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”

Achieving SDG 6: The Need for Local Centres of WASH Expertise and How to Do It

First published on the CAWST blog, reposted with thanks

The goal: ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by 2030. The task at hand, right now: learn quickly from failure and share lessons learned.

Scaling-up of WASH service coverage will require a focus on both affordable infrastructure and enabling environments. CAWST and the SMART Centre Group are focused on both through capacity development of local providers of WASH products and services. As part of this work, both groups have been following the model of establishing and supporting local centres of WASH expertise. Each centre is unique, housed in an existing in-country organization and provides capacity development services on technical and non-technical WASH solutions and approaches. Between us, we have a combined 22 years of testing this approach. We can unequivocally say that it is a key part of achieving SDG 6, and we have come together to share our key lessons learned:

Lesson 1:  Local WASH centres are worth the long-term investment

  • Long-term follow-up support after training is vital to effective capacity development of an individual, especially in the case of entrepreneurs, who often encounter business challenges.
  • Locally embedded centres can reach people that an external organization cannot: Grounded networks, know-how, and understanding of the context are invaluable and not replicable. Engrained local organisations are a rich source of endogenous best, second best, and worst practices.

CAWST’s Water Expertise and Training (WET) Centre in Afghanistan, housed in the Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR), was the first WET Centre to become functionally and financially independent, due to high demand for capacity development in the country and an inability of external organizations to supply much of that demand. From 2011-2015, over 1 million community members benefitted from WASH projects implemented by the centre’s 1,378 clients.

Lesson 2:  Create enough critical mass and identify leaders at various levels

  • The commitment of the centre’s personnel is critical, yet challenging. Especially in the context of informal systems within developing countries where personnel turnover is high, developing the capacity of many to ensure enough critical mass of expertise over time.
  • Look for the entrepreneurial spirits and provide long-term coaching. Sustained business is essential: entrepreneurs need to sell their products and services profitably, so they will continue even if the centre ceases to exist – the concept of profit-based-sustainability.

More than a decade ago, the Southern Highlands Participatory Organisation (SHIPO) started accelerating access to WASH products and services by working relentlessly on capacity development and coaching of the private sector. There are now more than 40 small local companies who have produced over 3,000 wells, 11,000 rope hand pumps, and other SMARTechs throughout the country. SHIPO was the first WASH Centre of expertise within the SMART Centre Group. Key to its success has been its focus on market-based technologies and the promotion of (supported) self-supply (household wells).

Lesson 3:  The host organization must meet certain quality standards

  • The local host organization leadership’s commitment to the vision is critical.
  • Look for champions within the host organization – someone with the passion and network to make change happen, situated within an enabling environment (or with the ability to create an enabling environment). A champion must be able to effect change within institutional or structural limitations.
  • A base level of organizational capacity is necessary to develop technical and training capacity.

CAWST’s WET Centre in Zambia, housed in the Seeds of Hope International Partnerships organization, has adopted the model of training existing networks of community sales agents in WASH topics to increase implementation of a range of healthy home products while earning an income.

Lesson 4:  Flexibility is key

  • All stakeholders must share the willingness and ability to be flexible: A WASH centre needs to have an innovative, entrepreneurial spirit. WASH Centres need to be able to adapt to sector needs and trends.
  • Innovation and capacity development -not only in technology, but also in marketing and other business skills- is essential. A centre needs to pursue various channels to generate income, like selling training and consulting support and implementing projects.

In Tanzania, VETA (The Vocational Education and Training Authority) has included the rope pump in its curriculum based on the cooperation they have with the SHIPO SMART Centre. They are also planning to add manual drilling in the near future.

Lesson 5:  Engage with local networks

  • If the centre is represented and active in relevant networks, it will increase legitimacy and business opportunities. Be innovative in how you integrate the centre into these networks – seek to add value and establish a fundamental niche service.
  • Being part of an international network such as WET Centres and SMART Centres increases knowledge exchange, learning from each other and innovation.
  • Linkages to the formal education sector, vocational training, and employment standards (e.g. job profiles) should be made where possible. To support scale-up and sustainability of impact it is critical to get the knowledge and expertise embedded in national (vocational) training curricula.

Locally embedded knowledge and skills as well as pursuing innovative and affordable approaches such as training local private sector actors are essential to reach water and sanitation related development goals. CAWST and the SMART Centre Group will continue to apply these lessons and spread practice in the sector around establishing local education and training centres.

