Interesting reading

Factors influencing water system functionality in Nigeria and Tanzania: a regression and Bayesian network analysis

by Ryan David Cronk and Jamie Bartram

The link will take you to an abstract from the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology. If anyone has read the full article, it would be great to get your feedback. The abstract reads as follows:

Sufficient, safe, and continuously-available water services are important for human development and health yet many water systems in low- and middle-income countries are non-functional. Monitoring data were analyzed using regression and Bayesian networks (BNs) to explore factors influencing the functionality of 82,503 water systems in Nigeria and Tanzania. Functionality varied by system type. In Tanzania, Nira handpumps were more functional than Afridev and India Mark II handpumps. Higher functionality was associated with fee collection in Nigeria. In Tanzania, functionality was higher if fees were collected monthly rather than in response to system breakdown. Systems in Nigeria were more likely to be functional if they were used for both human and livestock consumption. In Tanzania, systems managed by private operators were more functional than community-managed systems. The BNs found strong dependencies between functionality and system type and administrative unit (e.g. district). The BNs predicted functionality increased from 68% to 89% in Nigeria and from 53% to 68% in Tanzania when best observed conditions were in place. Improvements to water system monitoring and analysis of monitoring data with different modeling techniques may be useful for identifying water service improvement opportunities and informing evidence-based decision-making for better management, policy, programming, and practice.

Our Event @ World Water Week 2017

This session will showcase the Sustainable Services Initiative (SSI), a collaboration between multiple stakeholders working to improve the provision of sustainable water and sanitation services for everyone.  The complexity of the challenge requires action to:

  • enhance government leadership of sector planning processes
  • strengthen and use country systems
  • use a single information and mutual accountability platform
  • to build sustainable financing systems.

The SSI also recognizes high levels of interconnectivity and, by implication interdependency, between water and sanitation and, for example, food security, nutrition and livelihoods systems.

The session will provide opportunity to organizations that are testing these approaches to share their experience of the viability of a systems change approach in fragile or stressed operational contexts; the challenges faced by community management when it is part of a broader complex system and cannot be changed in isolation; tools to assist smaller-scale service providers become more professional and seek opinion on the scope and design of a platform that improves mutual accountability.

Bringing together governments, development partners, civil society and research organizations to discuss the issues raised in an interactive and consultative forum will provide guidance on how to support the initiative and scale practices that enhance sustainable services for all.

 

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For further information about our programme visit:

http://programme.worldwaterweek.org/event/7543-washaholics-anonymous-the-first-step-on-the-road-to-recovery

Washoholics Anonymous @ World Water Week in Stockholm

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“$30 brings clean water a person” – The promise made by marketing departments of WASH implementers and accepted by donors and governments.  The truth is this may provide first time access to people but not sustainable services. The theoretical foundation for sustainability is established in the WASH Sustainability Charter but translating broad policy discussions into practice is proving difficult.

This seminar at World Water Week on the 29th August built on the Agenda for Change initiative, the WASH Sustainability Forum and a workshop on Post Implementation Monitoring (PIM) where practitioners, funders and government debated obstacles to general uptake and scaling up of corrective actions to improve sector sustainability.

State and non-state WASH actors have project monitoring systems and tools that capture project implementation data to report against budgetary investments, fund raising and marketing. Fewer actors collect and share information on investments after the project ends. The concerns of WASH practitioners include: monitoring for sustainability is not budgeted; fear of reporting failure of services; and,, ambiguity about responsibility for corrective action.

Monitoring, reporting and greater transparency about failures and success after the project and support to governments to use this information will help keep our promise of universal access to WASH services by 2030.