More good analysis:
Author: RWSN Secretariat
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4 lessons about handpump sustainability in Ghana
By Sara Marks, Senior Scientist at Sandec / Eawag
In 2012 we learned the exciting news that the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for drinking water access had been met, nearly 3 years ahead of schedule. Yet an important question still looms large: What will it take to ensure that those who have gained access continue to enjoy their water services well into the future? And how will sustainable water services be extended to the remaining unserved?
Continue reading “4 lessons about handpump sustainability in Ghana”
Uganda: Kitgum Residents Share Water Points With Animals
Interesting article in relation to recent RWSN discussions on Multiple Use Services (MUS) of water
Dan Michael Komakech
June 23, 2014
Residents of Toboi in Lolwa parish Orom Sub County in Kitgum district have resorted to sharing contaminated rain runoff water that collects on rock inselbergs with animals due to scarce water points in the vicinity.
The resident explain that they survive on dirty unprotected water from Lela Toboi inselberg because of the far distance of over three to seven kilometers that one has to trek in search of clean drinking water in the neighboring villages of Wipolo and Tikau and Karekalet river spring.
The situation has rendered residents particularly the most vulnerable elderly, disability and children to opt for nothing other than runoff water from contaminated sources which makes them exposed to water borne diseases and death.
“If it rains we utilize rain runoff water that gathers on these inselberg and if it dries off we trek to Wipolo aor Tikau where we are…
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Global water point failure rates
Cautiously optimistic
More useful analysis from the Triple-S team
What will it take to create WASH sectors that work?
By Patrick Moriarty, Harold Lockwood, and Sarah Carriger
Over the past few months in a series of posts we’ve been advocating for a change in the goal of the WASH sector – from increasing coverage to delivering a service over the long haul; from simply building infrastructure to building infrastructure and managing it into the future to provide services worthy of the name.
And we’ve been calling for a change in approach — from piecemeal projects to strengthening the whole system that delivers services.
We’ve shown how we’ve gone about supporting this type of change in Ghana together with the Community Water and Sanitation Agency, and we’ll continue posting examples from other countries where we’re working.
For now, in the final post in this series, we’d like to talk more about what committing to this change calls for from…
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How much water is enough? Determining realistic water use in developing countries
Excellent thoughts on water quantities – how much is enough?
“FLUORIDE IN GROUNDWATER: A DEBILITATING SCOURGE” Catalyst Project Webinar, 2 May
Reposted from: http://www.thewaterchannel.tv/index.php/dossiers/the-underground-drought/659-gw-webinars
“Fluor is an element abundant in nature. In the right quantities, it is essential for the development of teeth and bones. However, under specific conditions, the concentration of fluoride (F) in ground and surface water can exceed safety levels and becomes toxic for human health. This may lead to skeletal and/or dental fluorosis, two chronic biogeochemical diseases that occur in various countries around the world.
According to UNESCO, more than 200 million people worldwide rely on drinking water with fluoride levels exceeding the present World Health Organization (WHO) norm of 1.5 mg/l. The Ethiopian Central Rift Valley (ECRV) is one of the most affected areas with an estimated 8 million people potentially at risk of fluorosis. Due to its geology and climate, it suffers from some of world’s highest concentrations of fluoride, mainly in deep wells in the semi-arid parts.
Dr Redda Tekle Haimanot and Seifu Kebede (Addis Ababa University) have studied the fluoride problem in the ECRV region for several years. In this webinar, they will discuss the magnitude of the problem, the risk factors and socio-economic consequences. The speakers will also discuss preventive measures that hold promise, and why they are relevant to other parts of the world suffering from high fluoride levels.
Date: May 02, 2014
Time: (To be confirmed)
How to participate:
1) Go to https://metameta.adobeconnect.com/fluoride/
2) Choose ‘Enter as Guest’
3) Enter a screen name
4) That’s it! You can now listen to the speakers, see their slides, ask them questions and share comments/questions”
Understanding why waterpoints fail
By Vincent Casey, Technical Support Manager, and Richard Carter. (originally posted on the WaterAid website)
“Every year, over 30,000 boreholes fitted with handpumps are installed in rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. All will break down at some point. Some will be repaired and return to service. Others will not be fixed and will fall out of use. All will eventually need to be replaced.
Long, expensive & messy: the realities of sector change
Latest update from Triple-S
By Patrick Moriarty, Harold Lockwood, Vida Duti and Sarah Carriger
In the last post in this series we described our approach to changing the whole system to deliver water services that people can count on: not just for a few years, but for life. We laid out the main phases in this change: initiation, learning and testing, and finally scaling-up and systemic impact. In this post we’d like to show you what that looks in the real world, using the example of our work in Ghana under the Triple-S (Sustainable Services at Scale) project.
One of the reasons we chose to work in Ghana was that it was typical of many countries: they’d made significant progress in increasing coverage, but they had significant problems, particularly in their rural water sector, with lack of financing for repairs and replacements, weak supply chains for spare parts, and poor support from local government…
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Timor Leste – a service delivery state of mind
Some experiences from Timor Leste
By Harold Lockwood –
Last week I was in Timor Leste supporting some of the work of WaterAid Australia and its programme in Timor Leste. As this has evolved over the last several years, and with coverage levels increasing, WaterAid Timor-Leste (WATL) has recognised the pressing challenge of maintaining service levels in those communities who have gained first time access to water supply. The Government of Timor-Leste has pledged to meet its Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target to provide 78% of the population with access to a safe water supply by 2015 (75% of the rural population and 86% of the urban population). The JMP update for 2013 records access in 2011 to an improved water source as 69%: 60% rural and 93% urban. As of 2013 steady progress is being made and it has been determined that the MDG for water supply will be met.
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