Category: Sustainable Services

Why does accountability matter for sustainable water services?

By Louisa Gosling, WaterAid and Meleesa Naughton, RWSN Secretariat

RWSN has been exploring the question of accountability for sustainable rural water services over the past few months through an e-discussion, a workshop, and webinars in French, English, and Spanish.

What is accountability?

Accountability is a new topic for the Leave no one behind Theme of RWSN, and one that is difficult to translate in other languages: there is no direct translation of accountability in French and Spanish, for instance – we translated it as ‘responsibility’.  In the e-discussion, we initially defined social accountability as ‘an approach that refers to the extent and capacity of citizens to hold the state and service providers accountable, and make them responsive to needs of citizens and beneficiaries’. But through the e-discussion and in particular the webinar, we also heard of initiatives that seek to empower citizens to hold not only service providers (direct accountability) and governments (indirect accountability) for water services, but also donors.

So who should be held accountable for what?

The definition proposed by Catarina Fonseca of IRC, who presented some preliminary findings from a recent study during one of the RWSN webinars, is perhaps more appropriate: she defined accountability as ‘those who are responsible, accept responsibility for their actions and omissions and accept that they are called upon to give an account of why and how they have acted or failed to act.’

While accountability is often a bottom-up process in practice, with citizens and citizens’ organisations seeking to hold  service providers, governments and donors to account, duty-bearers also have an obligation to put in place effective accountability mechanisms that lead to actionable change. The study Catarina presented showed that accountability mechanisms for SDG6 for service providers and governments are often not available in many countries, and that when they exist, they are not effective and not systematic due to the lack of financing, lack of monitoring data and reporting, and limited participation of civil society organisations.

What about donors’ accountability? According to Susan Davis from Improve International, most foundations do not prioritize evaluation of WASH projects post-implementations, which impedes learning and improving accountability for the end-users. Moreover, when they do conduct evaluations, they may not share the results – or have no incentive to share results showing poor performance of WASH services. Susan proposed a WASH donor accountability scorecard which would foster a culture of accountability and transparency through virtuous competition amongst donors to disclose the results of evaluations.

The e-discussion and the webinars highlight a range of different aspects of accountability. It is encouraging to see that this topic is gaining a higher profile in the water sector. Other recent discussions include a thinkshop on social accountability in the water sector recently held in Tanzania, and the recent expert consultation for the upcoming report by the UN Special Rapporteur for the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation. Greater understanding and application of this principle are essential for achieving SDG 6.

Resources

Photo credit: Simone D. McCourtie / World Bank  

 

 

 

New 2018 RWSN webinar series (April 3rd – June 5th, 2018)

Mark your calendars! RWSN is delighted to announce its 2018 series of 10 webinars dedicated to rural water services, April 3 -June 5, in English, French, Spanish and/or Portuguese!

To attend any of the webinars, please register here by April 2nd: http://bit.ly/2prrVf3

We will hear from more than 20 organisations on a range of topics, including:

· A special double session with the WHO/ UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme to find out how you can make the most of the JMP data, and how countries nationalise SDG6 targets and indicators (May 2nd and May 29th);

· The challenges specific to sustainable and safe water supply in peri-urban areas and small towns, with a focus on the urban poor (April 17th and 24th);

· Practical ways of financing to reduce corruption in the sector (April 3rd), and to improve social accountability for better rural water services (May 8th);

· A discussion on community-based water point management (April 10th), and a radio show-style session showcasing experiences with capacity strengthening for professional drilling (June 5th);

· A debate on water kiosks (May 15th), and the role of self-supply and local operator models for universal access in rural areas (May 22nd).

