Seminar: lasting and inclusive water and sanitation services Prof Richard C Carter WaterAid, Cranfield, RWSN.

Seminar: lasting and inclusive water and sanitation services

Prof Richard C CarterWaterAid, Cranfield, RWSN

Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in low-income countries and communities

• Outlining the problem• Why do anything?• Who should be served, who do the serving?• To achieve what?• How to deliver sustainable inclusive services?• When will this be achieved?

Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP)884m people still do not enjoy an improved water supply. More than a third of the un-served live in sub-Saharan Africa. Five out of six of the global unserved live in rural areas.

Drinking water

Sanitation

Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP)2.6bn people still do not enjoy improved sanitation. 72% of the unserved are in S. Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa is poorly served. Seven out of ten of the unserved live in rural areas.

What does ‘improved’ mean?

Disparities in access to improved services

Drinking water

Sanitation

So why should we do anything? (1)Adequate water supply and sanitation are human rights. What does this mean?

‘Access to safe water is a fundamental human need and therefore a basic human right’. [Kofi Annan]

‘Human rights are the inherent rights every individual has, just for being human. They are therefore independent from any state rule. Human rights reflect a global moral conscience, with roots in philosophies, religions and cultures throughout the world.’

[Right to water information portal http://www.righttowater.info/ ]

So why should we do anything? (2)Access to services is a matter of justice and equity – ‘what is it that your God requires …?’

Are there dangers in polarising people into ‘rights-holders’ and ‘duty-bearers’? How do rights relate to responsibilities?

Is there a difference between something being ‘a right’ and being right and fair? What do the faiths of the world say?

So why should we do anything? (3)Water and sanitation services are public goods, not merely private goods.

In the case of hygiene and sanitation especially, your behaviour can have a serious impact on my health.

Should the improvement and maintenance of good sanitation and water supplies be mandatory, not merely a matter of individual choice?

So why should we do anything? (4)Good business – a win-win situation in which providers make a living and consumers are served.

What do you think?

From why to who …

• Should WASH programmes target the poor(est)?• Should we serve those who can pay?• Should we aim to serve all?

A proposition: to serve all

• Remove the structural barriers which exclude the poorest – institutional ignorance, the invisibility of the rural poor, the myth (at least in urban contexts) that the poor can’t pay, the poverty of those who really cannot.

• Find ways to cross-subsidise the poorest (and most poorly served) with revenues from wealthier, better-served households.

Who should provide WASH services?

• National Governments

• Donors and lenders

• The private sector

• NGOs & faith-based agencies

Mandate, decentralisation, delegation, scale

Domination of ideas and investment, fickleness

Normative provider of goods and services. Investor?

Scale, independence, groundedness

What are we trying to achieve?

• Better health.• Time saving leading to

increased incomes.• Better school attendance.• A cleaner environment.• ‘Green’ solutions – re-use /

recycling of waste.• Others …… ?

What do water and sanitation users want?

• For water supply: ready access enabling sufficient quantity of water to be taken, of acceptable quality.

• For sanitation: the safety, privacy, comfort and dignity of an accessible toilet (plus status, utility).

• Services which are reliable and affordable and which impose only a limited management burden on users.

Perspectives of professionals and of service users[Gates Foundation WASH Landscaping Study http://www.irc.nl/page/35950 ]

Goals of sector professionals: MDGs, coverage

Goals of end users: access, convenience, dignity, income

• poverty reduction

• time & energy saving

• health/quality of life

• permanent change

men: income, influence

women: access, dignity, sustainability, convenience

engineers: construction, water quality

policy makers & donors: coverage, health

What users want to have andwhat sector professionals

want to give:

If the objectives of all the stakeholders are not focused on a common goal – a goal especially shared and articulated by the users of water and sanitation services – then efforts will be diluted.

Sector professionals need to have a better understanding of what users want and need. This requires a greater degree of exposure to end users and their problems, and a greater degree of accountability to those users.

Two principles: for all, for good

How to achieve inclusive and sustainable services?

1. Technology and approach are inextricably linked, and need to be fit for purpose and context.

2. Management and (post-construction) financing arrangements are crucial.

3. Monitoring and trouble-shooting are essential.

Three propositions

Technology and approach are inextricably linked, and need to be fit for purpose and context.

• Context matters: what works in one context won’t necessarily work in another.

• Purpose: good programme design requires relevant and precise criteria.

• There is no such thing as ‘sustainable technology’. Technology is delivered as part of a package – as a deal with the users. What is the nature of the deal?

Approaches – the ‘deal’• Total self-supply• Assisted self-supply• The ‘conventional approach’• Private sector provision• Urban utility model

Management and (post-construction) financing arrangements are crucial.

90

80 80 78 75 75 7570 70 70 69 68 66 65 65

60

50

35 35 33

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Non-functional water points as a

function of year of installation, S.

Bombali District Sierra Leone

Rural handpump functionality, 20 countries (RWSN)

The human factor

External intervention

Water user committee

Water supply assets

manages

organise, train

design, construct

The standard Community Management model

Water user committee

Water supply technology

External intervention

External support (to both “hard” and

“soft” infrastructurelimited ability

to maintain

Community management plus external support (technical, financial, conflict resolution ...)

Community management plus

The key questionsWho manages the water point and supply system and how competent are they?

How much does it cost to maintain and replace the major components, how often, and who pays?

Who will handle and pay for the major breakdowns and periodic capital maintenance?

Community management plus requires ….

• … external management support, from local Government or another permanent institution (eg the local Church),

and• full attention to the real costs of the service,

either through revenues raised by consumers or subsidies or transfers from outside the community,

or• acceptance of a reduced service level.

Monitoring and trouble-shooting are essential.

• Simple ‘red flag’ monitoring of functioning, utilisation and inclusion, and of water resources.

• Follow-up in case of identified alerts.

• Example of WaterAid post-implementation monitoring and water resource monitoring.

When? The question of goals and targets

• MDG targets – ‘reduce by half … by 2015’• After 2015?• What can we learn from the UN Water Decade

(1981-90), Safe Water 2000, the MDGs …?• Smarter targets? Country-specific targets?

Performance measurement in rural, as in urban?

50%

55%

60%

65%

70%

75%

80%

85%

90%

95%

100%

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050

Pop (m)

Full O&M

Low O&M

Population (m) on left axis

Getting it right: coverage increasing as a result of sound design and construction with adequate capital and recurrent investment (right axis).

Stagnation and decline in coverage as a result of inadequate investment in investigation, supervision, management and recurrent funding requirements.

50%

55%

60%

65%

70%

75%

80%

85%

90%

95%

100%

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050

Pop (m)

Full O&M

Low O&M

Population (m) on left axis

Getting it right: coverage increasing as a result of sound design and construction with adequate capital and recurrent investment (right axis).

Stagnation and decline in coverage as a result of inadequate investment in investigation, supervision, management and recurrent funding requirements.

Smarter investment

Summing up …

• The problem – the unserved and the poorly served.• Why do anything?

Rights, justice, public good, sound business.• Who? Only the poor, only the rich, all?• What? Who decides - professionals and donors, or

users / consumers?• How? To achieve inclusive and sustainable services.• When? The question of targets.

WASH – for all, for good