by Dotun Adekile, Nigeria
I regret to inform you all that Robin Temple Hazell, one of the pioneers of systematic groundwater development in Africa, a member of the RWSN and a contributor to Dgroup discussions, passed away in his home, Bodmin, Cornwall on Sunday, 19th February, 2017. He would have been 90 years on 12th March, 2017.
Continue reading “Obituary: Robin Temple Hazell (1927-2017)”
re-posted from:http://www.ircwash.org/blog/rural-water-supply-access-tanzania-why-has-it-stagnated
Despite massive investments in rural water supply in Tanzania, the number of people with access to improved water sources has not increased. This begs the question, what could be the reason for this stagnation?
This blog post is written by Lukas Kwezi and Catarina Fonseca
Investments in rural water supply in Tanzania have increased significantly over the past decade. According to a 2015/16 water sector status report by the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, about US$ 500 million has been spent on rural water supply since the start of the Water Sector Development Programme (WSDP) in 2006, with about one-third of total spending coming from government.
This increased spend has largely been due to the drive to accelerate delivery of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and political commitment to meet the Tanzania Development Vision 2025 through various initiatives such as the Big Results Now (BRN).
The Tanzanian population has tripled from 12.3 million in 1967 to 44.9 million in 2012. In 2015, due to reduced mortality rates and persistently high fertility rate, the total population had grown to almost 50 million, with about 70% of this population living in rural areas. Despite massive urbanisation, rural population growth was three times higher than urban population growth during this period.
However, access to drinking water coverage has only increased by one percentage point from 45% in 1990 to 46% in 2015 (see Figure 1). This clearly indicates that the investments made in the sub-sector have only managed to keep pace with population growth rather than expanding access to new population.
Population growth offers opportunities for investments and economic growth, but many agree that the increase in population is putting a huge strain on provision of basic services and resources, especially water. Recent data from the World Bank shows that the average volume of renewable freshwater per capita per year in Tanzania has declined by 80% since independence (from 7,862 m3 in 1962 to 1,621 m3 in 2014), putting the country in the water-stressed category. Water resource challenges are going to increase with growing agricultural intensification combined with climate change in the coming years. These facts highlight the importance of formulating water sector strategies that address the needs of the current and future population.
Construction of new schemes has been prioritised over building effective systems for operation and maintenance. For example, recent analysis shows that during the period 2012-2015, 75% of the expenditure in the rural water subsector went to the construction of new infrastructures, while only 14% went to recurrent expenditure – mainly salaries and allowances at local government level. While focus on new construction is not necessarily wastage of resources, the bias towards new construction compromised a focus on maintaining old and existing schemes. We all know that ‘Old is Gold’, but old gold must be smelted and polished to maintain its value.
On the other hand, over 80% of schemes constructed were motorised schemes with average per capita costs of US$ 24-90, deviating from the envisioned 48% hand pumps during programme design. Although the costs compare reasonably well regionally, the change in technology, meant that the programme was able to reach only half of the target population. Besides, motorised schemes come with their own risks: they are often costly and complex to operate and maintain.
Studies in Sub-Saharan Africa show that for local authorities to provide sustainable water services, they should spend between US$ 1-3 per person per year on direct support costs and US$1.5-7 per person per year on major maintenance. However, evidence shows that in Tanzania, local authorities spend only 6-10% of what they should spend to ensure sustainable services.
Local authorities often lack adequate funds for direct support. This means that they are unable to fulfil their administration, contract management, and operation and maintenance support functions, to ensure sustainability of water services, and prevent future problems. Also, when unexpected major maintenance occurs (e.g. renewal or replacement of a pump), local authorities and communities often do not have the resources.
Anecdotal evidence from different regions in the country shows that it may take between 3-6 months to negotiate and settle the costs of repairs. During this period, even if major repairs cost only US$ 100, people revert to using unimproved water sources. Studies estimate that about one-third of water points in Tanzania become non-functional after two years of operation, forcing people to return to using unprotected, unsafe sources, indicating low levels of sustainability of rural water services. The implication is that a significant number of people that may have already been provided with first time access fall back to using unimproved water sources.
Rough estimates show that 5.3 million people could be provided with improved water sources if the bulk of non-functional water points were made functional. If this trend is not reversed, reaching the bottom 40% is going to be even more difficult.