To find out more about the session topics, dates and times, see here: http://www.rural-water-supply.net/en/news/details/66

To attend any of the webinars, please register here by April 2nd: http://bit.ly/2prrVf3

“The borehole is not a madman” 3 reasons why Community Based Management demands a rethink

by Dr Luke Whaley, Professor Frances Cleaver and Felece Katusiime (UPGro Hidden Crisis)

In Uganda, waterpoint committees exist more in name than in reality. Many waterpoints have been ‘personalised’. That is to say, they are under the control of one or a small number of individuals. Moreover, where local management arrangements (of any sort) are effective they tend to rely heavily on the authority of the head of the village council, known as the LC1 Chairperson. Indeed, it is often the LC1 Chairperson and not a waterpoint committee who is instrumental in collecting funds, securing maintenance and resolving disputes. Where an apparently functioning committee is in place, this is usually the result of concerted efforts on the part of particular local NGOs, who cannot guarantee this level of commitment in the longer term.

At least, these are the impressions of Felece Katusiime, a social science field researcher working on the UPGro ‘Hidden Crisis’ project, concerned with the sustainability of rural groundwater supply in Ethiopia, Uganda, and Malawi. They are field insights (preceding full data analysis) from someone who has spent many months in the field undertaking research in roughly 200 rural Ugandan villages. The discussion that follows is intended as a provocation and not a promulgation of project findings. We are interested in the extent to which the points made here accord or contrast with the experiences of you, the readers, and we welcome dialogue on these matters.

So, why might it be that in Uganda waterpoint committees,as envisaged on paper, seldom exist as such on the ground?

Continue reading ““The borehole is not a madman” 3 reasons why Community Based Management demands a rethink”

Getting to the heart of climate resilient WASH

by Dr John Butterworth, IRC WASH Ethiopia – re-posted with permission

Climate resilient WASH is about new ways of working across the traditional humanitarian and development sectors. We went to one of the harshest spots in Ethiopia, and surely in the world, to find out more.

Photo: An existing water point in Afdera, Afar

Continue reading “Getting to the heart of climate resilient WASH”

Grown-up finance for the rural water sector

The challenge of achieving the SDGs is upon us and with this concrete and short-term objective, the sector is finally taking the issue of financing more seriously, which is a very good thing but not before time. Whilst a few years ago finance was the privilege of a selected few, everyone is now talking about it; however, whether this is a case of better late than never still needs to be proven.

by , re-posted from Aguaconsult with thanks

The challenge of achieving the SDGs is upon us and with this concrete and short-term objective, the sector is finally taking the issue of financing more seriously, which is a very good thing but not before time. Whilst a few years ago finance was the privilege of a selected few, everyone is now talking about it; however, whether this is a case of better late than never still needs to be proven.

Last week, I chaired with interest the RWSN webinars on “grown up finance” for rural water supply. Kelly-Ann Naylor (UNICEF), Catarina Fonseca (IRC WASH), Sophie Trémolet and John Ikeda (World Bank) and Johanna Koehler (Oxford University) gave great presentations and here are my few take aways from the discussions:

The magnitude of the challenge is huge and greater than we probably think. We often hear about the figure of USD 114 billion to achieve SDGs 6.1 and 6.2, but this is only part of the story. This figure covers investment and maintenance of new services, but excludes the crucial maintenance of existing services and the broader sector support.

We know there is a huge funding gap and the current finance model will not fit the bill. Official Development Assistance (ODA) has not increased as much for WASH as it has for other sectors and concessional finance as well as domestic investments only accounts for a fraction of the required investments. The sector has the potential to attract other sources of finance, but we need to take a few steps.

We need to have an honest conversation about the exact magnitude of the challenge at national and district level to support planning and budgeting. This is taking place at national level as part of the SWA process in some countries, but only partially at district level. More robust data on service levels as well as cost of services, which are currently insufficiently researched, can help us in this direction, but we need to move faster.

We need to get better at understanding budgeting processes and supporting strategic multi-year budgeting both at national and district levels. Most countries are not very good at this at the moment and it has to change.

We need to advocate beyond the WASH sector and target more important political decision makers – Ministries of Finance and even the office of the president) to prioritise domestic investment in WASH and increase it through a larger tax base and increasing tariffs. Again, evidence will take us a long way in bringing politicians round the table.

We need to look at other sources of finance, particularly private finance to complement existing funding sources. Making the sector more attractive to private investment will be a necessary first step, but this will hinge on Governments playing a crucial role in strengthening the enabling environment and de-risking the sector. ODA, currently crowding the sector will need to focus on the riskiest segments and leave space for private investments to come in (e.g. stop lending to urban utilities and focus on rural water supply). Assessing sector entities’ performance and risk profile will be a necessary first step.

