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A bit short of a miracle …

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. […]

Islands of success

Islands of success

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 […]

Subverting bad policy for the better

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 […]

Sustainability checks, clauses and compacts – USAID and DGIS lead the way

Sustainability checks, clauses and compacts – USAID and DGIS lead the way

By Stef Smits Over the past year, there has been quite a bit of buzz in the WASH sector on the sustainability clause  that DGIS seeks to include in its contacts with implementers. The pros and cons of this have been widely debated . A key component of the clauses is to have sustainability checks […]

A visit to Gammarth, Tunisia, or what I learnt at the African Development Bank’s retreat for rural water and sanitation

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, […]

Reflections from inside the beltway – what did the WASH Sustainability Forum achieve?

Reflections from inside the beltway – what did the WASH Sustainability Forum achieve?

By: Harold Lockwood, Aguaconsult and Triple-S Just back from the WASH sustainability forum in Washington DC and as the dust settles, it is time to pick up on the blog I wrote in anticipation of the two days of discussion, reflection, and sharing. How did it all go? Did the earth move under our feet? […]

What’s your role in building long-term sustainable WASH services in developing countries?

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!

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

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

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

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?

Uganda Sector Review 2012: are we still seeing the forest from the trees?

“A bit more for some” may not be a bad idea

“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 […]

Piloting and scaling up

Piloting and scaling up

In this interview, Vida Duti explains how Triple-S Ghana works at all levels in order to move from piloting in the three districts, to scaling-up.

Stagnating coverage and functionality in rural water in Uganda: can this nut be cracked?

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 […]