The second phase of the Water Sector Development Programme (WSDP) began in July 2016, with the aim to provide access to clean, safe water to 85% of the rural population by 2020/21. The government estimates that about US$ 862 million would be required to finance the plan. This is a very ambitious target but achievable if sector stakeholders can adopt new approaches and ways of working beyond the narrow focus on new construction.
First, we need to shift incentives and accountability (at all levels of government, politicians, donors, private sector, local authorities and communities) from delivering water points to delivery of sustainable services. The government has now embarked on results-based financing approaches to rural water supply. However, the implementation should be accompanied by a change in mind-set of planners, politicians, engineers, donors and communities. They need to realise that in order to deliver quality services and achieve the desired outcomes, it is not enough just to create an infrastructure (school, health facility, water point). Equally, we also need to strengthen and invest in the institutional system that manages and maintains the infrastructure.
Secondly, we need to get better at monitoring results. This encompasses cultivating a culture of accurate and timely reporting; measuring and verification of whether results reported have been achieved or not, and ensuring information generated is used to inform planning, budgeting and decision-making processes. New technologies can really create a ‘data revolution’ that will allow government and citizens to monitor and continuously improve service provision – if it’s part of the governance and formal accountability mechanisms.
Thirdly, we need to broaden the approach and adopt alternative service delivery models; for example by considering self-supply as a complementary water service delivery model in areas which are difficult to reach. This would mean adopting a broader financing framework to rural water supply that goes beyond capital investments for community-managed water supply systems.
Lastly, the current water policy, which assumes that communities are able to cover full costs related to operation and maintenance of water infrastructures, needs to be reviewed, along with clarifying financial responsibilities and accountability by different parties for capital investments, minor maintenance, major maintenance and direct support costs.
Disclaimer: Lukas Kwezi currently works for the UK Department for International Development (DFID) as Water and Sanitation Adviser, based in Dar es Salaam. He writes blog posts in his spare time. Though he may talk about the work he does in the sector, this is neither a corporate nor a political blog and the opinions and ideas expressed here are solely his own, not those of his employers.
reposted from: http://www.wateraid.org/news/blogs/2017/february/diy-water-provision-the-advantages-of-self-supply
Posted 21 Feb 2017 by Mark Fabian
Continue reading “DIY water provision: the advantages of self-supply”
L’association Morija a expérimenté le programme WASH Est (2011–2016) dans quatre provinces. L’approche globale eau potable, assainissement et hygiène ainsi expérimentée est actuellement confortée dans la commune de Nobéré à travers le projet Colibri (2015–2019).
Continue reading “Burkina Faso: Une approche à l’épreuve du terrain (zone rurale)”
(texte en français ci-dessous),
As we gear up for action at the start of the year, allow me to wish you a very joyful and productive 2017! The Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN) is a network, and this could not have been felt more strongly in the preparations for the 7th RWSN Forum and the event itself. The Forum in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire at the end of 2016 witnessed vibrant exchange between 450 participants from over 60 countries. There were 40 different sessions, not to mention numerous informal networking opportunities.
Continue reading “Happy New Year RWSN Members/ Bonne année à tous les membres du RWSN!”
re-posted from: http://www.wateraid.org/news/blogs/2016/december/making-rights-real-by-supporting-local-government-heroes
The UN officially recognised the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation in 2010. But what does this actually mean for work on the ground?
For people living in rich countries, where heavily regulated utilities supply the population with water and collect and treat wastewater, rights to water and sanitation are mainly covered by enforceable domestic laws and regulations.
Independent inspectorates and complaints mechanisms ensure service providers can be held accountable to service users.
But for people living in countries with very poor access to water and sanitation services, it is a different picture. For the nearly 2.4 billion people without access to adequate sanitation, and 663 million without access to clean water, these systems are often not in place. The lack of access is due to lack of capacity and resources in the sector, weak demand by service users, and poor accountability of service providers to users – their rights are neither demanded nor fulfilled.
The human rights framework clearly assigns responsibilities – people have the rights to water and sanitation services, and governments are duty bound to realise them. But what does that mean in practical terms for government, especially local government officials, who are closest to the people? How can the human rights actually help local officials to reach everyone, even when they have very limited resources and capacities?
With more countries integrating human rights to water and sanitation into national systems there is an opportunity to explore the difference this can make to both providers and users of water and sanitation services.
