A central role for government in monitoring sustainable WASH services

Participants at the IRC Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery symposium, Addis Ababa, April 2013. Photo: Ermias Woldeamlak

Governments are not only investing more in national monitoring systems, but their leadership in country monitoring is also now generally accepted. With this acceptance, however, come expectations about good governance and transparency. Monitoring is politics: agendas and power influence what is monitored and how the results are used. National systems, too, go beyond WASH sector monitoring and should include data from donors and NGOs as well.

Photo: IRC/Petra Brussee

These are some of the conclusions we can draw from a symposium attended by over 400 participants from UN agencies, government, donors, NGOs and research institutes.  Hosted by the Government of Ethiopia and organised by IRC and its partners, the Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery symposium was held from 9 to 11 April 2013 in Addis Ababa.

Symposium presentations and discussions focussed on six main themes: monitoring finance, government-led and country-wide monitoring, project monitoring, ICT for monitoring, monitoring sanitation & hygiene, and global-regional-national WASH monitoring.

2013 Budapest Water Summit, 08-11 October 2013, Budapest, Hungary

The objective of this high-level summit is to take stock of the various developments, in and outside the UN system, in preparing water-related goals for the post Rio+20 development agenda. The expected outcome is one overarching SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on water and sanitation that corresponds and responds to multidimensional challenges.

Confirmed speakers include  Hungarian President Mr János Áder, UN Secretary General Mr Ban Ki-moon, the heads of OECD, UNEP, UNIDO, WMO, WHO, UNDP and FAO, Prof. Jamie Bartram, Ms Catarina de Albuquerque, Andris Piebalgs, Prof. John Briscoe and Julia Bucknall.

Organised by: Government of Hungary in collaboration with the World Water Council and UNESCO

Theme: The Role of Water and Sanitation in the Global Sustainable Development Agenda

Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium

In recent years many more people have gained access to an improved water supply; unfortunately access to sanitary facilities is still lagging behind. One of the biggest challenges is how to sustain these newly built water facilities and make sure that people have continuous and reliable access to a supply of good quality water in sufficient quantities.

Much is needed to sustain water and sanitation services—from support to communities after construction of facilities; to improved regulation; to financing of all costs including those for support and replacement; to strengthening the capacities of local authorities; to activating supply chains; and to monitoring.

Monitoring is a critical building block for sustaining water and sanitation services. Which water and sanitation system are exactly out there? What is the status of these systems? Are they functional? Do they provide safe quality water? Are the cues and waiting times not too long? Knowing is necessary for correcting, adapting, and planning for sustainable WASH service delivery.

There is momentum to improve monitoring systems. Momentum because sustaining services is now more important than ever. Momentum because the international community is preparing indicators for the post-2015 development goals including those for water, sanitation and hygiene. Momentum because new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) offer opportunities for faster and more efficient monitoring.

The Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium builds on this momentum and provides a platform for gaining knowledge and discussing the challenges for improved monitoring. It presents the latest thinking and experiences in monitoring from all over the world. It discusses how country-led monitoring could be strengthened. It discusses the need and possibilities for alignment of national and global monitoring systems and of project and country led monitoring systems. It provides an opportunity to sector experts to engage with new technologies for data collection and with examples of how monitoring resulted in sustainable water and sanitation service delivery.

The symposium will be attended by some 380 WASH sector experts from all over the world.

The symposium is hosted by the Ministry of Water and Energy and the Ministry of Health of the Government of Ethiopia; it is organised by IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre in partnership with: the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW), WaterAid, Water and Sanitation for Africa (WSA), the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN), the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) and Water For People.

The symposium will be preceded by a seminar on Monday 8 April, “National WASH Inventory in Ethiopia: lessons learned and maximising value”. 150 Ethiopia water and sanitation experts will attend the seminar.

For more:

• Visit our website: www.irc.nl/symposium2013
• Like us on Facebook
  https://www.facebook.com/ircwash
  
• Converse with us on Twitter – mention and/or follow @IRCWASH, and use the hashtag: #WASHmon
• Contribute to our blog: washmonitoring.wordpress.com – please contact Petra Brussee (brussee@irc.nl), Angelica de Jesus (dejesus@irc.nl), or Cor Dietvorst (dietvorst@irc.nl)
• For more information about the seminar on the Ethiopia National WASH Inventory please contact Inge Klaassen (klaassen@irc.nl)

 

Have your voice heard, water in the post-2015 development agenda

The Thematic Consultation on Water (the water consultation) in the post-2015 development agenda is now open for inputs on the www.worldwewant2015.org/water website.

