Our friends from End Water Poverty, Water Integrity Network & partners invite you to join to this UN 2023 Water Conference side event ‘Hearing the Unheard: the Human Right to Water and Sanitation‘ & its digital campaign #HearingTheUnheardHRWS which aims to amplify the call for global action to HRWS for the vulnerable groups.
The goal of the campaign #HearingTheUnheardHRWS is to generate multi-stakeholder conversations; to raise awareness and gather key messages, opinions and recommendations that shall inform commitments, pledges, actions, initiatives and endeavours for vulnerable groups who are left behind towards realising HRWS. The campaign consists on sharing videos & live testimony of the experiences, agency and demands of marginalised groups from across the globe with responses from the Special Rapporteur, OHCHR and governments
As provided by UN OHCR, groups in vulnerable situations include: Children and adolescents, Women and Girls, Indigenous peoples, LGBTI, Migrants Refugees Asylum seekers, Older persons, Persons with disabilities.
We are handing over the mic to all WASH stakeholders to share their experiences, stories and views on improving WASH access for vulnerable groups. The campaign gives an opportunity for everyone to follow these experiences and views, get inspired by the vulnerable groups, reform champions, activists and advocates who are making a difference every single day, and find out how to can take action.
How to participate in the digital campaign:
The campaign requires original content in the form of shareable media, photographs, quotes, blog posts and videos, to promote the voices of vulnerable groups. This material will be shared through Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. If you are interested to participate please take this into account:
Record A Short, Social Media-Friendly Video (Maximum 1 Minute) Or Take Photographs Or Share A Quote Or Write A Blog (Maximum 300 Words With A Photograph) Reflecting:
Impacts: How does lack of (adequate, affordable, acceptable) water and sanitation affect your community/ group?
Actions: What existing initiatives or actions have you taken to address this?
Responses: What responses have you received from the government?
Support: What support and action do you want to see from the international community/ UN?
N.B. If you do not have a social media handle or profile, you can also send your content to equity@dgroups.org
Side Event: Hearing the Unheard. the Human Right to Water and Sanitation
The side event session is hosted on March 23, 2023, 3:00PM-4:30PM EST Time in Hybrid mode. Registrations to participate in this side event of the UN 2023 Water Conference here
To learm more about this side event session and the organisations involved, please find hereunder the concept note on Hearing the Unheard: the Human Right to Water and Sanitation side event.
For International Women’s Day, we would like to highlight two participants from the RWSN Mentoring programme for young professionals and women, Fadzai T. Munodawafa-Bhurabhura (from Zimbabwe) and Dr Kerstin Danert (from Switzerland). You can find out more about their experience of mentoring through RWSN below. RWSN plans on launching a new edition of the mentoring programme soon, and encourages women of all ages in the water sector to sign up. To find out more, sign up to become a RWSN member today.
Mentorship is a reciprocal learning relationship in which a mentor and mentee work collaboratively toward the achievement of mutually-defined goals that will develop a mentee’s skills, abilities, knowledge, and/or thinking.
Fadzai’s words:
I am Fadzai T. Munodawafa, a WASH professional with an international Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) in Zimbabwe. I support teams who implement WASH in the rural communities in Zimbabwe. In addition, I am responsible for managing the drilling unit of the organisation. With such responsibilities as a young professional, I sought to increase my understanding of rural and urban water supply and sanitation as well as groundwater monitoring, which both have a significant bearing on improving access to water for under-privileged communities.
A message of invitation for young professionals in the water sector to join the mentorship programme under the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN) was shared on the Zimbabwe WASH Cluster platform. I thought this was an opportunity to learn from senior professionals and firm up my career. Following acceptance within the mentorship programme in 2020, I was linked with Dr Kerstin Danert a water sector professional researcher and facilitator.
Kerstin’s words:
I am Kerstin Danert, a rural water supply professional who has been active in RWSN since 2004, when I was still living and working in Uganda. I work as a consultant, with a range of types of work including research, training, facilitation and knowledge-brokering. I currently live in Switzerland.
Fadzai’s words:
My mentorship experience was a flexible one where I would ask questions or a raise discussion point and Kerstin would have a topic for discussion for our scheduled meetings. During our 9-month mentorship relationship, Kerstin and I discussed broadly on topics such as groundwater management, remote sensing and sustainable community-based management of water points key areas that have helped me in my career in the water sector. Kerstin’s experience in sub-Saharan Africa and remote areas made our connection easy as she could relate to my experiences and questions.
Kerstin’s words:
Our mentoring relationship commenced just as I was branching out to start my own company, which unfortunately coincided with the start of the Covid pandemic. It was not an easy time (as we all know), and I was worried as to whether my company would even survive. It very soon became apparent that this would not be a one-way mentorship by any means. Fadzai not only helped me to make contact with field realities (which I was very much missing), but also gave me a lot of support and encouragement regarding my new venture.
Fadzai’s words:
As a young professional, I was not confident speaking in public forums, a weakness my mentor helped me to work on. Now I can confidently speak in professional forums following her encouragement. Our engagement also looked into working on my resume and boost it to showcase the experience and skills I have. In addition, she connected me with experienced drillers and water specialists in Zimbabwe.
Kerstin’s words
Although I have now worked in the water sector for over 25 years always as a consultant, I still remain concerned work may not come in going forwards. Further, I think that I had began to take my years of experience for granted. The exchanges with Fadzai helped me to fully appreciate that I am actually not at the start of my working life, but (hopefully) in the middle of it with a lot under my belt already!
Both of us
Since the mentorship programme under RWSN, we have kept in touch resulting in our participation in the UNHS Climate and Gender podcast on Global Partnership: Gender, Progression and Climate-Orientated Careers (The UNHS Podcast and Spotify) in 2021. The following year, our mentorship led us to work on a report and video documenting the impact stories from participants of online courses on professional drilling by the RWSN
Fadzai’s words:
As a result of my mentorship experience, I can more effectively allocate my time for various activities, connect and confidently engage with other professionals in the water sector as well as have knowledge on key aspects of documentation. I highly recommend other young professionals to join the mentorship program that will build them up in their career within the water sector. Many thanks to the RWSN for this amazing and life changing experience.