The UN Special Rapporteur’s handbook on realising the human rights to water and sanitation sets out the practical implications in considerable detail, which is helpful. But it is too long and detailed for many practitioners to use. So, WaterAid, WASH United, End Water Poverty, University of Technology Sydney, UNICEF, and the Rural Water Supply Network joined forces to develop guidance specifically aimed at local government officials. We worked with a content marketing agency, C3, to help make a really user-friendly guide.
Image 1: Finding out what the user wants to know.
To find out more about our target audience the ‘Making Rights Real’ project partners, funded by players of the People’s Postcode Lottery, carried out an audience analysis. First, we interviewed local government officials in low-income settings to learn what they thought about their responsibilities for reaching everyone everywhere with water and sanitation. We wanted to know what helps them, what makes their work difficult, and what can help to inspire them. We presented the resulting paper – ‘Achieving universal and equitable access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) for all – practitioner perspectives and perceptions [191]’1 at the Rural Water Supply Network forum in Abidjan.
The report clearly showed the many challenges that local government officials face, and their low understanding of human rights as something relevant to their work.
So, working with C3, we used these interviews to develop user ‘personas’ to help us better target the content of human rights to our audience.
Image 3: Local government user personas adapted from C3.
We decided to target our materials towards the would-be heroes. The analysis defined this audience segment as a large group of people working in local government, who feel personally committed to providing services to local people but are constrained and thwarted by lack of resources and political support.
We agreed that if this group were empowered and supported some of them could become superheroes and really help progress. Champions within institutions can have a huge impact. For example, the WaterAid-commissioned research ‘A tale of clean cities’ found that one of the main drivers for improving urban sanitation was committed champions at the municipal level.
The would-be heroes have many misconceptions about human rights. For example, they often believe that if water is a human right it should be provided to everyone free of charge, which is clearly incompatible with governments needing to raise revenue to help run sustainable services. However, the human rights standards state that it is fine to ask people to pay for services, as long as the tariffs are affordable.
We also discovered the many different groups that influence the would-be heroes’ actions and decisions (see image 4). We learned how important it is to recognise these influencers, to galvanise as much support, advocacy, and collaboration as possible from them in order to achieve adequate and sustainable services for all.
Image 4: Influencers of local government officials. Adapted from a C3 slide.
We wanted to create a guide to help support and nurture sector champions. To clarify to local government officials the usefulness of human rights thinking, we used the analysis to design a colourful three-piece guide – ‘Making Rights Real’. The idea is for sector partners (like WaterAid) to use the materials in conversations with government partners.
The guide comprises: the pocket guide, containing basic thoughts and principles; the manual, with each step explained; and the journey, which shows the process at a glance.
You can download the guide (currently in English, French, and Portuguese) and instructions, from the Rights to Water and Sanitation website, and use them in your working relationships with governments.
We launched the materials at the Rural Water Supply Network Forum (RWSN) in Cote d’Ivoire, using presentations, discussions, and role play. The response from participants was very promising. There is a strong desire among people in the sector to know more about human rights and how they can use them to clarify responsibilities of governments, communities, service providers, and service users, and make everyone more accountable to provide adequate and sustainable services for all.
If we are to reach everyone everywhere with access to water and sanitation by 2030, as promised in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, a change in approach is needed. These essential human rights can only be delivered if those with the duty to deliver them are empowered and inspired to do so.
1Keatman T, Carrard N, Neumeyer H, Murta J, Roaf V, Gosling L (2016). Achieving universal and equitable access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) for all – practitioner perspectives and perceptions [191]. Making Rights Real project team. See the presentation here.
Some highlights from the RWSN Forum and thoughts on 12 years of a learning journey, by Matthias Saladin, Skat
Of course the title is a rhetorical question – no one really expects one specific approach to transform the whole water sector, let alone save the world. Nevertheless, Self-supply as a concept is gaining traction and prominence in the sector as I witnessed during the 7th RWSN Forum, which took place from November 29 to December 02 in Abidjan. Just a couple of years ago, the term “Self-supply” did not even exist. In fact, it was coined within RWSN as part of a strategic planning exercise in 2004, where Self-supply was defined as one of the flagships of RWSN. Of course, people providing water for themselves (“Self-supply”) is a process which has been going on for millennia and all over the planet (for example, some 44 million people in the US today rely on Self-supply for their drinking water), but Self-supply as a term was born in 2004, and the idea that this approach can (and should) be fostered by specific activities and frameworks both by government and other actors still is relatively new to many people, even within the water sector.
