Author: RWSN Secretariat

RWSN is a global network of rural water supply professionals. Visit https://www.rural-water-supply.net/ to find out more

Water is a social problem, not just about health

Water Journalists- Africa's avatarWaterSan Perspective

Chris Mugasha
February 15, 2013

Water scarcity in some parts of Uganda has led to increased domestic violence in homes.

One of the worst affected is Bushenyi district in the southwestern region.

Wills Bashasha- the Bushenyi district chairperson says that the water shortage in the district had led to many women being beaten by their husbands, while others are allegedly raped as they travel far off places to collect water from shallow wells.

He now wants households with iron-roofed houses to construct water harvesting tanks as a measure to reduce on causes of domestic violence in homes.

Bashasha notes that it’s a shame to find people carrying jerry cans of water collected from far off wetlands and swamps despite the fact that such water could have been tapped during the downpour before flowing off to the wetlands.

He explains that the issue of lack of water in some homes has…

View original post 115 more words

A thoughtful piece from Harold Lockwood, working with IRC on the Triple S project

editor's avatarwater services that last

By Harold Lockwood

Recently I have been on a continent-hopping tour through a different range of meetings and events, from which I have seen a pattern emerging, or at least a series of questions in my own mind, as I carry out my work in the WASH sector at an international level.

View original post 1,316 more words

Alice in waterland: a fantasy

in case you missed it from a couple of weeks ago, when the RWSN editor was out of the country…

Stef Smits's avatarwater services that last

This story is fictional. Any resemblance to real situations or persons is pure coincidence.

When Alice stepped through the mirroring water surface into waterland, the first creature she came across was a rabbit, wearing a UN-blue jacket, looking frantically at its watch.

“It is nearly time. Only three more years to go till 2015. So little time left. We won’t make it. We must hurry up.”, it mumbled to itself.

“Hey Mr. Rabbit”, said Alice, “what is all the hurry about? What must be done before 2015?”.

View original post 1,427 more words

Apples and oranges: a comparative assessment in WASH

Stef Smits's avatarwater services that last

A few weeks ago, an interesting email discussion was held on “water point mapping” D-Group of the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN). Part of the discussion focused on how much it costs to map or monitor all water systems in a country. Various figures were floating around in the discussion. But when looking at these in more detail, it was like comparing apples to oranges. Some of the costs mentioned had included the staff time of (local) government, others hadn’t, as they considered this to be a fixed cost; some referred only to a simple mapping of water points, others had done a more comprehensive collection of all kinds of data of the water points; some of the data were expressed in dollars per water point, others in local currency per person. So, no immediate sense could be made of the numbers. A former colleague once said: “an apple is…

View original post 1,100 more words