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)

 

WASH by numbers: the latest on cost benchmarks, economic returns and handwashing

One of the most quoted WASH statistics was recently “downgraded”. For every $1 invested in water and sanitation, not $8 but “only” $4 is returned in economic returns through increased productivity. This recalculation [1], says the World Health Organization, is mainly a result of higher investment cost estimates and the more complete inclusion of operation and maintenance (O&M) costs.

Providing a better insight into O&M costs has been one of the achievements of the WASHCost project of the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. WASHCost has published minimum benchmarks for costing sustainable basic WASH services in developing countries [2]. The project collected data from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Andhra Pradesh (India) and Mozambique.

The main message is that spending less than the minimum benchmarks will result in a higher risk of reduced service levels or long-term failure. NGOs claiming that “US$20 can provide clean water for one person for 20 years” have clearly forgotten to include annual recurrent costs for operation and maintenance, capital maintenance and direct support.

The real cost for 20 years of basic water supply from a borehole and handpump would be, per person, between US$ 20 and US$ 61 for construction plus US$ 3-6 every year to keep it working. In total for the 20 years this would amount to US$ 80 to US$ 181 per person.

Similarly, for the most basic sanitation service, a traditional pit latrine, the combined costs would be US$ 37 – 106 per person over 20 years.

Help shape the future of global water monitoring

Water sector stakeholders are invited to express their views on how to shape the future of global water monitoring after 2015.

The JMP Post 2015 Water Monitoring Working Group has launched an e-survey to let all stakeholders express their thoughts on:

1. the Group’s draft goal, targets and indicators and,
2. the best way to monitor the data.

The survey closes on the 18th June 2012.

The Water Working Group is one of four expert groups established in January 2012 by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) to develop alternative goal, target(s) and indicator options for post-2015 monitoring. The other three groups are on sanitation, hygiene and equity and non-discrimination. The outputs of all these groups will inform the various ongoing political processes led by the UN Secretary General and are expected to culminate in a post-MDG summit at the UN General Assembly in September 2013.

The Post 2015 Water Monitoring Working Group is comprised of a core group and resource group of experts, led jointly by WaterAid and the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre.

For more information go to the Water Working Group website where you will find a description of the proposed draft goal, target and indicators and a link to the e-survey.

Related news:

• Stef Smits, Is the glass half full or half empty?, E-Source, 31 Mar 2012
• Monitoring: new tools meet demand for more transparency in the water sector, E-Source, 05 Dec 2011
• First consultation on developing post-2015 monitoring indicators, Berlin: Refocusing the monitoring approach, E-Source, 26 Oct 2011

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

New book offers insights into the sustainability challenge for rural water sectors

Supporting Rural Water Supply takes a critical look and asks why are 30 to 40% of rural water systems failing in developing countries? And how can we support the adoption of a service delivery approach – one that moves beyond implementing infrastructure projects to delivering a reliable and indefinite service? This book brings together findings from 13 country studies conducted by IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre as part of the Triple-S initiative. Download the book or read the summaries or full reports for Benin, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Honduras, India, Mozambique, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, USA, and Uganda.

A hard copy version of the book is available from Practical Action Publishing.

New book offers lessons for improving water management in tomorrow’s cities

As sustainability concerns regarding water management in cities continue to increase, the challenge facing cities is for them to do more with less. SWITCH, an EU-funded programme, was a five year experiment focused on some of the key sustainability challenges in urban water management. In a number of cities around the globe, it set out to test what was needed to transition into more sustainable urban water management through a combination of demand-led research, demonstration activities, multistakeholder learning and associated training and capacity building.

The book- SWITCH in the City: putting urban water management to the test brings together experiences from 12 cities involved in the SWITCH project from four continents (Accra, Alexandria, Beijing, Belo Horizonte, Birmingham, Bogotá, Cali, Hamburg, Lima, Lodz, Tel Aviv and Zaragoza) with a set of guidelines focused on promoting stakeholder engagement in such processes.

If you are interested in undertaking demand-led research, promoting multi-stakeholder engagement, and scaling up research impacts, not only in urban water management but also in other areas where we find such complex problems, then download or order your copy now through IRC- International Water and Sanitation Centre.

Scanning the 2020 horizon: an analysis of trends and scenarios in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector

What will the international Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector look like in, let us say, 10 years from now? Will access to sanitation still lag behind water supply, or will it evolve into a stand-alone sub-sector with its own set of dedicated institutions and organisations? Will aid continue to play a predominant role in investing in WASH infrastructure, or will emerging economies increase their investments in the sector? And, how will trends outside the sector, such as urbanisation or changes in food prices, affect the sector?

Scanning the 2020 horizon presents 21 trends that the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre considers most critical to WASH sector development. It examines trends both within the WASH sector, as well as those outside the sector which have the potential to impact on the sector. Many of these are updates of factors identified in a similar exercise undertaken five years ago by IRC.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Sustainability (WASH) Charter launched

On 27 July 2011, more than 20 leading international water and development organizations signed and launched the WASH Sustainability Charter. This Charter is a collaboratively-developed mission and set of guiding principles to advance lasting solutions in water, sanitation and hygiene education (WASH).  The Charter is available to read and endorse at www.WASHCharter.org.