The water consultation is part of the UN-system led “global dialogue” comprising of 50 – 100 Country Consultations and eleven global Thematic Consultations, among them the one on water. It is co-led by UN-Water, UNDESA and UNICEF.

Another, but more technical consultation process started in 2011 to develop target and indicator proposals for post-2015 global monitoring of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). Leader of this technical consultation is the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP).

The water consultation aims to contribute to a shared vision on key future challenges in water and a new global water goal in the post-2015 development agenda.

Participants can engage directly on the web (www.worldwewant2015.org/water), via Twitter  @WaterPost2015 using the hashtag #waterpost2015 and on the Facebook page WaterPost2015.

The water consultation is divided into two parts: a global water consultation (21 November 2012 – 3 March 2013) and thematic sub-consultations on WASH, water resources, waste water management and water quality (mid-January – 3 March 2013). The final outcome in the form of policy recommendations will be transmitted to the High-level Panel on Post-2015 appointed by the UN Secretary General at the end of March 2013.

For more information read the full announcement and a one pager on how to engage.

Related web sites:

• The World We Want – The Post-2015 Water Thematic Consultation
• WHO / UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation – Post-2015 Monitoring
• UN – Beyond 2015

NGO says international tourism compromises water rights of poor communities

London-based NGO Tourism Concern has launched a campaign to “Demand an end to Water Injustice in Goa”, India

Visitors to Bali, the Gambia and Goa use 16 times as much water as local residents. Such disproportionate use of fresh water by tourists in developing world destinations is causing local conflict, exacerbating poverty and helping to spread disease, says NGO Tourism Concern in a new report [1].

The report examined five coastal destinations popular with international tourists – the Gambia, Bali in Indonesia, the islands of Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania, and Goa and Kerala in India.

“While hotels may have the money and resources to ensure their guests enjoy several showers a day, swimming pools, a round of golf, and lush landscaped gardens, neighbouring households, small businesses and agricultural producers can regularly endure severe water scarcity,” says the report.

Some hotels in Zanzibar hotels employ security guards to prevent sabotage of water pipes by angry locals who claim they are facing extreme water shortages. A deadly cholera outbreak in 2010 was partly blamed on groundwater contaminated by sewage from hotels.

Tourism Concern is calling on the international tourism industry, destination governments and tourists to urgently address this problem of “massive inequality”. Their report offers nine Principles of Water Equity in Tourism for governments, the tourism sector and civil society, as well as detailed recommendations for each set of stakeholders.

[1]] Noble, R., Smith, P. and Pattullo, P. (eds), 2012. Water equity in tourism : a human right, a global responsibility. London, UK, Tourism Concern. 31 p. Available at: <www.tourismconcern.org.uk/uploads/Campaigns/WET%20Report.pdf>

Related web site: Tourism Concern – Water Equity in Tourism

Source:

• Leo Hickman, Charity condemns tourists’ use of fresh water in developing countries, Guardian, 08 Jul 2012
•  New report reveals massive water inequity between tourism and locals, Tourism Concern, 09 Jul 2012

Rio+20: Canada finally recognises human right to water and sanitation

In the run-up to Rio+20, Canada became one of the last Western nations to drop its opposition to a reference to water and sanitation as a human right in the zero draft outcome document The Future We Want [1]. This was achieved by an international lobby led by the likes of Maude Barlow’s Council of Canadians and UN Special Rapporteur Catarina de Albuquerque.

Maude Barlow. Photo: Council of Canadians

Until a month ago, Canada was the only country to publicly claim there was no legal basis for the right to water and call for deletion of paragraph 67, which referred to this right, from the Rio+20 document, said Anil Naidoo of the Council of Canadians’ Blue Planet Project.

The U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution in July 2010 recognising water and sanitation as a basic human right [2] and on 30 September 2010, the UN Human Rights Council recognised the right as legally binding in international law [3].

At the initial Rio+20 negotiations last year, several human rights and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) warned that the human right to water and sanitation was under threat. This started when the UK, working inside the European Union (EU), first proposed to delete paragraph 67 from the zero draft.

Catarina de Albuquerque. Photo: OHCHR

After pressure from several international NGOs and an appeal [4] by Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation Catarina de Albuquerque, the EU backed down and other governments pushed back against the UK, notably Spain, said Naidoo.

