by Larry Siegel

My book, I Tried to Save the World and Failed, reflects on a time and effort to find rural water solutions in Mexico, Malawi and Cambodia that could be used everywhere. The effort started during the Vietnam war while working on an Army Civil Affairs team. There I was confronted with the reality that not everyone turns on the tap and drinks good water. Several of the rural communities I worked in desired more water, cleaner water, and more convenient water. Echoes of that experience grew from travels in later years.

A drinking water partnership formed when as a Congressional staffer I worked on the Safe Water Act of 1974. Years later I joined with a few of those colleagues to form Safe Water International (SWI), which had dreams of a silver bullet solution for the billion or so citizens around the world with only contaminated water to drink.

SWI put Rotary funds and private donations to the task of seeking that silver bullet through rural drinking water projects in Mexico, Malawi, and Cambodia. As these projects moved from one country to the next, it became clear that every rural drinking water project demanded a long-term commitment to the project community.

It is said that 35% of water well projects break down or are abandoned by users. Sad to say, the work of SWI in three countries met this unfortunate goal. As a consequence, I Tried to Save the World seeks to identify lessons learned from those drinking water efforts in remote rural communities. The observations that result come largely from field work and then from reflection in succeeding years on the successes and failures of those projects.

The book closes with a set of lessons aimed at sustainability. The lessons are not meant to be the final word. It is hoped they will provoke discussion on how to go about achieving project sustainability.

While there are stories of disappointment, there is also praise for the commitment and perseverance of all who undertake work to improve the health and sanitation of those desperately in need of help. The closing anthem of the book is “Help is Help.” Even unsuccessful projects can bring life-long benefits to those who for some short space of time have safe water and good sanitation.

Also available on Kindle from Amazon.com

WORD FROM THE CHAIR

Dear RWSN members and friends, dear colleagues,

Knowledge sharing and learning is critical to establishing and delivering water services that last. Advances in communications technology have made this easier than ever at a global scale. I hope that you have taken advantages of RWSN’s online discussions, webinars and publications – and we know from the feedback that you have given us, that you do value these exchanges.

However, even with such powerful online tools, nothing beats meeting people face-to-face. It is an opportunity to strengthen links with past and current collaborators, and hopefully find new partners for the work ahead. That is why the RWSN Forum is such an exciting opportunity for sharing.

The agenda is set by you, the members, and the contributions that you have submitted. Complemented by regional pre-events in Peru and Thailand, the 7^th RWSN Forum in November will be a truly global event – and it brings together people with a common purpose, which is expressed clearly in the RWSN Vision:

“of a world in which all rural people have access to a sustainable and reliable water supply which can be effectively managed to provide sufficient, affordable and safe water within a reasonable distance of the home.”

At the last Forum, way back in 2011, delegates agreed on the 10 Kampala Commitments. The 7^th Forum, this year, gives us an opportunity to reflect on these, the progress we have made, what needs to be done, and what we have learned. Do we still hold to the same principles, or has thinking and experience taken us in a new direction?

Be part of this conversation and I look forward to welcoming you to Abidjan on 29 November.

Ton Schouten, Chair

UPGro – Unlocking the Potential of Groundwater for the Poor

Knowledge Brokers: Sean Furey, Kerstin Danert, Richard Carter, Bertha Camacho

UPGro – Unlocking the Potential for Groundwater for the Poor is seven year research programme that takes a social and natural science approach to enabling sustainable use of groundwater for the benefit of the poor. During 2013-14 there were 15 ‘Catalyst’ projects that are one year studies. This year a five ‘Consortium’ projects will get underway for the following 4-5 years. UPGro is funded by the United Kingdom through the Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Department for International Development (DFID).

What happens when the wells run dry?

In the science journal, Nature, Professor Richard Taylor of the GroFutures UPGro project challenged readers to take groundwater depletion seriously put the case for why we need better science to understand complex recharge processes – before it is too late. His words echo that the World Economic Forum who place the Water Crisis as the number one risk, in terms of impact, facing the world today, and one of the most likely to occur.

Analysing groundwater storage changes in Benin & Burkina Faso

The Chronicles Consortium – a network of scientists collating and analysing multi-decadal groundwater-level records from across Africa under UPGro Groundwater Atlas with support from IRD – held a 3-day workshop from the 9th to 11th of February at the Laboratory of Applied Hydrology of the University of Abomey-Calavi (Benin) to examine long-term records of groundwater levels in Benin & Burkina Faso. Led by Professor Richard Taylor (UCL), Professor Moussa Boukari (University of Abomey-Calavi) and Dr. Jean-Michel Vouillamoz (IRD), participants included scientists from Burkina Faso (Dr. Youssouf Koussoubé, University of Ouagadougou) and Benin (Dr. Henri Totin, University of Parakou) as well as post-graduate students from the University of Abomey-Calavi.

The workshop focused on the use of long-term groundwater-level records (chronicles) to assess the responses of groundwater systems to climate variability and human activity (e.g. abstraction, land-use change, dam construction) in different aquifer environments and climate regimes. Key activities of the workshop included: (i) installation of automated water and air pressure dataloggers to enable high-frequency monitoring of groundwater storage responses, (ii) the evaluation of errors in long-term chronicles, and (iii) quantification of groundwater storage and discharge from recessionary trends in these chronicles. The chronicles provided excellent foci for critical discussion of current conceptual models of the operation of groundwater systems in Benin and Burkina Faso. Dr. Vouillamoz also presented new field determinations of groundwater storage co-efficients from the EU-GRIBA project to enable the quantification of groundwater storage changes from the chronicles. The Chronicles Consortium plans to report on new evidence from collated long-term records and high-frequency monitoring at the 41^st IAH Congress in Rome.