We need to start experimenting with innovative “blended finance” models, learn from them and adjust. Examples are already out there from Benin, where subsidised concessions are being tested; but also from Kenya and other countries.

After decades of ODA dependency, the WASH sector is slowly opening up to the real world of finance to reach its ambitious targets. This means being transparent and accountable, providing evidence of performance and better understanding what will incentivize the commercial finance world. A huge task ahead and surely a dramatic and positive change in culture!

Photo: Inspecting community-level financial records in Tajikistan (S. Furey)

Still barking up the wrong tree? What is the future of community-managed rural water supplies: Join a live webcast from the Water & Health Conference at UNC

Save the date: Tuesday 17 October 2017

  • 07:30 to 08:30 (US Eastern Standard Time) /
  • 13:30-14:30 (Central European Time) /
  • 17:00-18:00 (India Standard Time)

What has happened so far?

The issue of community management of rural water supplies has attracted some interesting debate recently. An RWSN blog post by Ellie Chowns, at that time a researcher at the University of Birmingham, prompted a lively discussion in the RWSN online Sustainable Services and Equality, Non-Discrimination & Inclusion communities.

In parallel to this The Water Institute at UNC, in consultation with RWSN, chose a recent paper by Ellie Chowns as the publication to review for the most recent WaSH Policy Research Digest. This was accompanied by a short literature review written by Harold Lockwood of Aguaconsult, based on work he was doing for the World Bank on a multi-country review of rural water service sustainability.

How you can get involved

The Water & Health Conference at the University of North Carolina is an excellent opportunity to continue this conversation and bring it to an even larger audience. UNC and RWSN will host a one-hour panel discussion and will live stream this as a webcast so that a number of people not attending the conference can take part. Short moderated interventions from panelists will be followed by questions from the audience received both in person and online.  The panel discussion will be designed to bring out diverse points of view (for instance, community management has not worked and should be abandoned vs. that it is still a viable model) but also to explore the nuances of the circumstances under which well-supported community management can be successful.

The panel discussion will also be recorded and made available on the RWSN and The Water Institute at UNC websites.

You can start right away by posting questions to the Sustainable Services community – just send them in an email to ManagementSupport_rwsn@dgroups.org

Unfortunately, the webcast will only be available in English, but questions in other languages can be accepted, if submitted beforehand for translation. Be aware that there will be limited time and a lot of interest so it unlikely that everything can be covered.

Format

Panel:

  • Harold Lockwood, Director, Aguaconsult UK
  • Ellie Chowns, Evaluation and Research Specialist, VSO
  • Eng. Aaron Kabrizi, Director, Ministry of Water and Environment, Uganda
  • Vida Duti, Country Director, IRC Ghana

Moderator: Clarissa Brocklehurst, Adjunct Professor, Water Institute, UNC

Online host: David Fuente, Assistant Professor, School of Earth, Ocean & Environment, University of South Carolina

US: +16465588656,,204142462#  or +16699006833,,204142462#

  • Or Telephone：

Dial (for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location):

US: +1 646 558 8656 or +1 669 900 6833

Webinar ID: 204 142 462

International numbers available: https://uncsph.zoom.us/zoomconference?m=87U9Ga7fnXMIha5ZeJDhjyNMar78REQd

New World Bank study: Sustainability Assessment of Rural Water Service Delivery Models in 16 countries

Download the study here: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/27988