But still, Canada, later joined by the United States and Israel, continued to call for deletion of paragraph 67. Intense lobbying, supported by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay, who called for human rights to be protected in the Rio negotiations [5], finally convinced Canada to drop its opposition to the recognition of water and sanitation as a human right.

[1] Rio+20 - The Future We Want – Zero draft of the outcome document

[2] Right to water and sanitation: UN General Assembly passes landmark resolution, E-Source, 08 Sep 2010

[3] Right to water and sanitation: finally declared legally binding in international law, E-Source, 19 Oct 2010

[4] Rio+20: “Do not betray your commitments on the human right to water and sanitation”, OHCHR, 22 Mar 2012

[5] Navanethem Pillay, Open Letter, OHCHR, 30 Mar 2012

Related web sites:

• Council of Canadians – Right to Water – Blue Planet Project
• OHCHR – Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation

Source: Thalif Deen, Canada, Last Holdout, Drops Opposition to Water as Human Right, IPS, 31 May 2012

World Water Forums: seeking sustainable water management solutions

In March 2012, two global but contrasting forums in search of sustainable solutions to the water crisis took place in Marseilles, France.

The realisation of the human right to water and sanitation was prominent in the declarations of the both the 6^th World Water Forum (WWF) [1] and the Alternative World Water Forum (FAME 2012) [2].  In addition, the WWF6 declaration officially recognised disaster mitigation and emergency response as a priority. Where the WWF6 declaration fell short though, according to the Butterfly Effect, a group of 90 civil society organisations, was that it did not explicitly mention the commitment of states to implement the right to water and sanitation. [3]

Watch the video of the Public-Private debate at WWF6.

While the WWF was home to the water and development industry, FAME 2012 gave a voice to the uncompromising group of anti-privatisation water activists. Loïc Fauchon, head of WWF organiser, the World Water Council, dismissed the alternative forum as “insignificant at best and harmful at worst”. A commentator added that “the pro- and anti-privatisation debate grew stale a long time ago” [4]. As if the anti-privatisation activists anticipated claims that they present infinite criticisms but few alternatives, two new studies [5,6] promoting public management of services have been released.

Watch a video Prof. David McDonald of the Municipal Services Project (MSP) Canada talking about his new publication “Alternatives to Privatization“.

The WWF and FAME 2012 are taking their declarations to Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in June. The next World Water Forum will take place in Daegu Gwangyeoksi, South Korea, in 2015.

For more commentaries on the two forums see:

• Babatope Babalobi, How Marseilles hosted two World Water Forums in one week, eWASH, 10 Apr 2012
• Daniel Moss, The right water debates in the wrong place, Huffington Post, 02 April 2012

[1] 6^th World Water Forum – Ministerial Declaration, 13 Mar 2012

[2] Alternative World Water Forum – Declaration, 13 Apr 2012

[3] Butterfly Effect reaction to the 6th World Water Forum ministerial declaration, Freshwater Action Network (FAN), 15 Mar 2012

[4] Claire Provost, No single course for providing water, Guardian Poverty Matters blog, 22 Mar 2012

[5] Pigeon, M. et al. (eds), 2012. Remunicipalisation : putting water back into public hands. Amsterdam: Transnational Institute. Available at: <
http://www.tni.org/tnibook/remunicipalisation
> [Accessed 14 May 2012]

[6] McDonald, D.A. and Ruiters, G., 2012. Alternatives to privatization : public options for essential services in the global south. Cape Town: HSRC Press. Available at: <
http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/product.php?productid=2287
> [Accessed 14 May 2012]

Related news: World Water Forum: water unites but forums divided, E-Source, 03 Apr 2009

Related web sites:

• 6^th World Water Forum – official website | Solutions for Water
• Alternative World Water Forum
• International Secretariat for Water – The Butterfly Effect
•  IRC at the World Water Forum 2012

IRC Symposium 2013: monitoring sustainable WASH service delivery, 9 to 11 April 2013, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

As water and sanitation coverage expands, the need to know the status of systems and services becomes even more critical. Governments are increasingly realising the importance of good monitoring information at multiple levels to ensure services are sustainable and investments are not wasted. The number of initiatives to strengthen WASH service monitoring is growing, new tools are being developed, and international indicators are being refined.