UPGro invited by UNICEF to present at the UN Zaragoza Conference

The UN-Water Annual Zaragoza Conferences serve UN-Water to prepare for World Water Day, which in 2015 will focus on “water and sustainable development” and celebrated the end of the International Decade for Action ‘Water for Life’, so it was especially important for taking stock of and learning from achievements as well as planning the next steps. In the theme “Academia contribution to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals related to water” on the 16th January, the was a session titled “Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH): Tools for WASH implementation from an equity lens”, led by Jose Gesti-Canuto, with short presentations by three UPGro collaborators: John Chilton (IAH, Hidden Crisis), Sharon Velasquez-Orta (University of Newcastle, IN-GROUND) and Fabio Fussi (University of Milano-Bicocca, Remote Sensing for Manual Drilling)

ODI event in London stirs up the groundwater debate

The Overseas Development Institute (ODI) hosted a 1-day event, just as the last RWSN newsletter was going to press. The day was packed with great presentations and discussion, not just from the UPGro researchers also much wider sharing about the role of groundwater science and knowledge management in tackling deeply ingrained poverty. Video recordings of the event are now available online on the ODI website.

New UPGro Publications

Publications, reports, papers and presentations from the UPGro studies can be found on the upgro.org website.

RAIN – Rainwater harvesting for rural water supply and food security

Co-ordinators: Robert Meerman (meerman @ rainfoundation.org), Hans Merton (hans @ merton.nl). Join the rainwater harvesting community on Dgroups: dgroups.org/rwsn/rainwater and follow on twitter at @rainwater4food.

Event: Symposium on Rainwater Harvesting in Ethiopia

RAIN are proud to inform you that in collaboration with SEARNET and AFRHINET, we will organise an international symposium on: ‘Unlocking the potential of rainwater with adaptive strategies and impacts for upscaling the technology’

1-12 June 2015 – Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

In this symposium rainwater harvesting (RWH) will be assessed from three angles: Policy, Know-how and Training. The Policy angle will engage stakeholders from governments and INGOs and discuss how to incorporate RWH in policy frameworks, projects and programmes. The Know-how angle will gather academics and practitioners in writing about their projects and research. Finally, a practical training will take place most probably in the Dire Dawa area, which will focus on practicalities and discussions on various RWH/3R technologies.

Dates

High Level Policy Discussions: 1st – 2nd June 2015

Write-shop: 3rd – 5th June 2015

Practical Training: 8th – 12th June 2015

Information and registration

More information and details will come soon – but please find the first announcement here. We are looking forward to seeing you there – registration is now open!

Implementation: RAIN is expanding to Latin America

The ‘dry corridor’, that covers most of Honduras’ southern region, is highly vulnerable to climate change. Small-scale farmer families of the region depend on the availability of natural resources. However, they are the ones mostly affected by prolonged dry spells and water scarcity. This leads to a progressive increase in both the severity and the number of families affected by food insecurity. Remedy for these areas often stagnates, due to Honduras’ weak institutional structure, an elevated poverty rate and a high-risk security situation.
The Program for Communal Watershed Management of the Goascoran catchment (‘Programa de Gestion Comunitaria de Cuenca – PGCC’) seeks to alleviate this situation with:

Adequate Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction measures and
Strengthening local governance structures for integrated catchment management.

The Swiss development Cooperation (SDC) chose a Consortium, comprised of IUCN, iDE, FUNDER and RAIN to act as a Facilitator in this change-process. The Goal is to empower communities to face more extreme weather conditions by improved resilience to climate change and better living conditions of the inhabitants of the Goascoran basin. This will be achieved through enhanced production capacities: introducing effective irrigation schemes, water harvesting techniques and better market access, for an institutionally backed sustainable use of natural resources. RAIN will provide monitoring and evaluation of the project, knowledge management and communication and technical advice on 3R (water recharge, retention, reuse) and MUS.
You can read more on “Crop and income diversification via rainwater reservoirs and drip irrigation and for smallholder farmers in Honduras” in Marai El Fassi’s blog.

Implementation: 3R – Recharge, Retention and Re-use

WUMP+3R, Nepal

HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation Nepal, co-funded by RAIN, is implementing a program on the so-called WUMP (Water Use Master Plan) and 3R (Recharge, Retention and Re-use) in several villages in Dailekh district. The multiple year program includes the development and implementation of local water management plans including WASH, which are developed in close collaboration with the local government and communities. Due to the efforts of HELVETAS, Dullu was declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) on December 31 2014. For more information, please read the project update here. Another project update of HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation Nepal of the project in Paduka can be found here.

3R in Bahasa, Indonesia

Timor Tengah Selatan, on the island of Timor is one of the most water stressed areas of the Indonesia. On the 3rd November 2014 in So’e, 60 people gathered at the government office to discuss the need for Recharge (Mengisi Kembali), Retention (Penyimpanan) and Re use (Penggunaann Kembali) of water. Maarten Onneweer of RAIN presented the results of a project implemented earlier that year by Bina Swadaya Konsultans and used this as example on how to integrate 3R in the projects of the Partners for Resilience Alliance in Indonesia.
Bina Swadaya Konsultans implemented a number of cost effective water harvesting technologies, adapted to the local situation and making use of locally available materials. These interventions followed from an earlier advisory mission of RAIN end of 2013. Results could already be seen and the overall enthusiasm for 3R had definitely increased. Organisations are now translating relevant parts of the book “Water harvesting, guidelines to good practices” in Bahasa to support their technical staff. You can read the full news item here.