Abstract: With 2.1 billion people – mostly in rural areas – lacking safely managed drinking water and reported low rural water supply functionality rates, the Sustainable Development Goals pose a triple challenge: to reach unserved mostly rural population groups, to raise service levels, and to sustain existing and future services. This assessment uses a multi-country case study approach to identify good practices and challenges toward building sector capacity and strengthening sustainable service delivery models for rural areas. Recognizing the limitations of the Demand Responsive Approach, the emergence of various management models, the identified need for ongoing support to rural service providers, and the critical role of enabling institutions and policies beyond the community-level, the added value of this assessment lies in: i)the development of a comprehensive analytical framework that can be used to analyze and operationalize a more sustainable service delivery approach for rural water supply; ii) the rich set of cases and good practices from the 16 countries informing the global body of “knowledge in implementation,” and iii) the formulation of recommendations and policy directions to improve the sustainability of services depending on sector development stage. Policy recommendations are centered around five areas: institutional capacity, financing, asset management, water resources management, and monitoring and regulatory oversight.Woman turns on tap for clean water. Sri Lanka

Leo Heller on : Regulation of water and sanitation services

by Léo Heller, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation

Re-posted from: https://medium.com/@SRWatSan/regulation-of-water-and-sanitation-services-bef44401caf4 

Report A/HRC/36/45, submitted by the Special Rapporteur to the Human Rights Council in September 2017, focuses on the role regulatory frameworks play in the implementation of the human rights to water and sanitation at national level.

art by aicoculturas / anderson augusto

Regulatory frameworks comprise the rules or standards defining how services should be provided to individuals in a given context, and the institutions responsible for monitoring service providers’ compliance with these norms and standards.

The number of States with a regulatory framework for water and sanitation services is increasing and so is the contingent of regulatory actors. However, there is no universal regulatory model. Regulation should be adapted to local circumstances, needs and challenges.

States have interpreted the role of regulation in various ways depending largely on the norms applicable to their particular context and corresponding needs, leading to a range of different institutional arrangements and regulatory models including self-regulation, regulation by contract and regulation by a separate regulatory body.

Being at the interface between policy-makers, service providers and users, while acting as guarantors of accountability, regulatory actors play an essential role in the realisation of the human rights to water and sanitation.

Continue reading “Leo Heller on : Regulation of water and sanitation services”

A third of the glass is three-quarters full

The results of the water and sanitation SDG baseline report are as surprising as finding safely managed drinking water in rural Honduras. But we should be cautious in jumping to conclusions.

 

It is surprising to meet people like Kristel Castellanos. She is the operator of the drinking water treatment plant of the rural municipality of San Matías in Honduras. She makes sure that the people of San Matías get water that is safely managed. Her work is not common, as rural water supply systems in Honduras rarely have a treatment plant. At most, operators may chlorinate the water, and even that is a big challenge.

Photo: Kristel Castellanos, operator of the San Matías treatment plant, checking the water flow (photo credit: IRC)

As surprising as finding such good water quality management in rural Honduras, were the data on safely managed water supply in the baseline report for the water and sanitation SDGs. According to that report 71% of the World’s population has the same level of service as the people in San Matias, i.e. piped supplies with household connections that is available 24/7 and that has good quality water, or ‘safely managed water’, as the JMP calls it. More surprising is that 56% of the rural population has such water.

Ahead of the publication of the baseline report, there was lots of talk in the WASH sector that thebaseline would come as a big shock. With the adoption of the SDGs, the bar for water supply has been raised. Under the MDGs, we measured whether people had an improved supply. The SDGs require people to have safely managed water. And by raising the bar, it would only be logical that a larger part of the population would not meet that bar. And indeed, the press release that accompanied the report was brought as a shock, using the headline figure that 2.1 billion people don’t have safe water. I found that a way too alarmistic take on the findings of the report. With 71% of the World population having safely managed water the glass is not half full; it is three quarters full!

The figure however is surprising, as the MDG end-line indicated that in 2015, some 58% of the world population had piped on premise (33% in rural areas). Piped on premise doesn’t fully coincide with safely managed services. Safely managed services also require water to be of good quality and availability. One would expect that the percentage of population with safely managed services would be lower than the population with piped on premise in 2015, as there are always piped supplies in which quality and/or availability are not adequate. But, instead we don’t have a glass being half empty; we have one that is three quarters full.

However, we can only see a third of the glass, as Ben Harris mentioned. Sufficient data on safely managed services are only available for half of the countries. No data is available on the biggest countries in the World: China, India, Brazil and Indonesia. Most of the countries for which data are available are in the higher and middle income regions of Europe, Central Asia and Latin America. Only one region – Central and South Asia – has sufficient data on safely managed services in rural areas.

