SIASAR – Rural Water Supply Network

by Malva Baskovich and Berenice Flores Arias Uijtewaal, re-blogged from the World Bank

Despite the urbanization trends seen in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC), it seems that the rural population in LAC is decreasing in relative terms. In 2001, official figures indicated that 125 million people in LAC resided in rural areas representing 24% of the total LAC population. In 2013, this value decreased to 21% (130 million out of a total population of 609 million inhabitants), and it is estimated that by 2030, the rural population will decrease to represent 16.5% of the total (CEPAL, 2014).

“There is a ‘new rurality’ in Latin America, and it is critical to be aware of its distinctive features in view of designing and implementing sustainable WSS institutional reforms and investment projects in rural areas.” — this is an important preliminary finding of the World Bank’s Water Global Practice’s Rural Water Security and Sanitation (WSS) Advisory Services and Analytics (RWSS ASA) Program, currently ongoing in the LAC region. The Program aims to contribute towards the design and implementation of rural WSS projects in the region by gathering, systematizing, and disseminating learning on innovations and solutions to RWSS challenges in the region.

The ‘new rurality’ message is that we, development practitioners, may need to revise—or update—our conventional understanding of the rural LAC context. This is particularly true in view of the SDG Agenda, which calls for the design and implementation of sustainable institutional reforms that consider the changes in the social, economic, and political spheres, as well as confronts the threats of climate change. Ultimately, as the report states, ”achieving sustainable outcomes of reform in the WSS sector hinges on a deeper understanding of the total institutional logic of the sector and this includes understanding the societal rules that are defined by the local country context and political economy realities”. And, as we continue to bridge the gap in water, sanitation, and hygiene in LAC, and as we near the deadline for the achievement of SDG6, the focus will indispensably increasingly fall on rural areas. Better understanding the new rurality is also fundamental to ensure adequate funding and resource allocation to rural communities to achieve universal access.

According to JMP (2016), rural LAC has seen large increases in improved drinking water coverage since 1990, driven by an expansion of piped water on premises. While coverage of piped water on premises is high in South America (89%), it is considerably lower in rural Central America and Mexico (27%) and rural Caribbean (38%). Rural improved sanitation coverage in LAC increased from 36% to 64% between 1990 and 2015. Comparatively few households share sanitation facilities in South America but sharing of an improved facility is more widespread in the Caribbean and Central America and Mexico, where it is practiced by at least 10% of the population.

To learn more about the ‘new rurality’, the Program is addressing two important questions: what has not changed in rural LAC’s WSS sector? And, what has changed?

What has not changed in the WSS sector in rural LAC? Unfortunately, a lot. While urban WSS performance rates are on the increase, the same trend is not witnessed outside of the urban circle, and inequalities persist. According to the JMP (2015) 14.1% of the rural LAC population lack access to a basic drinking water service (compared to 1.9% of the urban population) and 8.5 million people relied on surface water for drinking. In the same year, only 68.4% of the rural population used a basic sanitation service (compared to 90% of the urban population) and 18 million people in rural LAC still practiced open defecation.

SIASAR data (July 2019) indicates that of the 10,370 registered water communities in this database, 71% have a water service sustainability index (ISSA) category D, indicating reduced sustainability of water services. Underling factors include the lack of governance, uneven public resources distribution to support WSS community organizations, deterioration of infrastructure, poor water quality, weak community management models, poor operation and maintenance practices, weaknesses of service providers and local governments to afford external support to community organizations, among other governance and political economy challenges.

Rural LAC’s weak sector governance and management leads to persistent ineffective strategies to achieve adoption of hygiene practices and behavioral change, especially in fostering healthy hygiene attitudes and practices such as hand washing with soap and the adequate disposal of excreta, among others. Insistent social conflicts over the ownership and shared use of water, tend to be more acute as there is a growing scarcity in water. The lack of disinfection of drinking water systems also remains a chronic weakness at the regional level; it is estimated that less than 50% of rural LAC communities perform this practice, primarily due to the lack of infrastructure and elements needed for water chlorination. For example, in Colombia, only 12% of the rural population had access to some form of treated water, in Peru less than 1% of rural households access chlorinated water. In short, it is safe to say that universal access to quality and sustainable WSS services remains a challenge in rural areas.

However, there is also a long list of factors that have changed the WSS sector’s rural panorama—among others due to urbanization, increased knowledge on climate change impact, and various social changes—and these must be understood and considered when designing and developing adequate sector reform. Stay tuned for the upcoming blog (part 2) to learn more.