The 2013 IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre Symposium will provide a global platform for sharing these initiatives and experiences. Please mark your calendars for 9 to 11 April 2013 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

A first official announcement with more details will be circulated in early July 2012

For more information and questions: symposium@irc.nl

 

Developing countries and donors agree to tackle the water and sanitation crisis

H.E. John Agyekum Kufuor - Former President of Ghana and Chair of Sanitation and Water for All

Ministerial delegations from 40 countries have announced serious commitments to tackle the global water and sanitation crisis. Developing countries have promised that they will provide safe drinking water to 60 million more people and improved sanitation to another 80 million people within two years. The governments of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom announced that they will collaborate to also get water and sanitation to millions of people.

Speech by Nigerian Finance Minister and World Bank Presidency candidate Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Convened by UNICEF and hosted by the World Bank and Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), the second High Level Meeting (HLM) on Water and Sanitation of the Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) Partnership took place on 20 April in Washington, D.C. On the previous day, ministers responsible for water and sanitation from 40 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America had met to prepare a joint statement.

At the High Level Meeting, the Netherlands Secretary of State for Development Cooperation Ben Knapen announced a new cooperation between the Netherlands and United Kingdom with UNICEF and local authorities to bring water and sanitation to an additional 10 million people in nine countries – mostly fragile, post-conflict states in West and Central Africa. The Dutch commitment is part of a four-year plan to bring safe drinking water and sanitation to 25 million people.

“I am very pleased with the fact that UNICEF is prepared to guarantee the operation of water systems, pumps and last but not least water quality for at least 10 years. It’s not just about installing water pumps but providing sustainable services to the user. Independent third parties will monitor a representative sample of water points on an annual basis and report back to us”. He added: “UNICEF greatly appreciates Dutch knowledge and expertise in the field of drinking water and sanitation. At least 20-25% of the Dutch support will therefore be used to deploy Dutch knowledge and expertise to achieve sustainable results and local capacity building.”

“By seeking guarantees for sustainability and water quality as a pre-condition for financial support, the Netherlands is an international leader in increasing aid effectiveness,” says Simavi Director Rolien Sasse, who is also a member of the SWA Steering Committee on behalf of End Water Poverty.

The UK Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, announced that the UK is doubling the number of people they intend to reach with water, sanitation and hygiene education by 2015, from 30 million people to at least 60 million people globally.

USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah (USA) en Director-General of AusAid  Peter Baxter (Australia) announced at the High Level Meeting that they would join the Sanitation and Water for All Partnership, which now has over 80 members.

Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) is a partnership of governments, donors, civil society and international organisations. It was established in 2010 as an initiative of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom to help developing countries, especially those that are most off-track, to reach the 2015 Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets for water and sanitation.

The IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre is a member of SWA and of the SWA Steering Committee. IRC supported several countries, including Ghana, Mozambique and South Africa, to prepare their inputs for the SWA High Level Meeting.

For more information:

• Sanitation and Water for All – HLM 2012 Virtual Briefing Pack
• Sanitation and Water for All – Webcast
• IRC – Sanitation and Water for All

Drawing the threads together: sustainable services and behaviour changes

Agencies, donors and NGOs alike need to regard sustainability as a critical mission and to re-think fundamentally their role in the sector, conclude the organisers of the WASH Conference 2011. The conference, which was held in Brisbane, Australia, from 16-20 May 2011, attracted 237 people from 40 countries.

The recently published WASH 2011 synthesis report provides an overview of the key messages on: functional and environmental sustainability; institutional sustainability; behavioural change and social sustainability; and financial sustainability.

The first key message, brought in by the IRC-led Triples-S (Sustainable Services at Scale) initiative, was that the focus on ‘coverage’ should be reduced in favour of a move to a service delivery approach. Related to this was the need to move gradually from community management to professionalised service delivery (the community management PLUS model) and to move from counting infrastructure to monitoring services.

Partnering with the private sector can play an important role in scaling-up sanitation as well as behaviour change. Enabling local entrepreneurship to flourish through the sanitation marketing approach has proved successful in Cambodia. In Indonesia a public-private partnership for hand-washing with soap made the partnership win-win for each group.

[1] International WaterCentre (2011). WASH Conference 2011, Brisbane, Australia : towards sustainability in water, sanitation and hygiene : conference report. 20 p. Download full report

Related web sites:

• WASH Conference 2011
• IRC – Water Services that Last

Related news:

• Leading sector organisations launch Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Sustainability Charter, E-Source, 04 Oct 2011
• Costing sustainable services training is successful, Brisbane, E-Source, 04 Aug 2011

Source: International WaterCentre, 26 Sep 2011