“Let’s invite WASHTECH to apply the TAF tool on this Household Water Treatment and Storage (HWTS) technology, the communities choices system, to determine whether it needs to be scaled up”. This came up at the 26th edition of the National Learning Alliance Platform meeting, which recently took place in Accra on theme, Household Water Treatment and Storage Strategy in Ghana.
Members of the WASHTech learning alliance at the meeting had to respond by further explaining and updating stakeholders on the project and the TAF. Abu Wumbei of the WASHTech Ghana team explained that the TAF was indeed a tool that could be used to assess the said HWTS technology, but that the tool was currently being tested on some selected technologies; and that these will enable the fine-tuning of the tool to suit the local situation and context. Thereafter, according to him, the tool will be in full operation; owned…
The Rope Pump – the Land Rover of rural water supply? (Photo: RWSN/Skat)
In her latest blog post “What’s wrong with a free car?”, Susan Davis of Improve International argues that giving away cars for free would not solve mobility problems for those on low incomes and that likewise, with WASH projects, giving away a capital asset does not help a ‘beneficiary’ if it leaves them with crippling running costs that they can’t afford. In planning WASH services we need to consider lifecycle costs.
There are also parallels in terms of technology choice: do you buy an old Land Rover, which will be unreliable but many things can be fixed by the owner (My neighbour and I changed a head gasket and a cracked cylinder head on my 20-year-old Defender, and I spent many happy – and unhappy – hours tinkering), or do you buy a Toyota Prius that will be ultra-efficient and reliable, but when it does break will cost and fortune and needs specialist skills and materials.
What should water users in say, Nicaragua or South Sudan, choose for their pump? Would they be better with a handpump that is precision-manufactured out of the very best materials to make it as reliable as possible, or a Rope Pump or an EMAS pump that can be made cheaply from readily available materials, and can be easily fixed by the user if it goes wrong.
It may seem to perverse to compare the two situations where millions everyday around the world do not have access to safe water, let alone a vehicle. But I found Susan’s comparison a helpful one in explaining the value of a topic like lifecycle costing that at first glance can seem intangible and academic. In the WASHtech project we, along with our project partners IRC, WaterAid, Cranfield, KNUST and Netwas, have embedded the findings of WASHCost from day one so that the assessment of the applicability of new WASH technologies tries to get the whole picture.
What lifecycle costing does is that it shows us that there are better questions to questions to ask than just “which technology is better”. Instead: for any given context, which approach to supplying a water service is the most financially sustainable? What are all the costs involved, not just the CapEx and OpEx? If water users and Government can be provided with that information, in a way that is clear and understandable, then they have a fighting chance of getting a system that works, and continues to work.
Le secteur de l’eau et l’assainissement n’est pas à court de technologies nouvelles et émergentes, promues par le secteur privé ou les ONG et les bailleurs de fonds. Avant même d’être adoptées dans les stratégies nationales, ces technologies sont largement reprises par le secteur privé et intègrent nos villes et villages.
Conséquence : La contribution des nouvelles technologies pour l’atteinte des Objectifs du millénaire pour le développement (OMD) est insignifiante. Un des obstacles majeurs à la réalisation des objectifs du secteur apparaît être l’absence de systèmes pour évaluer le potentiel d’une technologie et le manque de capacité à mettre de nouvelles technologies appropriées à l’échelle de manière efficace. WashTech propose un outil innovant pour évaluer les technologies dans un contexte spécifique. D’une durée de 36 mois, WAHTech est un Projet de recherche sur un procédé innovant pour évaluer le potentiel et la viabilité d’un large éventail des technologies…
Rural Water Supply Network - blog 