Kerstin’s words:
This mentorship brought me closer to the field again. I learned so much from the conversations with Fadzai – and drew insights from her into all of my ongoing assignments, whatever the topic in fact. She always had such insightful contributions to make. And I argue that I was the mentee just as much as Fadzai was. So I encourage others to take the time to get involved in this programme. It has been so rewarding and I look forward to finally meeting Fadzai one day! We have been talking regularly now for three years. A big thanks to RWSN for this chance.
To find out more information about the RWSN mentoring programme, please see here.
I am sorry to inform you of the passing of Dr. Otto Langenegger, who peacefully left us on 19 February, 2023 surrounded by his family, aged 84.
Dr Langenegger was the pioneer of rapid handpump corrosion. His seminal publications in 1989 and 1994 set the foundation for all that followed in trying to understand and address this phenomenon.
In his eulogy, he was poignantly referred to as a “nomad around water”. He grew up, in humble surroundings, close to Lake Constance in eastern Switzerland, the youngest of six siblings.
His thirst for discovering and learning could not be quenched by his apprenticeship as a radio technician in Winterthur. He was a through-and-through scientist and researcher, moving between subjects throughout his life, and building on the learning from one area as he branched into another. Together with his wife Dorothea, he moved to work in Canada for several years, from where he was able to, amongst other experiences, be part of an expedition to the Arctic, an exposure that he relished for the rest of his life.
Dr. Langenegger and his wife, with their two sons Urs and Thomas, moved back to Switzerland, and he completed his first PhD at the University of Bern in 1973. But he was soon on the move again, this time to Ethiopia, where he worked as a Hydrogeologist with the Christoffel Mission. He was fascinated by the people and culture, and was saddened to have to leave in 1976 due to the difficult political situation at the time.
Dr. Langenegger was not long back in Switzerland, before heading off to Africa in 1981, initially to Ghana, where he worked for the World Bank on the pioneering water well drilling and handpump installation project of its time in West Africa. This position, and the subsequent assignment based out of Abidjan, took him to Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali and Niger.
As a keen observer and compassionate man, Dr Langenegger was both intrigued and appalled by the ‘red water’ problem, coupled with corroding and failing handpumps that he observed in many parts of West Africa during his field work. And so, he set out to understand the causes. Initially using his own allowances to test water quality, he diligently researched this issue. One of his colleagues from the time told me that he stayed in the cheaper hotel in Kumasi – saving money for testing, and filling the bathtub with his tests. He also had his wife, Dorothea, cook plantain with different concentrations of iron-rich water from the rapidly corroding handpumps to see what happened to them. They changed colour.
Anyone working on handpump corrosion is familiar with Otto Langenegger’s seminal publications (1989 and 1994), which have provided the foundation for all that has followed on this topic. His second PhD was in fact on Handpump Corrosion.
After returning to Switzerland in 1989, Dr. Langenegger set up his private consultancy practice, working out of his home in Gais, Appenzell. Overlooked by snow-capped Alpstein mountains, his interest in water found an outlet in learning about the blue coloured snow, high on the slopes. And so once again, this through-and-through researcher set about observing, measuring and interpreting. I would say that Dr. Langenegger’s, keen interest and thirst for knowledge in relation to water was insatiable.
It was 2019 that Dr. Langenegger, who would soon to be known to me by the informal address simply as Otto, contacted me. He had found my own report on Rapid handpump corrosion in Burkina Faso and beyond and wanted to know more. Otto was both disgusted that the corrosion problem had not been fully addressed (after more than 30 years), but was also pleased that it was at least being looked at again. Unbeknown to me previously, he lived just a few stops along the train line from St. Gallen where I am based!
Otto had been out of touch with the water supply world in Africa for a long time, but had, now and then, searched for what may have followed on from his work on handpump corrosion. And so he was aware of the presentation entitled ‘New signs of an old Problem’ at the WaTer Conference in Oklahoma in 2015 by Vincent Casey, Lawrence Brown and Jake Carpenter.
Over the last two and a half years that Otto and I were able to share, he followed all of the ongoing efforts and work to address rapid handpump corrosion – the issue which he has pioneered in the 1980s. He was delighted to be able to talk about the subject, and, researcher that he was, always asked such pertinent questions and put forward ideas.
Throughout his long illness, and even as he grew weak towards the end of his magnificent life, he always wanted to hear the latest news. His delight to hear that the corroding handpumps in Ghana had been replaced in the 1990s is something that will always remain with me. “It was not all for nothing” he remarked, fist in the air, referring to his efforts over 30 years ago.
Dr. Otto Langenegger will be much missed. May he Rest in Peace.
He leaves behind a large family:
Urs and Marika Langenegger-Bohse with their children Tabea, Dominik and Eliane.
Thomas and Anita Langenegger Vogel, with their children Samuel, Jonas, Elias, Rahel and Salome.
In 1983, I moved to live and work in Ghana – some 40 years ago now. Back then, I was the regional supervisor on the 3000 Well Maintenance Unit in Southern and Central Ghana which was funded by the German Development Service under the Rural Water Supply programme. The project was a pioneer of its time, and included drilling boreholes alongside the installation and testing of handpumps in six of Ghana’s regions, as well as the Nanumba district, Northern Region.
We initially installed India Mark II and Moyno pumps, before dropping the Moyno due to technical problems. However, we soon realised that the India Mark II pumps faced corrosion issues. Investigation and testing (as documented by Langennegger, 1989 and Langenegger, 1994) found that the Galvanised Iron components (rods and riser pipes), when installed in water with low pH, had a propensity to rapidly corrode – leading to discolouration of the water and affecting taste, but also causing the pumps to fail prematurely as the rods broke and riser pipes developed cracks and holes and even fell into the borehole. The envisaged idea of maintenance by communities, with assistance from mechanics who could reach villages by motorcycle, was simply not feasible with such installations. Another significant issue related to corrosion of hand pump parts was the water contamination and bad taste of the water. As a result, the water coloured the food and therefore caused the population to stop using the borehole water and forced them to go back to unsafe water sources
We, therefore, had to seek alternatives. This involved field testing and collaborating with the Materials Testing Institute of the University of Darmstadt.
