Low-cost water-lifting from groundwater sources: a comparison of the EMAS Pump with the Rope Pump
Beyond broken pumps and promises: Rethinking intent and impact in environmental health
Evan A. Thomas
The 2017 RWSN Webinar series closes
The 2017 RWSN early webinar series has ended, after 9 weeks of weekly bilingual (and even trilingual!) online meetings dedicated to rural water supply. We had two great participatory webinars on gender and rural water supply, with stories contributed from RWSN members; a webinar which looked at the intersection between WASH in development and in emergency contexts; and webinars on topics as varied as corruption in the rural water sector, the human right to water, country-led monitoring of the WASH sector and how to measure the sustainability of water supply. We even took a foray into the urban world by discussing the impact of burgeoning private wells in Africa on groundwater resources and the resilience of communities.
What makes these webinars so interesting is that speakers and participants share knowledge, information, and stories that could never be found in a report. If you missed a topic of interest, do not worry – all the materials, recordings and presentations can be accessed here. Feel free to share with your colleagues!
RWSN Evaluation & Strategy : have your say!
Dear members,
RWSN is your network and we really want to hear from you. Over the last years, the network has experienced explosive growth in both its membership and its activities. We are currently conducting an evaluation to inform RWSN’s strategy for 2018-2020 and would like to hear your thoughts.
What have you got out of RWSN? How can we make it easier for you to use the network to benefit your work in rural water supply?
We will share the RWSN online member survey in early July, and we also want to provide the space for other forms of feedback and suggestions. Please feel free to send us your thoughts as a comment to this blog in English, French or Spanish, or by email (ruralwater[at]skat.ch). We will monitor both of these platforms and will take your feedback into account. Your opinion really matters!
Chers collègues,
RWSN est votre réseau et nous aimerions vraiment vous entendre. Au cours des dernières années, le réseau a vécu une croissance explosive à la fois de ses membres et de ses activités. Nous entreprenons actuellement une évaluation pour renseigner la stratégie RWSN de 2018-2020 et aimerions avoir votre opinion.
Qu’avez-vous retiré du RWSN ? Comment pouvons-nous rendre plus facile l’utilisation du réseau pour vous pour que cela bénéficie à votre travail sur l’approvisionnement en eau potable en milieu rural ?
Nous allons partager une enquête des membres du RWSN début juillet, et nous aimerions également vous donner la place pour d’autres formes de commentaires. Vous pouvez envoyer vos suggestions sous forme de commentaire en dessous de ce blog en anglais, français ou espagnol, ou par email (ruralwater[at]skat.ch). Nous veillerons à ce que les commentaires reçus sur ces deux plateformes soient pris en compte. Vos opinions sont de grande importance pour nous.
Estimados colegas,
RWSN es su red y nos gustaría mucho contar con su apoyo. Como usted sabe, en los últimos años, la red ha experimentado un crecimiento extraordinario tanto en el número de miembroscomo en sus actividades. Actualmente, estamos llevando a cabo una evaluación para informar a la Estrategia RWSN 2018-2020 y nos gustaría saber su opinión.
En el marco de esta evaluación, nos gustaría conocer: Cuáles son los beneficios percibidos por los miembros gracias a su participación en RWSN y cómo podemos hacer que su participación en la red beneficie aún más el trabajo que se está realizando en lo que se refiere al suministro de agua en zonas rurales.
Por este motivo, enviaremos una encuesta en línea a todos los miembros del RWSN, a la cual se podrá acceder a principios de julio. También nos gustaría ofrecerles un espacio para otro tipo de comentarios. Puede enviarnos sus sugerencias en forma de comentario al final de este blog en inglés, francés o español, o por correo electrónico (ruralwater [at] skat.ch). Nos aseguraremos de que los comentarios recibidos en estas dos plataformas sean considerados. ¡Sus opiniones son realmente importantes y le agradecemos de antemano su colaboración!
Proceedings of the 7th RWSN Forum published
We are delighted that the Proceedings of the 7th RWSN Forum are now available to download and to cite. We hope that this huge body of knowledge and experience will be used to help improve rural water services all over the world.
Suggested citation:
RWSN (2017) Proceedings of the 7th RWSN Forum “Water for All”, 29 Nov – 02 Dec 2016, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, Rural Water Supply Network, Skat Foundation, St. Gallen Switzerland.