 

About the authors

The SMART Centre Group is a network of endogenous WASH training centres in Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia, with additional centres starting up in Ethiopia, South Sudan, Niger and Nicaragua. SMART stands for Simple, Market-based, Affordable and Repairable Technologies. SMART Centres train technicians in production and maintenance of SMARTechs and coach entrepreneurs in business skills like marketing so that they can deliver WASH products and services to a range of customers.

CAWST is a Canadian charity and licensed engineering firm that acts as a global centre of expertise in WASH capacity development. CAWST addresses the global need for safe drinking water and sanitation by developing local knowledge and skills on simple, affordable solutions that people can implement themselves. To reach more people and to ensure that knowledge and skills are truly retained locally, CAWST partners with existing in-country organizations to create Water Expertise and Training (WET) Centres that deliver CAWST-like capacity development services of their own. Independently of CAWST, the seven WET Centres across 3 continents have provided services to 658 client organizations whose projects have reached 3.7 million people with better water or sanitation.

Photo credit: CAWST (2018)

 

New Online Course – Professional Management of Water Well Drilling Projects and Programmes

 

We would like to announce to you that the registration is now open for an online course: Professional Management of Water Well Drilling Projects and Programmes – an Overview that will run from the 5 March to 14 April.

The course provides an overview of what is required to improve borehole drilling professionalism within an organisation and for the country more widely. The course provides participants with an understanding of the following key elements: groundwater information, siting, costing and pricing, procurement and contract management, borehole drilling and supervision and how professional drilling is affected by the wider institutional environment. Click here for more information.

The course builds up to a final assignment whereby participants are tasked with exploring actions that could be taken within their own organisations, local authority and/or country to improve borehole drilling professionalism. Certificates will be awarded to those that successfully complete the course.

The course is open to a maximum of 80 participants from Government, the Private Sector, NGOs, UN-Agencies, Academia and Donor Agencies.

To apply for a place, register here by the 14th February.

The course is designed for both those with a technical (i.e. engineering/science) and those with a non-technical (i.e. social science/economics/arts/politics) background. Participants should have a diploma or bachelor’s degree qualifications and at preferably at least three years of work experience in water supply service delivery (social or technical aspects), civil engineering, rural development or water/environmental management.  As this is an introductory course, participants are not expected to have a detailed understanding of hydrogeology.  The course language is English.

The six week course (5 March to 14 April) is hosted on the UNDP Cap-Net Virtual Campus. It will be facilitated by Skat Foundation, UNICEF, RWSN, AGW-Net and UPGro together with sector experts.

 

 

Why is Groundwater Data important?

by Dr Fabio Fussi, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca

The role of groundwater data in rural water supply has changed markedly in over the last few year:

6th RWSN Forum in Kampala, 2011: Some pilot projects of groundwater data collection and organization is presented. Uganda is presenting its groundwater atlas, a promising example for other countries.

7th RWSN Forum in Abidjan,  2016: there were entire sessions dedicated to groundwater data collection, mapping, analysis and application, with presentation of country programs from national water institutions, some example of international projects to create continental or world groundwater database (e.g. the groundwater atlas of Africa from the British Geological Survey) and application of groundwater data analysis.

What has raised the interest up to this level? There are several factors:

  • Data collection has become easy, with IT tools available in portable devices and smartphones for water point mapping. The increased availability of information has allowed to use these data to take decision about groundwater development and monitoring.
  • Depletion of groundwater resources (both in quantity and quality) requires the definition of sustainable groundwater development strategies and monitoring the effectiveness and impact of their implementation.
  • International donors have an increased interest to support countries to create groundwater information system, and national water institutions have, in several cases, understood the importance to put effort in this.

This seems a promising path for the future to support an effective and sustainable use of groundwater. However there are critical factors that must be taken into consideration:

  1. An increasing amount of data are available, but still there is lack of control in their quality. National databases are full of information, but limited effort is spent to revise them and depurate from mistakes. If this aspect is not properly considered, the risk of incorrect interpretation is high, leading to the formulation of incorrect strategies.
  2. Despite of the huge amount of information and the availability of powerful tools to process it, the level of data analysis to deepen our understating of groundwater system and give a practical support for complex decisions seems still basic. At this time we need creativity, technical capacity and collaboration between decision makers and scientist to unlock the potential of massive groundwater databases.
  3. An unbelievable amount of information is available, held by national water authorities and organizations involved in groundwater development. Most of this information is in hard copy, almost unused, not yet transformed into numeric database. This task is huge and time consuming, but if we can support it, we avoid the risk to loose relevant data and in they can be easily used to take decisions.