We looked into replacing the galvanised iron components with stainless steel. To ensure the pipes were light, we considered using 3 – 3.5 mm thick pipes, and used a threading that at the time was used in the drilling industry , known as the “rope thread”. Although Atlas Copco had patented this threading type at the time, it was later manufactured in India after the Atlas Copco design period (patent) ended.
Figure 1: Rope thread (Claus Riexinger)
The pump rods presented some challenges as well, since the AISI Stainless Steel grade 316 that we were using was subject to breakage, including the threaded parts. In collaboration with our partners at the University of Darmstadt, we were able to find ways to make this grade of stainless steel more elastic by adding 2-3 % Molybdenum. Other issues with the rods related to the use of rolled thread, which we learned was more durable than cut thread. Incorporating these materials and techniques, we were able to reduce the rod diameter from 12 mm down to 10.8mm, resulting in lighter rods which did not corrode. The only drawback was that the threads could not be cut in the field, but this was not such an issue, as there was no need to cut them when they were installed, or upon maintenance.
Figure 2: Pump installation (Claus Riexinger)
After switching to stainless steel riser pipes, we encountered another issue: -galvanic corrosion between the pipe and the water tank. This type of corrosion occurs when two dissimilar materials come into contact in solution. It was yet another challenge! Fortunately, we were able to solve this problem by replacing the existing flange with a new one made of stainless steel with an insulating gasket, into which the riser pipe could be screwed and prevent any further galvanic corrosion.
Figure 3: Ghana Modified India Mark II Handpump – water tank, spout and flange
After conducting extensive testing and collaborating with the University of Darmstadt over a period of around 4 years, we managed to solve the problem of rapid corrosion of handpumps in Ghana. The improved pump design came to be known as the Ghana Modified India Mark II, and was officially adopted by the Government of Ghana in the 1990s. Its specifications can be downloaded here.
Designing and publishing the specifications for a new pump is one thing, but the other is ensuring that these are adhered to. A series of meetings with government, donors, and NGOs working in the water sector in the 1990s, led to the agreement to no longer use Galvanised Iron. All stakeholders were on board with the change.
Of particular importance was the tremendous support and buy-in of the major donor at the time – KfW (Germany). They agreed to pay for the increased costs of the Ghana Modified Pump on new installations, which at the time was about three times more expensive than the version using Galvanised Iron. KfW also supported the rehabilitation and replacement of the pumps that had previously been installed using Galvanised Iron. As a result, we were able to remove and replace the corroded installations systematically, rather than addressing the issue in a piecemeal manner.
It is estimated that over 4,500 Ghana Modified India Mark II handpumps had been installed in Ghana by the time I left the 3000 Well Maintenance Unit in 1992. Anecdotally, I would say that 90% were working, and of the 10% out of use, they were down for maintenance/repair.
KfW took this design to Cameroon, while Danida took it to Burkina Faso and Zambia. I am not fully aware of what happened next, but I do know that ensuring the quality of stainless steel was a problem in Burkina Faso.
I am very pleased to see that Ghana Modified India Mark II handpumps are now available through the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN), and hope that these can be of use to other countries that are struggling to overcome the rapid handpump corrosion problem.
Figure 4: Example factory inspection Modified India MKII (Claus Riexinger)
However, I have a work of caution too. Although specifications, standards, and clear procurement documents are essential, they are rendered meaningless in the absence of inspection. During my time with the 3000 Well Maintenance Unit and later as an independent consultant, I traveled to India and other places for pre-shipment inspections. I also oversaw the rejection of consignments from India and Europe due to poor quality or manufacturing mistakes. And so, I urge all of you involved in handpump procurement and installation to make sure that you ensure the quality, especially through inspection and material testing.
About the author: Claus Riexinger is a rural WASH expert and freelance consultant with over forty years of experience in development cooperation with Government organisations, private companies, and development agencies mainly in Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Germany, India, Tanzania, and Ghana.
REAL-Water to coordinate data and actions for the sustainable development of water resources in arid Southern Madagascar.
In Madagascar, there are significant disparities in access to essential water and sanitation services. Currently, only about half of the population (54.4%) has access to vital water services, and just over 10% have access to necessary sanitation services. The situation is particularly challenging in Southern Madagascar, where various development issues, such as population growth, changes in land use, and worsening dry-season water shortages, are present. These difficulties are exacerbated by poverty, which hinders water resource development, leads to poor infrastructure, and contributes to food insecurity.
To guide regional programming that considers the development and humanitarian requirements, USAID Madagascar has commissioned REAL-Water to assess water resources and infrastructure needs. The program will entail specific activities, including a literature review of water development activities, data collection on existing and planned water infrastructure, analyses of remaining water resources and infrastructure needs, and planning for future investments.
The six districts of interest covered in the assessment are shown on an I-digital elevation model (from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission). Small gray and green polygons indicate areas of human settlement (“Settlement Extents”) from the GRID3 DATA HUB. Each settlement extent type (built-up area, small settlement area, and hamlet) is included, with built-up areas depicted in green).
Professional Drilling Management & Groundwater Resources Management
Thanks to funding from the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) in Germany, 2022 saw Ask for Water GmbH, together with the Africa Groundwater Network, Cap-Net UNDP and several other partners (see below) develop and run two online courses on groundwater. The courses strengthened the capacity of staff of governments, NGOs, the private sector and academia in African member states and beyond.
The courses, hosted by Cap-Net UNDP, and offered free of charge to participants, were entitled Groundwater Resources Management and Professional Drilling Management. Each course was specifically developed for professionals working on these issues, or responsible for decision making.