Africa Groundwater Atlas – your opinion / votre avis — UPGro
Dear colleagues / Chers/Chères collègues (texte en français ci-dessous) Some of you may already have seen and used the Africa Groundwater Atlas. This is a new online resource with groundwater information for all African countries. It is linked to the Africa Groundwater Literature Archive – an expanding online repository of documents on groundwater in Africa. […]
via Africa Groundwater Atlas – your opinion / votre avis — UPGro
Survey Summary of UNICEF rural water supply global evaluation
Thanks to all the RWSN members who took part. Further news on this evaluation should come later in the year.
The most important stories in rural water supply // Les histoires d’approvisionnement en eau en milieu rural les plus importants
Making water work for women – inspiring stories from around the world
The reality in much of the world today is that collecting water for the home is a job done by women – so gender issues are central to everything we do in rural water supply – self-supply, pump design, borehole siting, tariff collection, water resource management, business models or using ICT to improve service delivery.
In this week’s webinar we have brought together more inspiring stories from Nicaragua, India and the World Bank. We are taking ‘gender’ from being a tokenistic tick-box to a living, vibrant, practical core of every rural water service.
Join the us next Tuesday 23 May – it an opportunity to have your practical and policy questions answered from world class experts.
- Sign up now : http://bit.ly/2movPGM
Did you miss Part 1? Don’t worry. You can watch and listen to the inspiring experiences from Burkina Faso, India, Ethiopia and Bangladesh on the RWSN video channel:
- Making water work for women – inspiring experiences: Part 1 https://vimeo.com/217003139 (ENGLISH)
- Faire fonctionner l’eau pour les femmes: des expériences inspirantes https://vimeo.com/217008916 (FRANCAIS)
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L’eau au service des femmes – des histoires inspirantes
La réalité dans beaucoup d’endroits dans le monde aujourd’hui est que l’approvisionnement en eau pour les besoins domestiques reste un travail porté par les femmes – donc les questions liées au genre sont au coeur de toutes les activités que nous entreprenons dans le secteur de l’eau rurale: auto-approvisionnement, conception des pompes, emplacement des forages, recouvrement des tariffs, gestion des ressources en eau, ou utiliser les TIC pour améliorer les services.
Le webinaire de la semaine permettra d’entendre des histoires intéressantes du Nicaragua, de l’Inde et de la Banque Mondiale. Nous souhaitons passer d’une compréhension de la notion de genre se bornant à cocher une case, pour mettre en avant les aspects vivants, pratiques et essentiels qui font partie de tous les services d’eau ruraux.
Joignez-vous à nous mardi prochain – ce sera l’occasion de poser vos questions sur la pratique et la politique à des experts du domaine.
- Inscrivez-vous ici: http://bit.ly/2movPGM
Vous n’avez pas pu participer à la première partie de ce wébinaire? Vous pouvez écouter des expériences inspirantes du Burkina Faso, de l’Inde, de l’Ethiopie, et du Bangladesh sur la chaine viméo du RWSN:
- Making water work for women – inspiring experiences: Part 1 https://vimeo.com/217003139 (ENGLISH)
- Faire fonctionner l’eau pour les femmes: des expériences inspirantes https://vimeo.com/217008916 (FRANCAIS)
In Memoriam: Abdul Motaleb
It is with great sadness that we have been informed that Mr Abdul Motaleb (61) passed away in the night of 30 April 2017.
Motaleb had over 36 years experience in the Water Supply and Environmental Sanitation Sector in Bangladesh and was widely liked and respected figure in the Bangladesh WASH sector.
photo: Abdul Motaleb and Sean Furey, in Dhaka, February 2017 (photo: Md. Nurul Osman – with thanks)
It is with great sadness that we have been informed that Mr Abdul Motaleb (61) passed away in the night of 30 April 2017.
Motaleb had over 36 years experience in the Water Supply and Environmental Sanitation Sector in Bangladesh and was widely liked and respected figure in the Bangladesh WASH sector.
He graduated from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). Dhaka in 1979 with a BSc in Water Resource Engineering and later in his career went on to gain a MSc in Sanitatary Engineering at the International Institute for Infrastructure, Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering (IHE) Delft, the Netherlands.
During his long career he worked for M/S Associated Consulting Engineers, the Department for Public Health Engineering (DPHE), King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, World Bank/UNDP, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), and most recently the World Bank Group and as a freelance consultant.
Among his many works and achievements, it was on the topic of handpumps where he seemed to get most pleasure – from his involvement in the development of the Tara to his expertise with the Jibon Deepset and the No. 6 – handpumps on which tens of millions of people today in Bangladesh depend every day. He was a long standing member of HTN, later RWSN, and was an active contributor to the RWSN Groundwater group.
