Financing
A bit short of a miracle …
By Patrick Moriarty and John Sauer What is it that IADB’s Max Valasquez Matute in Honduras finds ‘only a bit short of a miracle’? The decision by seven INGOs to align their programming in Honduras in support of an Everyone Forever movement aimed at delivering full coverage in sustainable rural water, sanitation and hygiene services. […]
Subverting bad policy for the better
By Richard Ward, Aguaconsult The most recent Global Water Challenge (GWC) webinar hosted at http://www.sustainablewash.org gave another useful opportunity to highlight the findings of the Qualitative Document Analysis (QDA) policy and practice research that has been disseminating during this (slightly cold) first part of 2013. Adding to the ‘reality content’ of those findings were two […]
A visit to Gammarth, Tunisia, or what I learnt at the African Development Bank’s retreat for rural water and sanitation
By Harold Lockwood Last week in Gammarth, Tunis the African Development Bank called a meeting, attended by about 160 sector experts and other government officials, to launch a new coordination mechanism for its flagship Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Initiative, or RWSSI. It was an interesting couple of days and through the various presentations, discussions, […]
What’s your role in building long-term sustainable WASH services in developing countries?
By Harold Lockwood Well, here we go again. Next week – 11th and 12th of March – there will be another gathering in Washington DC of a range of (primarily) US based Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector practitioners, experts, policy makers and funders to discuss the issue of the day: how to make services […]
Everyone? Yes, everyone!
Anyone who works in the water sector cannot have missed the various consultations and debates on the post-2015 goals for water and sanitation, with the official one taking place here, but also good online discussions, such as the one on The Broker online. At the same time, technical proposals have been developed by working groups […]
Of squeaky wheels and grease – reflections of a social welfarist on the road
By Harold Lockwood Recently I have been on a continent-hopping tour through a different range of meetings and events, from which I have seen a pattern emerging, or at least a series of questions in my own mind, as I carry out my work in the WASH sector at an international level.
Alice in waterland: a fantasy
This story is fictional. Any resemblance to real situations or persons is pure coincidence. When Alice stepped through the mirroring water surface into waterland, the first creature she came across was a rabbit, wearing a UN-blue jacket, looking frantically at its watch. “It is nearly time. Only three more years to go till 2015. So […]
Apples and oranges: a comparative assessment in WASH
A few weeks ago, an interesting email discussion was held on “water point mapping” D-Group of the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN). Part of the discussion focused on how much it costs to map or monitor all water systems in a country. Various figures were floating around in the discussion. But when looking at these […]
Uganda Sector Review 2012: are we still seeing the forest from the trees?
Reblogged from WASH in Uganda: This week 250 practitioners and policy makers from the Uganda Water and Environment sector met for 3 days during the annual Joint Sector Review Meeting. In my previous blog I focused on the challenge of stagnation in rural water: for the past years we haven’t seen any increase in coverage […]
“A bit more for some” may not be a bad idea
Two weeks ago, the “management and support” working group of the RWSN had its first meeting. This meeting focused specifically on management models and support arrangements for piped water supply in small towns. As rural settlements become bigger, a shift is made from point sources – like boreholes with handpumps – to piped systems. This […]
Stagnating coverage and functionality in rural water in Uganda: can this nut be cracked?
Next week more than 200 practitioners and policy makers from government, civil society, private sector and donors will come together for the annual Joint Water and Environment Sector Review in Uganda to review progress and set-backs during the past year and discuss and decide on priorities for the coming year. For rural water Uganda is […]
Community-based management is dead; long live community-based management
Last week, we had our first Triple-S research seminar, discussing the first findings from the assessments of service provision around point sources in Ghana and Uganda. Although I had seen a sneak preview of some of the data, the consolidated results were shocking. After seeing them, I was tempted to declare community-based management (particularly of […]
Allocation of funds for district level WASH programmes: What is the ideal formula?
By Lydia Mirembe and Deirdre Casella in Lira, Uganda - What started off as a commonplace lecture-like meeting in the Lira District Council Hall, ended up in a spirited discussion about a variety of issues around the delivery of water services in a decentralisation framework. Conditional grants for water and sanitation; mobile phones for water; […]
Monitoring, learning and adaptation – important lessons from Uganda for development partners
By Harold Lockwood - Yesterday I read an excellent report on how the water sector in Uganda has managed to build a truly national monitoring system. The report is written by the Rural Water Supply Network – RWSN – and so naturally focuses on the rural sector as it looks back at the detailed steps […]
Team GB puts ‘sports policy’ into practice, but can DfID ‘team WASH’ do the same?
By Harold Lockwood We all know how successful team GB was at the London Olympics with 29 golds and 65 medals overall (London medals). This was a fantastic achievement and the result of years of preparation and putting into practice a comprehensive sports policy for the UK. It wasn’t just investment in the athlete or […]