More on the World Bank Water Blog

The World Bank is a member of the RWSN Executive Steering Committee and co-leads the RWSN Themes on Sustainable Services and Mapping & Monitoring.

SUSANNA SMETS (World Bank/RWSN Sustainable Services) & ANTONIO RODRÍGUEZ SERRANO (World Bank/RWSN Mapping & Monitoring (re-blogged from the World Bank)

How many countries have you worked in where an up-to-date national information system for rural water services is used for decision-making?

How many well-intended monitoring initiatives did you encounter which are no longer being used?

Your answers are likely to be “few” and “many”, as government-led information systems to support planning and decision making for fragmented rural water services are not easy to develop, institutionalize, and sustain.

It is widely recognized that information systems are a key building block to achieve sustainable rural services delivery – a top development priority given that 8 out 10 people without basic water services live in rural areas, leaving 628 million people unserved. The good news is that a customizable, tried and tested solution already exists, so that countries can leap-frog a cumbersome development process and – more importantly – go through a fast learning curve when adopting and institutionalizing the Rural Water and Sanitation information System or “SIASAR” as their national rural sector monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system.

Following the initiative of the governments of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama, 11 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are using the innovative open-data platform “SIASAR”. Different actors are using this tool for decision making, strategic planning, rural water performance monitoring, and for taking appropriate actions to prevent services from deteriorating, ensuring that water keeps flowing from the taps and communities receive timely support. SIASAR has been supported by the World Bank since its inception in 2010. In particular, Global Water Security and Sanitation Partnership (GWSP), a multi-donor trust fund housed within the World Bank’s Water Global Practice, provides funding to SIASAR.

With its adaptability and multi-language capability, SIASAR has now been introduced in the Kyrgyz Republic (in Russian and Kyrgyz languages), and a pilot has also been planned in Uganda. Within the context of the Kyrgyz Republic’s national rural water program, supported by the World Bank-supported Sustainable Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project, SIASAR has now gradually been introduced as the sector’s M&E system, covering data on system status and service provider performance for almost a third of its 1800 remote and mountainous villages. This will help to target investments and achieve the Kyrgyz Government’s vision to reach universal access by 2026.

With support from GWSP and the World Bank’s office in Colombia, the South-South Knowledge Exchange Facility helped bring Kyrgyz and Ugandan delegations together in Colombia. This knowledge exchange allowed them to receive peer-to-peer advice on how to introduce, roll out, and use SIASAR, and to learn about effective policy instruments, regulations, and institutional arrangements for sustainable rural water supply and sanitation service provision.

With support from GWSP and the World Bank’s office in Columbia, the South-South Knowledge Exchange Facility helped bring Kyrgyz and Ugandan delegations together in Colombia.

Specifically, the delegations learned about Colombia’s differentiated policy and regulatory instruments for rural areas, including tariff policies, water quality and environmental regulations, technical standards for water supply and sanitation, financing modalities for investments, and of course the SIASAR information systems for evidence-based decision making. Through field visits, the responsibilities of local and regional governments in rural service delivery in Colombia were better understood. The three-way translation between Spanish, English, and Russian put in place and the excellent collaborative spirit by all parties helped to overcome the communication challenge. These delegates took away important lessons on the adaptation process for SIASAR, such as:

SIASAR implementation and scale-up requires dedicated human and financial resources at the national and regional levels, including both sectoral and IT experts.
A clear roadmap for SIASAR adoption is necessary, bringing in multiple partners to support implementation. Anchoring in national legislation and fostering linkages with other national statistical information systems is critical.
SIASAR can cater analysis to the need of different actors and increases transparency and accountability of service provision.
SIASAR has helped to inform and influence investment programs to close the urban-rural service gap, accompanied by a range of measures to support rural service providers.

Depending on where they were in the adoption of SIASAR, the Kyrgyz delegation was keen to grasp the process of institutionalization, while the Ugandans were exposed to the range of capabilities and practical first steps that have now led to a first pilot, supported by the Uganda Integrated Water Management and Development Project (IWMDP).

Seeing solutions in action can be a great motivation. The knowledge exchange with Colombiastimulated learning and encouraged officials from Kyrgyz and Uganda to try and adopt solutions to their own circumstances. A guide is now available that can help any country go through the process and prepare for the steps of adopting SIASAR.

SIASAR has proven to be an effective tool for improving the monitoring, evaluation, planning, and coordination of water supply and sanitation services in participating countries in Latin America and beyond. Through knowledge exchange activities like this and future GWSP technical assistance, we hope to support more countries in adopting the system and joining the initiative, while we commit to continuous improvement of the capabilities of the system.