountable, and make them responsive to needs of citizens and beneficiaries’. But through the e-discussion and in particular the webinar, we also heard of initiatives that seek to empower citizens to hold not only service providers (direct accountability) and governments (indirect accountability) for water services, but also donors.

So who should be held accountable for what?

The definition proposed by Catarina Fonseca of IRC, who presented some preliminary findings from a recent study during one of the RWSN webinars, is perhaps more appropriate: she defined accountability as ‘those who are responsible, accept responsibility for their actions and omissions and accept that they are called upon to give an account of why and how they have acted or failed to act.’

While accountability is often a bottom-up process in practice, with citizens and citizens’ organisations seeking to hold  service providers, governments and donors to account, duty-bearers also have an obligation to put in place effective accountability mechanisms that lead to actionable change. The study Catarina presented showed that accountability mechanisms for SDG6 for service providers and governments are often not available in many countries, and that when they exist, they are not effective and not systematic due to the lack of financing, lack of monitoring data and reporting, and limited participation of civil society organisations.

What about donors’ accountability? According to Susan Davis from Improve International, most foundations do not prioritize evaluation of WASH projects post-implementations, which impedes learning and improving accountability for the end-users. Moreover, when they do conduct evaluations, they may not share the results – or have no incentive to share results showing poor performance of WASH services. Susan proposed a WASH donor accountability scorecard which would foster a culture of accountability and transparency through virtuous competition amongst donors to disclose the results of evaluations.

The e-discussion and the webinars highlight a range of different aspects of accountability. It is encouraging to see that this topic is gaining a higher profile in the water sector. Other recent discussions include a thinkshop on social accountability in the water sector recently held in Tanzania, and the recent expert consultation for the upcoming report by the UN Special Rapporteur for the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation. Greater understanding and application of this principle are essential for achieving SDG 6.

Resources

Photo credit: Simone D. McCourtie / World Bank  

 

 

 

Why getting ‘water affordability’ right matters – and how water diaries can be of help

re-posted from REACH

Dr Sonia Hoque, University of Oxford

Having access to 24/7 potable piped water in the comfort of our dwelling is a luxury that many of us take for granted. In the UK, an annual water and sewerage bill of £400 accounts for about 1% of the annual average household income of £40,000. This ‘safely managed’ water service, defined as having access to an improved source within one’s premises, is well within the widely established global affordability threshold of 3-5% of one’s household income. Estimating payments for water as a percentage of households monthly expenditures may adequately reflect ‘affordability’ in contexts where households have connections to piped water systems or rely on paid sources only.

Continue reading “Why getting ‘water affordability’ right matters – and how water diaries can be of help”

Voyage of groundwater discovery

The first ‘Professional Management of Water Well Drilling Projects and Programmes’ online course, provided by Unicef, Skat Foundation and Cap-Net kicked off in early March 2018.

Running over six weeks, the new online course provides participants with an overview of what is required to improve borehole drilling professionalism in the countries in which they work.

Requiring about six hours of investment per week, plus an additional four for the final assignment, it provides a 40-hour training opportunity for people from all over the world – and they can take part without leaving their home or workplace.

The application process was open for a month, and we received 648 applications spanning 381 organisations and 96 countries. We were astounded by the level of interest. Unfortunately, we could only accept 85 participants, a mere 13% of those who applied, our limitation being funding for sufficient, good facilitation. And so over the past weeks we have been interacting with the participants who work in 35 organisations in 43 countries, of whom 33% are women.

We provide extensive reading material and videos for each module, and the participants engage with the topics through their weekly assignments, participation in online discussion forums and a weekly quiz. For example, they have been tasked with looking at the drilling supervision practices in their own organisations, to prepare a hydrogeological desk study and to reflect on regulatory policies and practices in the countries in which they work.

I was sceptical about online courses until I undertook my first one three years ago. This time, as a facilitator, I’ve witnessed that this course provides an opportunity for people who are already managing drilling projects and programmes to improve their skills and knowledge from far and wide.

So what are we learning every day from the participants? For example, that drilling data is not shared because of fear that the information may be used for gaining the upper hand in mining minerals in one country. Or about the rapidly falling groundwater levels in Sanaa, Yemen, threatening the agriculture and domestic water supplies of the future. And we’ve found out about nuances in the way in which corruption affects the regulation of drilling professionalism in different contexts. Through the course, innovative approaches are also being revealed, such as new regulations in a number of countries, efforts to improve procurement procedures in Nigeria, or post-construction monitoring of water supply systems through private management combining mixed farming and water supply systems in northern Madagascar.

ourse modules Course modules

 

Integral to the course is that it provides an opportunity for participants to learn from each other, reflect on what can be improved and to debate contentious topics – a key one being who should pay for the cost of drilling a dry borehole? The final assignment in the course involves sharing what has been learned more widely and trying to inspire others to improve borehole drilling management practices. Once the course is complete, all of the materials are accessible through the Cap-Net virtual campus (www.cap-net.org).

So what next, you may ask? Firstly, we shall learn from this first course and make improvements. We would then like to run the course again later in the year, repeat it in the future and also make it available in other languages, starting with French. We know that there is demand. With the structure and materials now developed and online, future courses will be less costly than developing and running the first one. But we need to assure the cost of good facilitation. So if anyone would like to sponsor a course, say as part of corporate social responsibility (CSR), either fully or partially, please contact us at foundation@skat.ch.

Kerstin Danert works for Skat Foundation and Skat Consulting in St. Gallen, Switzerland, and leads the Rural Water Supply Network’s (RWSN) theme on Sustainable Groundwater Development. In 2017 she was awarded the Distinguished Associate Award by the International Association of Hydrogeologists.

This article was first published in GeoDrilling International and is reproduced with permission and thanks.