The report is very clear about these methodological limitations. And I think it is truly impressive that the JMP managed to make these estimates in such short time. But, it could have therefore also been more cautious in the message it sent out. It should have either said “more people than expected have safely managed services”, or better “the first estimate shows 2.1 billion don’t have safely managed services, but the data are too limited to jump to strong conclusions”.

Nevertheless, I would say to all sector colleagues: read the report; it really is obligatory reading. And if anything, read the methodological sections. They are not always the most exciting sections to read in a report. But if we don’t understand how the SDGs are monitored, the numbers will really take us by surprise. And by 2030, we should no longer be surprised to find as nicely safely managed water supplies in rural areas as the ones managed by Kristel Castellanos in San Matías.

For  the 2017 JMP report and related data, go to https://washdata.org/

The  original version of this blog is available here: https://www.ircwash.org/blog/third-glass-three-quarters-full.

 

Still barking up the wrong tree? Community management: more problem than solution

by Dr Ellie Chowns

Received wisdom still suggests that community management is an important component of sustainable water supply in rural areas and small towns. Despite a shift in emphasis “from system to service”, and the idea of “community management plus”, in reality the basic community management model remains standard practice in many countries.  And yet there is plenty of evidence that it is seriously flawed in two key ways.  My own research, a mixed methods study covering 338 water points in Malawi (Chowns 2014, Chowns 2015) demonstrates this clearly.

First, community management is inefficient.  Preventive maintenance is almost never done, repairs are often slow and sub-standard, and committees are unable to collect and save funds.  Average savings are only 2% of the expected level, and only 13% of committees have enough money to buy a single replacement rod.

Equally disappointingly, community management is disempowering. It reinforces existing village power relations, and breeds conflict rather than strengthening social capital.  Often, this conflict is around misuse of funds.  Many committees are defunct; and when they do exist, as one woman said, ‘the committee is higher than the community’ – meaning downward accountability simply doesn’t happen.

There are exceptions, of course, but they are few and far between.  So we need to take off our rose-tinted spectacles and ask why community management is so enduring, despite its failures.

Why does it remain so popular?  Because it’s a fig-leaf for state and donor failure.  Community management enables government officials and donors alike to abdicate responsibility for ensuring long-term sustainable water services.  Instead, they can blame ‘lazy communities’ for ‘lack of ownership’, and suggest that ‘more training is needed’.

I think we need to question the community management model at a more fundamental level. Slight amendments won’t do the job; a more radical re-thinking is required.  Currently, community management transfers responsibility from people with access to finance, skills, and networks (officials & donors) to people with much more limited access to all those things (rural villagers).  This isn’t just ineffective – it’s unfair.

So what might work better?  Here are three suggestions.

  • Build better water points. As a social scientist I am happy to acknowledge that engineering really matters!  There are still far too many poorly-constructed water points being installed.
  • It’s superfluous and expensive to train multiple committees of 10-12 people each, when all that is really needed may be one skilled Area Mechanic with a bike, a phone, and (crucially) an effective means of financing his or her work (see next point…)
  • Pay for results. There’s promising evidence in many sectors that, actually, top-down accountability is part of the solution.  Civil society can’t stand in for a dysfunctional state; investment has to help build state capacity.  Funding needs to flow through ministries and districts, not bypass them – but they need to be held to account for performance, too.

Currently, community management remains the dominant model because it works better for agencies and governments than for communities themselves.  In no other public service sector is so much responsibility placed on users.  We don’t expect communities to bear all the recurrent costs of health or education services, so why should we do so for water?

It’s time to acknowledge that community management is both inefficient and disempowering, stop trying to reform it, and look towards replacing it instead.

Dr Ellie Chowns is a Research Associate at the University of Sheffield, working with Professor Frances Cleaver on a project with the Geneva Water Hub: “The everyday politics of participatory water governance: cooperation and conflict in community management”.

photo: Broken Afridev in Malawi (Erich Baumann, Skat/RWSN 2008)