In this blog entry, I would like to reflect on some aspects of this learning journey of the past 12 years, and I invite you to reply, discuss, disagree, criticize or support, whatever suits you best.
But first things first: The 7th RWSN Forum was a massive success, both in terms of participation and outreach, but also specifically for the Theme of Self-supply: I identified at least 7 sessions where papers related to Self-supply were presented, some of which I was not even aware of before the Forum. For example, Sara Marks of Eawag (Switzerland) presented some results of a study from Burkina Faso (feel free to read the respective paper and presentation) where they looked into the various benefits of a project implementing a (subsidized) Self-supply approach to facilitate multiple-use water services (MUS). Among other things, they found that the water of households who had invested in an upgraded private well and equipped it with a Rope Pump was of better quality than that of unimproved wells.
Meanwhile, session 6A was designed to provide an update on the “state of the art” in Self-supply, including an overview paper of André Olschewski, a case study from Sally Sutton on Self-supply in some African countries, an overview of how Self-supply can be accelerated in Ethiopia, and an example of how capacities in the private sector can be strengthened through SMART Centres (or watch the movie on the SMART Centre in Zambia here).
In several other sessions, specific aspects of Self-supply were analyzed in more detail, for example by Patrick Alubbe of water.org, who made a case for micro-credit as a scalable intervention who can help more people gaining access to higher level of drinking water services (see the paper of Gupta and Labh and Patrick’s presentation).
Apart from this wide and deep presence of Self-supply in the thematic sessions, the concept also made a splash at key moments of the RWSN Forum: For example, it was prominently mentioned by the final remarks of Mr. Jonathan Kamkwalala, a senior manager of the World Bank, during the closing ceremony. Moreover, more than 150 people signed an informal “Call to action”, which suggests that Self-supply deserves more attention on behalf of governments, donors, civil society organizations, researchers, and other key players. The undersigned expressed a “strong interest in developing support for Self-supply within our own spheres of activity and urge all development partners to explore this approach and reach its considerable potential”. Given this strong support by a large number of people, I hope that we will see a lot of action in this field in the weeks and months to come – for example by starting to monitor and report on Self-supply within organizations, regions, and eventually countries and globally. As we know, we do not manage what we do not measure, so measuring definitively would be a good start.
In spite of these highlights and an overall strong presence of Self-supply during the Forum, not everything is rosy in regard to Self-supply. On one hand, I observed that while many people recognize the important role Self-supply already plays and will have to play to reach the SDGs, with another group of people it creates almost allergic reactions. Having listened to some of these people, I think I identified three areas of conflict, which are related to three misconceptions around Self-supply:
1. Self-supply means abandoning the poor.
2. Self-supply means that government has no role to play.
3. Self-supply is incompatible with the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation.
For the moment, I will only respond to the third misconception. It can readily be clarified, simply by listening of the presentation of the UN Rapporteur on the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation during a webinar hosted by RWSN last year (e.g., read this summary), where he makes it clear that Self-supply is in line with the progressive realization of these Human Rights. And this hint also helps clarifying the first misconception: Self-supply does not imply abandoning the poor, but supporting them in a different way – rather than the government itself providing services, it facilitates and strengthens the private sector (and civil society organizations) to provide them. Thus, rather than abandoning the poor, what Supported Self-supply does is actually empower them and enable them to take on a more active role in moving up the ladder of water services.
Importantly, the Government has to play a role in Supported Self-supply – in fact, it is a crucial role consisting of several functions (adequate policy framework, building up capacities, oversight of the private sector, etc.), but this will be the topic of my next blog. So for the moment, I leave it there, confirming that the Government is a key actor in Supported Self-supply.
Overall, the concept of Self-supply clearly has an important role to play if we want to provide some (even if it’s just basic) level of services to everyone – there simply is no alternative in reaching specific target groups, especially in the remote rural areas. However, we also have to be aware that Self-supply has its limitations, and that there are aspects related to Self-supply which have to be addressed with a lot of care (e.g., quality of the services installed, potential over-exploitation of water resources by private households). I also perceived that several people and organizations are looking for shiny examples of countries where Supported Self-supply was implemented at scale, which then could be replicated elsewhere (the “Blueprint Fallacy” which unfortunately is quite common in the water sector, particularly among global players).