I had the pleasure of working with Motaleb from January onwards this year on an end-phase review assignment for SDC and we spent 10 intense days together in south-western coastal Bangladesh, with the staff of the HYSAWA Trust Fund. He was utterly charming and humble, with a deep well of knowledge and experience. I could not have wished for a better colleague and in a very short space of time we became firm friends.
He will be greatly missed.
Sean Furey, RWSN Secretariat / Skat
Selected Publications
- Technical Paper on Monitoring and Regeneration of Production Wells in Bangladesh. A paper presented by Abdul Motaleb (DPHE) and Drs. G.J.deWit (IWACO) at the seminar for Civil Engineering Division at the 34th Annual Convention of the Institute of Engineers, 1990 Dhaka Bangladesh.
- Monitoring the Tara pump: An assessment of Functioning, Social Acceptability and O&M system. A report published by UNDP/World Bank Water and Sanitation Program RWSG-SA Dhaka
- Quarterly Notes on Danida funded DPHE Handpump Training and Monitoring Program based on project implementation experiences published by UNDP/World Bank Water and Sanitation Program RWSG-SA Dhaka. Altogether 14 (Fourteen) HTMP Notes were prepared during 1993-1997.
- Technology Development Never Stops-A story of Jibon Deepset Handpump Tubewell in Bangladesh. Paper presented in HTN Workshop on Civil Society and Government Partnership in Rural Water Supply, Hyderabad, India, 2000.
- Village Organizations become Development Partners. Paper presented in 26th WEDC Conference, Dhaka 2000.
- SODIS – An Arsenic Mitigation Option. Paper published in 26th WEDC Conference, Dhaka-2000.
- SORAS – A Simple Arsenic Removal Process. Paper published in 26th WEDC Conference, Dhaka-2000.
- Total Sanitation Approach and Practice. A case study in Watsan Partnership Project (WPP). This paper presented in 19 AGUASAN WORKSHOP 2003 on This shit drama-Are there ways out? held in Switzerland organized by SKAT during June 23-27, 2003.
- Arsenic Mitigation: Action Research Findings based on project implementation experiences in Watsan Partnership Project and published by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in Bangladesh in June 2003.
OPEN CALL: Evaluation of RWSN – Call for proposals (ENGLISH ONLY)
Dear Colleagues
2017 marks the 25th Anniversary of the founding of the Handpump Technology Network (HTN), which became RWSN in 2006, under the leadership of the late Piers Cross. We are also coming to the end of the current three year strategy period (2015-2017), so during this year we will be developing a new strategy – and be looking for your inputs. However, the purpose of this message is to present an Open Call for Proposals for an evaluation of RWSN.
Please find the Call and links to relevant documents: http://rural-water-supply.net/en/projekts/details/94
The Call is only available in English and only proposals in English will be accepted.
The deadline is Friday 26th May 2017. Send questions to me by 10th May. I will not answer individual questions, an overall response will be posted soon after the 10th. See the Open Call document for more details.
Thanks for your consideration and please re-post and forward to colleagues and other networks.
Call for submissions: IWA Water and Development Congress, Argentina – an opportunity to connect rural and urban
IWA is well known for its many events and publications, but generally with an urban utility focus. However, the event below is an unusual opportunity to share experiences between urban, peri-urban, small-town and rural water service provides. Thanks to the initiative of Eleanor Allen, CEO of Water for People, the IWA Water and Development Congress invites submissions on the following topics that are relevant to RWSN member experiences – an in particular those who presented at the RWSN Forum:
- Raising gender profile in urban/rural (basin) interactions.
- Developing leadership – diversity, inclusiveness and vision
- Defining the role of regulation in meeting the SDGs
- Strengthening the capacity of entrepreneurs to offer water and sanitation services in rural and peri-urban areas
- Implementing pro-poor approaches
- Defining tariffs, balancing affordability and cost recovery
- Initiating and maintaining multi-stakeholder collaboration to achieve improved services
- Fostering political & social engagement in water issues
- Ensuring financial sustainability to achieve universal access and service goals.
This is a global event, not just for Latin America, and potentially there is a lot to learn on – and share – on tariff regulation for small rural providers, professionalization of community management, diversity of service delivery models in rural areas, including rural utilities, and asset management for small rural providers.
So please do consider it if you are looking to reach out to a different audience from the normal rural WASH sector – see the message below for more details and links: http://www.waterdevelopmentcongress.org/
All the best
Sean
RWSN Secretariat
Rural Water Supply Network - blog 