Tag Archive | technology
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 […]
At the start of true scale in monitoring
From testing monitoring service delivery indicators and tools in 3 pilot districts by the CWSA and Triple-S to applying monitoring at scale in 64 Ghanaian districts, one quarter of the country. That is what will happen in the framework of SMARTerWASH in the coming 3 years.
“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 […]
FLOWing data
By Patrick Moriarty – I mentioned some cool new outputs from IRC’s Ghana programme in my previous post. These factsheets present a rich picture of water services and their governance based on a total survey in our three Triple-S focus districts in Ghana. The fact sheets aren’t cool due to their content – which is actually […]
Philippines: toolbox for rural water utilities launched
The Philippine government – together with the World Bank, the United Nations through the Millennium Development Goal Achievement Fund (MDG-F) and other development partners – have launched a ‘local water governance toolbox’. The toolbox is aimed at small-scale water service providers (SSWPs) with less than 5,000 connections. Otherwise known as “Tubig Yaman,” this new set […]
The state of the nations
It is the end/start of the year (depending on the moment at which you read this), so time to look at where one stands. The Joint Monitoring Programme of the United Nations has also done that for the state of the nations of the World with respect to drinking water supplies with this* publication that […]
When can we expect the iPump 2.0?
If it is possible to move in a few years from an iPod to an iPhone or and iPad, why are we in the water sector still struggling with the handpump? When can we expect the iPump 2.0? Did Steve Jobs die too early to invent this? As the naked truth about poor levels of […]
Reinventing the silver bullet
The biggest news this week in the world of water and sanitation was undoubtedly the announcement of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) that it will be investing in the reinvention of the toilet. It doesn’t happen often that sanitation even makes it to Dutch newspapers. Whereas it was widely lauded, also points of […]
water services that last 