Face to face training course on drilling supervision in Sierra Leone (Source: Kerstin Danert)
Professional Drilling Management Course
Drilled water wells are vital to achieving universal clean drinking water, providing safe, affordable, reliable and available water sources. To ensure that the water wells or boreholes are built to last, they must be drilled, developed and completed in a professional manner. Key elements of a professional drilling sector are robust procurement, contract management, siting, borehole design, construction, and supervision. Furthermore, the management of the groundwater resources must also be considered and support provided to long-term maintenance if services are to last. Unfortunately, in many countries it is difficult to develop skills in these areas due to a lack of training and mentoring opportunities.
The 2022 online course on Professional Drilling Management provided participants with a comprehensive overview of the different aspects of drilling management, specifically (i) groundwater data and siting; (ii) procurement and contract management (including costing and pricing; (iii) borehole drilling and supervision and (iv) legal and institutional frameworks. In the last of five modules, participants were encouraged to reflect upon and share actions that they as individuals and as organisations could take to raise drilling professionalism in the context in which they work. From the 781 people who applied for the course, 314 were selected, of which 209 were active participants. A total of 162, equivalent to 78% of the active participants passed the course.
You can access the 2022 course report, manual and key training materials here.
If you would like to learn about what alumni of previous online courses on Professional Drilling Management have done with their knowledge, check out the short film below or the short report of their testimonials.
Groundwater Resources Management Course
An estimated 50% of the global and 75% of the African population rely on groundwater for their drinking water supplies. Groundwater supports social and economic development and will become increasingly important in the face of climate change, as groundwater resources are often less affected than surface water by climate change impacts. If groundwater is to provide reliable, safe and sustainable water supplies now and for future generations, the resource must be well-managed. This requires consideration of the entire system of policies & laws, strategies & guidance, monitoring & management as well as investments & projects. Good groundwater management needs sound capacities in water authorities. But at same time, as many elements of groundwater management fall in other sectors, a general understanding of groundwater management principles in sectors like agriculture and urban planning is key for its successful implementation.
The 2022 online course on groundwater resources management provides participants with a comprehensive overview of the multiple factors that impact upon groundwater. It was a self-paced course and was hosted on the virtual campus of Cap Net/UNDP.
The course comprised 5 modules; each with a short introduction, goal, learning objectives and orientation video, as well as mandatory videos and reading materials:
Module 1: Characterization of Aquifer Systems from a Management Perspective
Module 2: Groundwater monitoring and data/information management & communication
Module 3: Groundwater quality and source water protection
Module 4: Groundwater regulation, licensing, allocation and institutions for aquifer management
Module 5: Transboundary aquifers in Africa: Approaches and mechanisms
You can access the 2022 course report, manual and key training materials here.
Artesian well near Lake Chad, Chad (Source: Moustapha Diene
What next?
The Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN), Ask for Water GmbH, the Africa Groundwater Network (AGW-Net), Cap-Net UNDP and partners would like to offer these courses on an annual basis. We are currently looking for sponsors/funders to make this possible. In case you are interested, please contact us via info@rural-water-supply.net.
This is a guest blog by RWSN members D. Daniel, Trimo Pamudji Al Djono, and Widya Prihesti Iswarani, based in Indonesia.
Data tell us many things. We can learn the patterns of any phenomenon using data. In this blog, we bring you to the archipelago country of Indonesia where water access is still a challenge, especially in rural areas. As of 2020, only 82% of households in rural Indonesia have access to basic water services, while almost 95% of urban households enjoy those water services.
To tackle this, the Indonesian government launched the community-based drinking water supply program, called “Program Penyediaan Air Minum dan Sanitasi Berbasis Masyarakat (PAMSIMAS)” in 2007. Almost 22 million people in 32 thousand villages throughout Indonesia got PAMSIMAS access from 2008 to 2020. PAMSIMAS is one of the biggest rural water supply programs in the world. Unfortunately, not many stories from PAMSIMAS are shared with the global community, so we are here to tell you the story!
PAMSIMAS infrastructure
PAMSIMAS is conducted at the village level and managed by the community itself. If we talk about functionality, the data in 2020 indicates that 85.4% of the PAMSIMAS programs were fully functioning, 9.1% were partially functioning, and 5.5% were not functioning. Thus, we can say that the success rate for this program is quite high.
The main question now is what can we learn from the PAMSIMAS program? Here are some lessons learned from our study:
First, household connections have a higher chance of being sustainable (99%) than communal or public connection (69%), e.g., public tap. We can relate it to the payment system. Almost 40% of the communal connections had no payment system, compared to only 3.5% of the household connection. From the field experience, it is relatively challenging to implement and collect water fees in the communal systems, especially because there is no water meter measuring the actual use of households. We should take into account also that other people from outside often come and draw water without paying for it, which can cause jealousy from the actual beneficiaries and make them hesitate to continue paying for the water service. All of these can result in not enough money for the water board to maintain and repair any damage in the system.
Second, let’s talk about the contribution made by the community or beneficiaries toward the program. We all agree that it is important for the community to contribute to the program, either in form of in-kind, e.g., in the program planning, pipe and system construction, etc., or in-cash, e.g., monthly tariff or construction cost. We may think that the more people participate in those activities, the higher the chance of the water service being sustainable. And yes, it is true. However, our analysis found that community contribution in the form of regular-monthly payment is more influential than in-kind contributions at the beginning of the project to sustain the PAMSIMAS program. We again highlight that regular payment by the beneficiaries is important to sustain the program.
PAMSIMAS infrastructure
Third, the success of the rural water supply program cannot be achieved without favorable human factors, such as a well-performing water board and good support or contributions from the community. For the former, we suggest that mentoring of the village water board by the district facilitator can be done to ensure that the water board has sufficient capacity to efficiently manage the piped system, e.g., repair broken pipes or implement cost-effective operation & maintenance.
Fourth, financial support from the national and district government is critical, e.g., by providing extra subsidies or incentives outside the main fund scheme. In this case, only well-performing water boards or PAMSIMAS programs have a chance to apply for these extra funds. Thus, this will trigger the water board to perform well before they apply for it. In short, we need support from all governmental levels: national, district, and village.
Fifth, we have to understand the relationship between water board performance and support from the community. Let’s have a look, for example, at monthly payments: the well-performing water boards will increase the trust of the community and minimize any interruption in water delivery. As a result, the community would be happy to pay the water fee regularly and support the water board activities. In other words, this will create positive conditions for the water board.
