Month: Feb 2022

RWSN updates February 2022 and upcoming events

Dear RWSN members

We hope you all had a great start to 2022. The year is already going in full swing, and we would like to share some RWSN updates and upcoming events with you. 

My name is Tommy Ka Kit Ngai and I am the Head of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene at WaterAid UK. At the RWSN Executive Steering Committee on 27 January, I was honoured to accept the role of RWSN Chair for the remainder of WaterAid’s tenure. I have been a RWSN member for about 10 years and have always been encouraged by the unwavering commitment of fellow RWSN members to collaborate and support each other in bringing sustainable and reliable water supplies to all rural people.  Collectively, we have a world-leading, immense pool of knowledge and experience in rural WASH.  I am thrilled to be here. I look forward to learning from and working alongside with all of you.   

Thank you, Louisa Gosling and SDC 

  • It is with much sadness that Louisa Gosling stepped down as Chair of RWSN due to health issues as of December 2021. We thank her so much for her great leadership and passion for the network, and in particular, she worked tirelessly with the Leave no One Behind theme and has been a great advocate of RWSN over the last ten years. We wish her strength and good health in her next chapter. 
  • The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) has supported this network since the beginning when we were founded as the Handpump Technology Network in 1992. Thanks to their steadfast partnership, RWSN has grown from a mailing list of a few dozen engineers to a diverse, global network of nearly 14,000 individuals and more than a hundred organisations in 167 countries. The RWSN Strategy, Roadmap and ongoing governance review are setting the network on an exciting new path and we will share more details in future updates. SDC’s strategic orientation is shifting and with it our modality of collaboration. We thank the SDC Global Programme Water for providing exceptional support over the last 30 years, and to Dr Daniel Maselli in particular who has been a great ally and guide over the last few years. Switzerland remains committed to improving global water security and we look forward to continuing our partnership in new ways. 

 
Welcome to Ndeye Awa Diagne, Dr. Amita Bhakta, WHO and USAID – and “Data for Action” 

  • Ms Ndeye Awa Diagne (“Awa”) has joined the RWSN executive committee. Awa is a Water and Sanitation Specialist at the World Bank in Washington DC, with 10 years experience, including 6 with the World Bank and 2 at the Société Nationale des Eaux du Sénégal. Her current responsibilities include managing the Bank’s internal community of practice on rural WASH. Linkedin  
  • New Leave No One Behind (LNOB) theme co-lead Dr. Amita Bhakta. Amita is a Freelance Consultant in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH); Website: Amita Bhakta – Hidden WASH; LinkedIn   
  • Welcome to our new RWSN project partners, USAID, who are funding REAL-Water, a five year research programme on rural water headed by Aquaya Institute with KNUST Ghana, ATREE, Safe Water Network, Aguaconsult and Water Mission. 
  • We are delighted to be collaborating with WHO as they prepare to finalise and publish “Guidelines For Small Drinking-Water Supplies: Policy Guidance And Supporting Tools”. Look out for more updates later in the year! 
  • Finally, the RWSN Theme “Monitoring and Mapping” will be changing its name to  “Data for Action”; the change will be effective over the course of this year. 

    Upcoming events 
  • On 22nd March we celebrate World Water Day. This year the theme is “Groundwater: making the invisible, visible”. You can take part in the celebration and raise awareness on groundwater by checking the website: https://www.worldwaterday.org/. There are many materials available for download to share with your community and networks, raising awareness on groundwater. RWSN also has a wealth of resources related to Groundwater, see below. 
  • 9th World Water Forum, Dakar – RWSN is delighted to be hosting French/English Session 2A4 on Rural Water Supply Management Models in Room 3 at 9am on 22 March. For those coming to the Dakar, we look forward to welcoming you to this great session, with interesting case studies from Morocco, Madagascar, Senegal, Ghana and Uptime and panellists including the Director General of Water from the Government of Spain. https://www.worldwaterforum.org/  
     

    RWSN resources related to Groundwater 
  • Does your organisation drill boreholes, or perhaps fund others to drill?  If so, check out the wealth of materials on borehole drilling on the RWSN website: https://tinyurl.com/waterdrilling 
  • Do you want a quick, and easy introduction to borehole siting, supervision, procurement and drilling itself?  If so, then watch these very short animated films (available in English and French): https://vimeo.com/channels/drilling 
  • Want to know about how to unlock the potential of groundwater in Africa, then check out this short film: https://vimeo.com/582160363 
  • Are you looking for ways to support access to groundwater at a low cost? Then you should find out if manual drilling is an option? This is a good place to start: https://www.rural-water-supply.net/en/sustainable-groundwater-management/manual-drilling 
  • Want to learn about professional drilling from other RWSN members and partners? There is an archive of presentations and webinars available here: https://vimeo.com/channels/1432819 
  • Do you have questions or concerns about using solar-powered water systems to pump groundwater? This is a good place to start: https://www.rural-water-supply.net/en/sustainable-groundwater-management/solar  

     

    New Groundwater Publications from RWSN and in collaboration with others 

    Dr Kerstin Danert, co-lead of Sustainable Groundwater Development Theme has been extremely busy over the last year and involved in lead and co-author roles on several key publications that will be published over the next month:  

Best regards,

RWSN Chair and secretariat