Tag Archive | local support
Questioning water quality
One of the main conditions for providing potable water services is that the service provider must be able to guarantee that the water is safe for consumption. But what happens when you live in an area where such services are not within reach? Can you be sure that the water that is available is safe […]
Testing the sub-county water supply and sanitation board as a new management model in rural Uganda
By Julia Boulenouar – A classic case of community managed rural water supply In Uganda management of water supply has been responsibility of the communities, who struggle to provide an adequate level of service. In Kabarole or Lira Districts, only 2% of households receive a basic level of service (Triple-S baseline survey).
India rural water supply: an orphan of reforms?
By V. Kurian Baby, India Country Director, IRC Community rural water supply (RWS) in India is an orphan of partially implemented demand responsive sector reforms on the one hand and unsuccessful decentralisation on the other. Historically, rural water supply in India has been outside the sphere of governments (NRDWP 2013). The 73rd and 74th constitutional […]
Users perception of rural water services in Ghana: A case of satisfaction or dissatisfaction?
By: Tyhra Kumasi, Senior Research Officer, Triple-S Ghana Dora is a 33 year old teacher living in Agbedrafo in the Akatsi South District. She depends on the only handpump in the community for her daily domestic chores; however she laments the difficulties in getting access to fetch water. According to Dora “even though fetching is on a […]
Sub County Water and Sanitation Boards could help fix community management in Uganda but only with proper support
– By Martin Watsisi, Regional Learning Facilitator, Triple-S Uganda. In Uganda, as in many places, community water management has not worked very well. By and large, water user committees don’t have the requisite authority to collect fees or the necessary technical skills to ensure proper operations, maintenance and repairs. And District Water Officers, ostensibly responsible […]
Tracking change and sharpening indicators
By: Marieke Adank, IRC Now almost 2 year ago, I was involved in an assessment of the state of water service provision in 3 districts in Ghana. This assessment was done in order to test draft service delivery indicators developed by the Community Water and Sanitation Agency, in collaboration with IRC, under its Triple-S Project, […]
Putting low resources to work for rural O&M
This is a guest post from Duncan McNicholl and Alyssa Lindsay who lead the Water and Sanitation Programme of Engineers Without Borders Canada (EWB) in Malawi. For more on their work please see the recent case study by Triple-S available here. Mr. Oswald Nkhuwa is the District Water Development Officer for Nkhotakota District in the […]
Stockholm syndrome
For obvious reasons, Sweden and Stockholm have inspired several WASH bloggers this month, drawing analogies between the WASH sector and Swedish smörgåsbord and the Vasa ship. As a Stockholm resident, I can only be very satisfied with such inspiration. But, I must admit that initially I was not very inspired by this year’s World Water […]
Only the Minister of Water and Environment can decommission a defunct water facility in Uganda: myth or reality
By Robert Otim, District Learning Facilitator, Lira district, Uganda – In an Inter-district, meeting (IDM) organised by Ministry of Water and Environment (MWE) June 2013 in Kitgum, decommissioning of defunct water systems was a major concern cutting across all the 15 districts of Northern Uganda. Since the end of the humanitarian period and subsequent withdrawal […]
Not-so-limited mechanised boreholes
Elder Joe, whom you still may remember from a previous blog post, is the proud secretary of a water committee in the outskirts of Odumase town in Ghana. The committee looks after a handpump that was installed only last year. The committee is doing well. He shows us the booklet with the bank statements and […]
The caretaker always SMSes twice
The costs of getting spare parts for handpumps can sometimes be higher than the costs of the spares themselves. Imagine a handpump where some of the nuts of bolts have worn out. These might cost a dollar at a spare part retail dealer; but the bus ticket to town might cost three dollars. That is […]
Flying the flag – but breaking the pump?
One of the topics of discussion during this week’s Triple-S annual meeting was around harmonization of approaches to rural water supply between donors and governments. Presenting the experiences in Ghana, Vida Duti presented this nice map, showing which donors operate in which part of the country. One could interpret this map in a positive way; […]
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
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 […]
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, […]
water services that last 
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