Lastly, we know that water access is a human right. We (and the government) are trying to provide water to everyone in need, especially vulnerable groups, e.g., poor people or those who live in difficult areas. On behalf of human rights, the government is willing to spend a lot of money on those groups, which may result in a very high investment per capita. Some reasons for the high investment per capita are a small number of beneficiaries, wide coverage area of the water supply system, or scattered housing in remote areas. However, our analysis found that a high investment per capita is not associated with a sustainable PAMSIMAS program. We don’t want to say stop providing water for them, but rather the need for a comprehensive economic analysis and system design in the feasibility study before the project starts.
There are many things to share with you but we don’t have enough space to write everything here. If you are still curious, please check our scientific publications about PAMSIMAS below. See you!
Factors related to the functionality of community-based rural water supply and sanitation program in Indonesia. Geography and Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geosus.2022.12.002
The effect of community contribution on the functionality of rural water supply programs in Indonesia. Groundwater for Sustainable Development. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gsd.2022.100822
A System Dynamics Model of the Community-Based Rural Drinking Water Supply Program (PAMSIMAS) in Indonesia. Water. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13040507
About the authors:
(D.) Daniel is a lecturer and researcher at Public Health Graduate program, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia. His main topics of interest are water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) system in rural areas, household water treatment practice/behaviour, the sustainability of WASH services, drinking water quality at the household level, and public health issue in general.
Trimo Pamudji Al Djono has 25 years of experience in community development and empowerment programs/projects in urban and rural. Trimo has worked for the World Bank for 14 years managing national programs and has experience as a researcher and lecturer by becoming a Lecturer in Environmental Engineering at the Jakarta Sapta Taruna College (STTST) and Singaperbangsa Karawang University. Other experiences include working as a consultant at GHD, Plan International, Unicef, UNIDO, Aguaconsult, and NORC University of Chicago.
Widya Prihesti Iswarani is a lecturer/researcher in the field of environmental science and engineering. She is currently working at Avans University of Applied Sciences and Centre of Expertise Biobased Economy in The Netherlands. Her main topics of interest are water and wastewater treatment, resource recovery, and the sustainability of WASH in developing countries.
Photo credits: D. Daniel, Trimo Pamudji Al Djono, and Widya Prihesti Iswarani
This year we are celebrating 30 years since the Rural Water Supply Network was formally founded. From very technical beginnings as a group of (mostly male) experts – the Handpump Technology Network- we have evolved to be a diverse and vibrant network of over 13,000 people and 100 organisations working on a wide range of topics. Along the way, we have earned a reputation for impartiality, and become a global convener in the rural water sector.
RWSN would not be what it is today without the contributions and tireless efforts of many our members, organisations and people. As part of RWSN’s 30th anniversary celebration, we are running a blog series on rwsn.blog, inviting our friends and experts in the sector to share their thoughts and experiences in the rural water sector.
This is a guest blog by RWSN Member Lilian Pena P. Weiss based in Washington DC, USA.
I started working in the rural water sector in 2002, in my very first assignment with the World Bank, when I was part of a team assessing the social and environmental impacts of rural water systems in the dry northeast part of Brazil. As a recent engineering graduate, I was very much focused on the infrastructure – but I quickly learned that sustainable rural water services need to take into account a lot more than that. I remember vividly exchanging with the rural users on how to organise the community associations for managing water services, discussions on tariffs, Operation & Maintenance, and support from local governments amongst others. Since there, I never stopped working on delivering rural water services
In the early 2000s in Latin America, I worked on many projects in rural water services to indigenous and Afro-Latin communities that had been financed by the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank. Through those, I gained a better understanding of how these communities value water, the related cultural connections, and their willingness to have and pay for better services! This underlined the importance of working on the social side, especially behavior change and communications to make rural water services sustainable. At the time, the Demand-Responsive Approach (DRA) was the mantra with rural water practitioners! Some of the lessons learned from my engagement with Indigenous communities in Latin America and the Caribbean were later captured in this publication.
Around 2010, we started to develop a joint rural water information system, SIASAR, with Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama, which has since turned into a rural water platform across 14 national or subnational governments, from Costa Rica and Uganda to Kyrgyzstan. Developing SIASAR has been one of the most interesting and rewarding initiatives of my professional career so far; we worked hand in hand with multiple countries to develop – from scratch – a new governance and structured information system that focused on service delivery and sustainability with active participation from local users up to central governments harmonized across a wide range of countries.
It was around 2012 that I became involved in the Rural Water Supply Network. At the time, I was co-chairing the internal rural water thematic group of the World Bank together with my colleague Miguel Vargas. The interactions with the RWSN I believe were a win-win for us and for them. The RWSN with its powerful outreach and strong presence in Africa could deepen our dialogue and understanding of how to reach the last mile in rural water supply and give us the opportunity to exchange lessons and initiatives with so many institutions working on the same topic. At the same time, the World Bank’s global perspective also helped the RWSN to expand beyond Africa.
Later in 2015, I was fortunate to join the World Bank’s team in Vietnam, to lead a new generation of rural water projects where financing was fully based on results. It was fascinating to evolve our dialogue from delivering tanks and connections to really focusing on ‘how can we make sure these systems will deliver 24/7, reliably, with O&M cost recovery and sustain over the years? The work started in Vietnam has scaled up globally; this blog gives a good overview of the lessons learned from this approach in Vietnam. To date that the World Bank has supported more than 20 programs for results in the water sector globally.
Although so much progress has been achieved in rural water over the last 20 years, from an old top-down, infrastructure-based approach, to the evolution of the CBO-based models with institutionalized backstopping support, and growing Private Sector Participation, the challenges ahead remain complex. Not only do we need to continue working to ‘leave no one behind’,we also need to promote better and more efficient levels of service (ie. household connections, 24/7 supply, financial sustainability, etc). Moreover, climate change and its impacts on water security are perhaps the greatest challenge for this decade. Rural systems and their water sources are naturally more vulnerable to extreme climate events. The role of Development Partners, including the RWSN, become increasingly important to work with Governments, rural water practitioners, academia, and the private sector to develop and deploy effective solutions and advocate for the necessary funding to ensure universal, sustainable and climate resilience rural water services.