In the coming years the effect of climate change and the increase in water needs (due to population growth and improved living conditions) will lead to a more intense exploitation of groundwater resources, whose feasibility and sustainability must be carefully evaluated by a detailed interpretation of reliable data.

WPDx webinar: Beyond Water Point Mapping: Putting Data to Work for Improved Services

Too often, valuable data sits dormant in PDF reports and excel spreadsheets, never being used to its full potential to improve services.

Join this webinar and learn from people trying to change that. Joining Global Water Challenge will be Applied Predictive Technologies (APT) sharing findings from their Data Dive of the Water Point Data Exchange (WPDx) dataset and WASHNote addressing their recently-authored white paper: “Harnessing Water Point Data to Improve Drinking Water Services.” Akvo will moderate the session, lending their extensive water point data expertise.

By the end of the webinar, you will learn strategies to put your data to work for improved water services.

Register here

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)

Consultation period on the RWSN Strategy now open – Période de consultation sur la stratégie RWSN maintenant ouverte

The draft RWSN Strategy 2018-2023 can be downloaded here for consultation, and you can also view a short presentation about it here; please leave a comment below or email us, telling us:

  • What you like about the strategy
  • What could be improved
  • If you, or your organisation, could contribute staff time, funding or knowledge to strengthen any of the topics or themes

The consultation on the RWSN Strategy is open to all for 6 weeks  (until 22 December 2017)

Watch the webinar on the RWSN strategy

*****

La stratégie RWSN 2018-2023 peut être téléchargée ici (en anglais)  pour consultation, ou vous pouvez également télécharger une présentation à ce sujet en français ici; n’hésitez pas à laisser un commentaire ci-dessous ou nous envoyer un email, en nous disant:

  • Ce que vous aimez dans cette stratégie
  • Ce qui pourrait être amélioré
  • Si vous, ou votre organisation, pouvez contribuer du temps, des financements ou des connaissances pour renforcer les sujets ou les thèmes

La consultation sur la stratégie RWSN est ouverte à tous pour 6 semaines (jusqu’au 22 décembre 2017)

Regarder le webinaire sur la stratégie RWSN

Gender and rural water services – lessons from RWSN members

Gender relations are critical to nearly every aspect of rural water supply, but rarely addressed in practice by rural water professionals. All water supply programmes affect men and women in different ways, and while practitioners assume their work will benefit women, how do they know whether it will or not, how do they know what impact it will have?

In 2016 RWSN’s Mapping and Monitoring Theme members had an impromptu and rich e-discussion on gender equality and WASH. In early 2017, RWSN’s Equality, Non Discrimination and Inclusion (ENDI) Theme launched a call to their members for examples of inspiring experiences of ‘Making Water Work for Women’. Both discussions have been rich with experiences from across Asia, Africa and Latin America, and reinforcing of each other. We have put together a short brief highlighting the key points from these discussions:

  • The nature of female participation within water committees should be discussed in terms of quality as well as quantity.  If women’s roles do not offer any opportunity to influence committee decisions and outcomes, their participation is largely tokenistic. Qualitative indicators can help to show whether women’s participation is tokenistic, or active and meaningful.
  • High-level government commitment to minimum quotas for women’s participation was seen as a crucial prerequisite to creating the space for the inclusion of women and the ability to demand it.
  • Where women were more influential on Water User Committees, it was strongly attributed to the special efforts of implementing organisations who worked on mobilising women and increasing their confidence and awareness about  the work involved, and sensitising men equally to create space for women’s involvement in the committees, as the example in India shows.
  • By working closely with women and men together it is possible to challenge gender norms amongst women and men in rural communities, so that they begin to share unpaid work associated with WASH more equally, as the example in Ethiopia shows.
  • Identifying the agents of change (women and men) from the community who are motivated and determined to advocate for water and sanitation can nurture lifelong advocates, as illustrated by the experience from Bangladesh.
  • Disaggregating monitoring indices by gender can help to raise gender equality as a priority, and set specific expectations about the participation of women in different aspects of service provision.
  • Conflict-sensitive approaches to water and sanitation can help to facilitate peace building by creating a platform for women around a common need, as in the example from India.

Download the brief : Gender and rural water services – lessons and experience from RWSN members