However, at the moment there are only a few such examples (e.g. manual drilling in Nigeria/Lagos, Domestic Rainwater Harvesting in Thailand, the Upgraded Family Wells in Zimbabwe), and many of these cases refer to contexts where government services were weak or collapsing – which do not make for a good example for promotion, particularly with government agencies. With all due respect, but which government agency would like to copy the experience of Zimbabwe in the 1990s? Thus, the examples are not as shiny as we wish.
Nevertheless, the fact is that Self-supply actually took off in some places while government services, institutions and the whole economy was collapsing – a clear hint to the power of this approach, even under difficult conditions. But we also need to figure out how governments can foster the approach – that is, how to better Support Self-supply.
In spite of all the progress made I think there still is a lot of work to be done both within RWSN and beyond. Here are just a few areas of work a group of “Self-Suppliers” identified during an informal conversation at the Forum:
Thus, looking back to the first 12 years of promoting Self-supply, I think we have come a long way. Given that before 2004 the term did not even exist, the change is truly remarkable – and RWSN was the lead agency of making this sea change in public awareness possible. At the same time, we still need to work on the fundaments, the walls and the windows of the Self-supply house, and we need to make them strong enough to keep growing in the coming 12 years and beyond. I hope that many of you will be part of this journey, and I invite you – as a small first step – to subscribe to the Dgroup on Accelerating Self-supply, which is a platform for discussion, exchange and mutual learning, and to contribute to the dialogue on that platform. I look forward to hearing from many of you there!
Onwards and Upwards,
Matthias
Texto en español más abajo
From the RWSN secretariat we herewith announce the latest webinar of our mini-series 2016, which will take place on 16.11.2016. The title of the event is “A tool for Monitoring the Scaling up of Water and Sanitation Technologies (TAF – Technology Applicability Framework)” and it will focus on the use of the TAF, which has been presented and discussed previously in this Dgroup. The session will take place in English (2-3 PM Central European Time, please check your local time here) and in Spanish (4-5 PM Central European Time, please check your local time here). We are happy to announce the two presenters and the titles of their presentations:
After the two presentations, you will have the chance to ask questions and participate in the on-line Q&A session and discussion around this topic.
Please use this link in order to register for the sessions.
Recordings and presentations of previous sessions of this mini-series of webinars are available for download and viewing here.
3rd Annual Research Symposium
The National Water Supply & Drainage Board
Ministry of City Planning and Water Supply
20th March, 2017
At The Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall (BMICH), Colombo, Sri Lanka
CALL FOR ABSTRACTS
Email: agmrnd@gmail.com
Deadline for Abstract Submission:
30th November 2016
Send Abstracts to: agmrnd@gmail.com
Local and international authors are invited to submit abstracts under the following conference themes.
High quality abstracts, with the potential to generate new knowledge, related to completed/on-going studies or based on experience and prepared according to the brochure linked to the news headlines of www.waterboard.lk , would be selected for oral or poster presentations.
All presenters will be given free registration for participation. Further, a limited number of local sponsorships will be offered for foreign presenters.
For more details – Contact: Assistant General Manager (Research & Development), +94112625196, agmrnd@gmail.com
Visit http://www.waterboard.lk
Hello all,
After what has been a prolonged period of absence for some members of the “friends list” to the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights to water and sanitation, I would like to touch base with you and renew my commitment to maintaining meaningful contact. As much time has passed, there is naturally a lot that could be shared. I will attempt to be selective and keep to key subjects that could be of your particular interest.
Firstly, the attentive among you may have recognized the change in my title. The General Assembly http://bit.ly/2drEiWH recognized the human rights to water and sanitation (plural) late last year in Resolution A/RES/70/169. More recently, the Human Rights Council also recognized the distinct rights in a new resolution http://bit.ly/2dPyVeY , meaning that my title has also changed accordingly to reflect the distinct rights. This is news to celebrate as I, like others http://bit.ly/2drFlpu , believe in the legal foundation and benefit of recognizing water and sanitation as two distinct but integrated rights.
Continue reading “Update from the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights to Water and Sanitation”
Rural Water Supply Network - blog 