About the author: Lilian Pena P. Weiss is a Lead Water Supply and Sanitation specialist at the World Bank, based in Washington DC, USA. She has been working for over 20 years with World Bank operations, in Latin America countries, in East Asia and more recently in South Asia. She has led over 20 World Bank-financed investment projects in the water and sanitation sector, mostly focused on the rural water and sanitation sector. Lilian has also worked with water sector reforms, institutional strengthening of water utilities, environmental sanitation topics, community-driven development (CDD), results-based approaches and water security. She was the co-chair of the World Bank’s Rural Water Thematic Group from 2012 to 2015. Lilian is a Brazilian national, civil engineer, has a master in water resources management and environmental technology, and has a MBA in financial management.
Did you enjoy this blog? Would you like to share your perspective on the rural water sector or your story as a rural water professional? We are inviting all RWSN Members to contribute to this 30th anniversary blog series. The best blogs will be selected for publication. Please see the blog guidelines here and contact us (ruralwater[at]skat.ch) for more information. You are also welcome to support RWSN’s work through our online donation facility. Thank you for your support.
Photo credits:
Inauguration ceremony of a new water system in Panama. Photo credit: Lilian Pena P. Weiss.
SIASAR information system. Each point represents a rural community and the colour defines the status of rural water services.
Visiting a rural water source in Vietnam. Photo credit: Lilian Pena P. Weiss.
This year we are celebrating 30 years since the Rural Water Supply Network was formally founded. From very technical beginnings as a group of (mostly male) experts – the Handpump Technology Network – we have evolved to be a diverse and vibrant network of over 13,000 people and 100 organisations working on a wide range of topics. Along the way, we have earned a reputation for impartiality, and become a global convener in the rural water sector.
RWSN would not be what it is today without the contributions and tireless efforts of many our members, organisations and people. As part of RWSN’s 30th anniversary celebration, we are running a blog series on rwsn.blog, inviting our friends and experts in the sector to share their thoughts and experiences in the rural water sector.
This is a blog post from a RWSN Thematic Lead, Euphresia Luseka, from Kenya
“In Diversity there is beauty and there is strength”
Maya Angelou
Diversity is the difference. People are the same and different by their ethnic, age, professional experience, religion, race, and gender.
Let’s agree that women’s contributions and leadership are central to providing solutions to water challenges. Consequently, the water sector needs a more diverse labour force to establish a more inclusive and equitable experience for all its practitioners. By highlighting the scale of issues facing female Water leaders, we can better understand their challenges, and galvanize action for progressive, systemic change while examining other robust potential and scalable solutions.
The current women’s underrepresentation in water sector leadership is a prominent concern. According to a World Bank publication on Women in Water Utilities, women are significantly underrepresented; less than 18% of the workforce sampled were women, one in three utilities sampled had no female engineers and 12% of utilities have no female managers. Referencing the analysis of the employment data from participating organizations in a FLUSH LLC publication that I co-authored, white males from High-Income Countries comprised over a third of all sanitation leadership positions. With regards to race, two-thirds of all sanitation leaders were white, with white leaders 8.7 times more likely to hold multiple positions across different organizations than Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC). BIPOC Women were the least represented group.
This affirms the importance of an intersectional perspective in advancing gender and racial equity in the water sector leadership.
Women and specifically BIPOC female water leaders are missing out on opportunities in the water sector that hold the promise of advancement of SDG6 targets and the rising economic security that comes with it.
Without diverse leadership, the water sector will continue to experience failure.
Are there consequences for this?
Gender diversity in the Water sector is not only a pressing political, moral and social issue but also a critical economic challenge. There are consequences for not having women in water leadership, the financial consequences are significant.
The untapped and unmeasured contribution of women is enormous. Women make up half the world’s population but generate 37% of the global GDP, reflecting the fact that they have unequal access to labour markets, opportunities, and rights. A McKinsey & Co study found that companies in the top quartile for gender or racial and ethnic diversity are more likely to have financial returns above their national industry medians. Companies in the bottom quartile in these dimensions are statistically less likely to achieve above-average returns.
Beyond that, compared to senior-level men, senior-level women have a vast and meaningful impact on an organization’s culture; they champion racial and gender diversity more.
Unfortunately, given the high male dominance in the Water sector they are usually the “Onlys” – the only or one of the only women hence more resistance, sharper criticism especially on affirming their competence, more prejudice, and more experience to micro-aggressions.
If women leaders are not present in the workforce, women at all levels lose their most powerful champions.
Absolutely, diversity wins and here are some examples of what I mean.
Though many ambitious women in water desire to advance into leadership positions, very few have the managerial and Ally support to get and keep those positions. Though many employees perceive themselves as our Allies, they do not take enough action such as publicly advocating for racial or gender equality, publicly confronting discrimination, publicly mentoring and sponsoring them. Though women in water have the capacity to lead in the sector, there exist geographic mismatches between them and opportunities, we remain underrepresented and paid less. Though many organizations are hiring more women to entry-level positions numbers dwindle at management level, particularly for BIPOC women.
This obviously has a long-term impact on the talent pipeline; eventually, there are fewer women to hire, fewer to promote to senior managers and overall fewer women in the sector. If women continue encountering the sticky floor, a broken rung on the ladder to success, and a revolving door in entry-level jobs, we might never break the glass ceiling.
Women can never catch up with this status quo!
But why are we missing and losing women in water leadership?
We have come from so far as a sector but have moved very little on Gender parity at the workplace.
To give an illustration, the United Nations organized four outstanding world conferences for women: 1) at Mexico City in 1975; establishing the World Plan of Action and Declaration of Equality of Women and their Contribution to Development and Peace. 2) The Copenhagen conference in 1980, 3) the Nairobi Conference in my country Kenya, in 1985 4) in Beijing in 1995 which marked a significant turning point for the global agenda on gender equality with an outcome of a global policy document.
