by Delgollage Senevirathne, Assistant General Manager (Sociologist) at the National Water Supply & Drainage Board (NWSDB), Sri Lanka. (6) Awareness of aquifer as a finite resource Groundwater comes from two main sources. When it rains water seeps down through the soil until it reaches an aquifer. These aquifers may also be in contact with rivers … Continue reading Social Dimension of Water Resource Management in Sri Lanka – Part 4
4 lessons about handpump sustainability in Ghana
By Sara Marks, Senior Scientist at Sandec / Eawag In 2012 we learned the exciting news that the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for drinking water access had been met, nearly 3 years ahead of schedule. Yet an important question still looms large: What will it take to ensure that those who have gained access continue … Continue reading 4 lessons about handpump sustainability in Ghana
Global water point failure rates
Musings from Mopti
by Jonathan Annis, WASHPlus I’ve spent the last week in the Mopti Region of northern Mali supporting a USAID/WASHplus WASH & Nutrition initiative led by CARE. While behavior change communication related to household- and community-level sanitation, hygiene, and infant nutrition practices is the primary focus of the project, a small sum of funds is dedicated … Continue reading Musings from Mopti
USAID and Rotary International adopt innovative sustainability monitoring tool
A new sustainability tool for WASH
By Harold Lockwood –
This is great news and fantastic to see USAID adopting and promoting this approach which aims to really track and better understand the underlying causes of poor sustainability in the WASH sector. Sustaining WASH services is complex and dependent not only the hardware (the pumps, latrines and pipes), but also a range of the so-called software elements, for example reliable management entities, long-term external support and monitoring, adequate financing and so on. Measuring coverage is one thing, looking at functionality is also a useful proxy, but if we really want to know where the pinch-points are and how something so seemingly simple as water flowing out of a tap can fall down, it requires a comprehensive and powerful tool.
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Sustainability Frameworks
Very useful compilation of WASH sustainability frameworks
By Susan Davis, Executive Director
At the IRC Symposium on Monitoring for Sustainable Services, I was excited to see there were several presentations on sustainability checks for water and sanitation systems. The sustainability frameworks contain various combinations of factors including financial, management, institutional / policy, technical, environmental, and community / social.
I think the sector has spent enough time and money reviewing the literature for sustainability factors and developing frameworks and monitoring indicators. Now we all need to apply them to actual water systems, with evaluations years after their construction. And we should build in these principles to our programming from now on. Here are some of the frameworks that I’ve collected.
- Water for Life Sustainability Rating Criteria. Water 1st & Improve International. Presentation here.
- Applying Sustainability Analysis to Rural Water Services. UNICEF Eastern & Southern Africa
- Sustainability checks: Five year annual sustainability audits of the water…
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Islands of success
Evaluation of a Water For People intervention in partnership with local government India
Sagar is an island at the mouth of the river Ganges where it meets the Bay of Bengal. Every year in January, about half a million pilgrims visit the island to worship at the holy Ganges. The hundreds of mobile toilet units standing on the empty festival terrain during the rest of the year are witness to the island’s authority’s efforts to ensure that the pilgrim’s stay on the island is as comfortable, hygienic and safe as possible. But the authorities also don’t forget about the 200.000 permanent inhabitants when it comes to sanitation. Together with the NGO Water For People (WFP) and other partners, it seeks to achieve full coverage in sanitation and water supply in the next few years.
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