27 years later, still the water sector is investing in the same gender challenges emerging from gender norms that are stuck with us generation after generation.
Women’s dual roles and time burden affect their economic productivity however inequalities in access to education impact their growth attributing to the high rates of poor women. Therefore, the woman in water at work and society starts at a disadvantaged position.
This affirms the supposition that instead of making transformation the goal in gender and water sector leadership, how about we make it a way of doing business?
Are women better leaders than men?
As demonstrated in Eagly (2007) study, women are manifesting leadership styles associated with effective performance. On the other hand, there appears to be widespread recognition that women often come in second to men in leadership competitions. Women are still suffering disadvantage in access to leadership positions as well as prejudice and resistance when they occupy these roles. It is more difficult for women than men to become leaders and to succeed in male-dominated leadership roles. This mix of apparent advantage and disadvantage that women leaders experience reflects the considerable progress towards gender equality that has occurred in both attitudes and behaviour, coupled with lack of complete attainment of this goal. Although prejudicial attitudes do not invariably produce discriminatory behaviour, such attitudes can limit women’s access to leadership roles and foster discriminatory evaluations when they occupy such roles.
It is time for Women to take up power, are they?
The 20th-century paradigm shift championed by UN towards gender equality has not ceased as affirmed by the profound changes taking place in diversity targets in the Water sector. The trends are clear that women are ascending towards greater power and authority. The presence of more women in water leadership positions is one of the clearest indicators of this transformation.
The central question of gender equality is a question of power, we continue to live in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture. Power is not given, power is taken; we have to push back against the resistance to change, as advised by António Guterres, Secretary General, United Nations.
Photo 3: Water Utility Staff during a Non-Revenue Water management training, Kenya, 2022
How do we sustain the gains?
Focus and execution discipline not only makes a big difference, it is the only thing that can sustain change. It is noteworthy that placing a higher value on diversity and implementing targeted initiatives have not closed the representation gaps for women leaders in Water and especially BIPOC Women, with most outcomes remaining elusive despite scaling up of initiatives.
Useful data can resolve this; effective policies are informed best by evidence. We cannot change what we do not measure and we cannot measure what we do not know. Therefore, borrowing from President Biden’s approach upon issuing an executive order on advancing racial equity and support for underserved communities, I guide, assess institutional gender capacity to build a robust pipeline for women in water professionals at all levels of-management.
Inquire what actions can influence diverse representation in the water sector leadership towards an inclusive environment where women feel supported by peers and leaders.
Co-creation will be key in strategically prioritising interventions addressing necessary changes across the organisation, progress cannot be made in silos. Collaborative efforts galvanise collective action that will build trust across the organization. Focus should not take a gender-neutral approach; some interventions can specifically focus on men others women as a corrective measure to enhance leadership diversity. This shall move the process of change through equality to equity to justice.
Empowering and equipping management to not only develop technical and managerial skills but advance female leaders and mainly BIPOC could follow. Use influencers to drive change. Translate allyship into action across all levels. Maintain open communication and feedback channels. Reinforce and scale what works and re-envision what does not. Measure and celebrate progress towards diversity outcomes.
****
I thought I would support transforming the water sector instead it transformed me. This blog is dedicated to Leslie Gonzalez, Director of Project Delivery, Africa at DAI. I acknowledge the efforts of Portia Persley Division Chief, RFS/Center for Water Security, Sanitation and Hygiene at USAID, Heather Skilling, Principal Global Practice Specialist, WASH at DAI, and Dr. Leunita Sumba, at WIWAS. History will remember your efforts in advancing women in water, working with you is like working with the change you want to see in the water sector.
Photo credits: Euphresia Luseka
About the author:
Euphresia Luseka is a Water Governance Specialist and Co-Lead of RWSN Leave No-One Behind Theme. She is a seasoned Expert with experience in leadership, strategy development, partnerships and management in WASH sector nationally, regionally and internationally. She has specialised in WASH Public Policy, Business Development Support Strategies and Institutional Strengthening of urban and rural WASH Institutions. Euphresia has several publications and research work in her field.
Did you enjoy this blog? Would you like to share your perspective on the rural water sector or your story as a rural water professional? We are inviting all RWSN Members to contribute to this 30th anniversary blog series. The best blogs will be selected for publication. Please see the blog guidelines here and contact us (ruralwater[at]skat.ch) for more information. You are also welcome to support RWSN’s work through our online donation facility. Thank you for your support.
This year we are celebrating 30 years since the Rural Water Supply Network was formally founded. From very technical beginnings as a group of (mostly male) experts – the Handpump Technology Network – we have evolved to be a diverse and vibrant network of over 13,000 people and 100 organisations working on a wide range of topics. Along the way, we have earned a reputation for impartiality, and become a global convener in the rural water sector.
RWSN would not be what it is today without the contributions and tireless efforts of many our members, organisations and people. As part of RWSN’s 30th anniversary celebration, we are running a blog series on rwsn.blog, inviting our friends and experts in the sector to share their thoughts and experiences in the rural water sector.
This is a blog post from RWSN Member Hannah Ritchie, based in the United Kingdom
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In 2020, I joined forces with Sand Dams Worldwide (SDW) to help them answer the question of “how long water from sand dams is lasting throughout the year”. In this short blog post, I am happy to discuss with you our findings and the implications of this study. We’ll be discussing “why we are interested in this question”, “how we researched this question”, and “what we found out”.
Firstly though, for those of you not familiar with what a sand dam is, I would like to direct you here for a video, which explains them better than I could, and here to SDW’s website where you can find everything sand dam related you might need to know.
Why are we interested (and why you should be too)?
So, why do we care about whether sand dams are providing water year-round? There is uncertainty over whether water from sand dams is lasting all the way through the dry season, or whether people can only abstract water from sand dams at the beginning of the dry season, when they have just been replenished by the rains. Because of this conflict in results, we can’t easily conclude how effective sand dams are as a dryland and specifically dry season water source. For example, can people rely on them when other water sources are unavailable (such as when surface waters have run dry)? Or are the dams dry by the second week of the dry season? Answering this question is very important for understanding their level of use, acceptance, and financial viability, helping to inform future water management interventions and to ensure that communities are serviced with a continuous improved supply. Knowing whether there are certain dry season months when sand dams have no water being abstracted can also inform on months when water supply from other sources needs expanding. Finally, knowing which sand dams have more or less water being abstracted can aid in optimising sand dam design.
You might be thinking, “but no water abstracted doesn’t necessarily mean no water being available”, and you would be right. Because, whilst abstraction volumes may be linked to storage, many other variables, such as convenience, quality, and the use of other sources can also impact abstraction. Thus, the contribution that sand dams make to water security is not synonymous with the amount of water actually stored in the dam. Therefore, whilst this study can show us abstraction patterns from sand dams and therefore behaviours of use, it cannot confirm for certain whether there is or isn’t any water available.
How did we do it?
Now you know why we’re interested and why it matters, how did we actually go about answering the question: “how long water from sand dams is lasting throughout the year”? In 2019, 26 sand dam hand pumps in Makueni and Machakos Counties, Kenya were fitted with Waterpoint Data Transmitters (WDT) by ASDF. These devices measure the number of times and with what force a handpump is used over an hour and convert this into an estimated volume of water abstracted (Thomson et al., 2012). This data point is then transmitted by SMS. I had access to this remotely sensed data from April 2019 until October 2021. With a data point every hour for 26 sites over 31 months, I ended up with a very large data set!
Alongside this abstraction data, I also had access to interview and observation data provided by MSc student Joanna Chan, ASDF, and SDW. These variables included perceived salinity, abstraction limits, livestock use, whether the dam is said to have ever run dry, presence of rainwater harvesting tanks, actual salinity (μs/cm), area of dam wall (m2), average distance travelled from home to dam (km), and user numbers (Chan, 2019).
This data was then analysed to assess how much water people were abstracting and for how long throughout the year the water continued to be abstracted for. The variables collected from interview and observation were then analysed to provide insight into differences in abstraction between sites. For example, did sites with larger dam walls have more water being abstracted, or did salinity impact abstraction in any way?
Finally, we looked specifically at the last week in September (as a proxy for the end of the long dry season) to assess whether enough water to specifically meet drinking water needs (2 L/p/day) was still being abstracted at any sites. Due to the necessity of an improved source of water for drinking (of which a handpump is one), we wanted to know whether the handpumps could independently meet drinking water needs, in case no other water sources were available.
What did we find out?
After analysing all of the data and wrapping my head around some statistical analysis, I like to think that we found some interesting results.
The most obvious finding was that of high variability in abstraction volume between the 26 hand pumps and seasons. We found abstraction to be significantly higher in the long dry season, indicating a high reliance and delivery of water when other sources are compromised. The diagram below shows median monthly abstraction (L/month) (red line) and average monthly rainfall (mm) (brown bars – dry season and blue bars rainy season) across all sites – indicating higher abstraction when rainfall is lower.
There was abstraction data available from 21 handpumps (81%) by the end of at least one of the analysed long dry seasons, with at least some water still being abstracted. At 59.1% of these sites, enough water to meet each user’s drinking water needs (2 L/p/day) was being abstracted in at least one of the analysed years. This indicates that such dams can meet the drinking water needs of users independently of other sources.
Using the variables which were collected in interviews and observations, we found that sites with a greater proportion of people using the water for livestock, higher salinity, and larger dam walls had significantly higher levels of abstraction. This is to be expected as higher salinity sites are often used more for livestock (Chan, 2019), which have a greater water demand than that for drinking, whilst larger dam walls can lead to a greater volume of sand build up and therefore water storage (Maddrell & Neal, 2012).
These results highlight sand dams as a sustainable alternative to other dry season sources such as water vendors, which can be expensive and unreliable. However, lower abstraction in certain months and sites highlights that we must approach water management holistically. No one technique is necessarily the answer to dryland water security and all available water sources must be considered. Clearly, not all sand dams behave the same, with certain sand dams always likely to have higher levels of abstraction than others. However, high abstraction and sustained water availability by the end of the long dry season at many sites profess the positive contribution that sand dams can make to a community’s water supply, offering opportunities for further success in the future.
Closing remarks
I really hope you enjoyed learning about abstraction trends from sand dams as much as I enjoyed studying them (most of the time!) If you’re interested in learning more, I hope the paper will be published soon, which will be freely available for everyone to read. If you’d like to reach out, my email is hannah.ritchie@cranfield.ac.uk. Many thanks for reading.
A bit about the author
I am a PhD student at Cranfield University. I began my PhD in September 2019 in WaSH with the CDT Water WISER. With a background in geology and environmental engineering, I wanted to design my PhD project around earth sciences and development. This was how I ended up finding sand dams and partnering with SDW and Africa Sand Dam Foundation (ASDF).
Outside of work I love to run, hike (generally be outdoors as much as possible), read, and am learning French. I am very passionate about science communication and firmly believe that research results need to be translated into accessible formats for all to read and understand, hence why I have written this blog post for you (definitely shorter, more fun, and less boring than reading a 15-page paper!)
Did you enjoy this blog? Would you like to share your perspective on the rural water sector or your story as a rural water professional? We are inviting all RWSN Members to contribute to this 30th anniversary blog series. The best blogs will be selected for publication. Please see the blog guidelines here and contact us (ruralwater[at]skat.ch) for more information. You are also welcome to support RWSN’s work through our online donation facility. Thank you for your support.
Photo credits: Hannah Ritchie
References
Chan, J. (2019). Abstraction of Water from Sand Dams in Machakos and Makueni Counties (Kenya) via Handpumps.
Maddrell, S., & Neal, I. (2012). Sand Dams: a Practical Guide.
Thomson, P., Hope, R., & Foster, T. (2012). GSM-enabled remote monitoring of rural handpumps: A proof-of-concept study. Journal of Hydroinformatics, 14(4), 829–839. https://doi.org/10.2166/hydro.2012.183
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