Experimenting with water service delivery
Coming up with a convincing elevator pitch for our Sustainable Services at Scale (Triple-S) project has long been a challenge. Which, given the complexities of the rural water sector itself, is possibly not that surprising. Whether defining ourselves (at least in part) as a complexity informed water services development lab will help, remains to be … Read more
A bit short of a miracle …
Reblogged from water services that last: 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 … Read more
FLOWing data
Reblogged from water services that last: 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 … Read more
Hitting the right note – the DGIS sustainability clause IS complex – but that’s no excuse for being timid
Reblogged from water services that last: By Patrick Moriarty - It’s always difficult call these things, but I think (and hope) that the last couple of weeks may, in retrospect, come to be seen as a watershed on the long and painful road to achieving universal access to water and sanitation services worthy of the … Read more
Mid term assessment blues
This is a post I made yesterday on our waterservicesthatlast blog. I’m sure there’s a smarter way to post to multiple blogs at once – but for now can’t find it – so this is straight cut-n-past! Its also my first post in a while – since leaving Ghana and ‘returning’ to live in Ireland … Read more
Standardised hand pumps – a good thing?
Paul van Beers of FairWater.Org manufacturer of the ‘Blue Pump’ is frustrated by the process (or lack of it) of standardisation around handpump designs. He has a point. There is a tendency in the rural water sector to assume that standardisation is a ‘good thing’ – because it helps to simplify spare parts chains, allows … Read more
The biggest myth of all – rural people want clean drinking water?
During the opening plenary, Richard Carter of WaterAid presents RWSN’s excellent “myths of the rural water supply sector paper”. I’ve liked this paper since it first appeared, capturing as it does in a succinct and pithy form so many of the challenges the sector faces in moving beyond manically sticking holes in the ground and … Read more
Water services in the danger zone
During the afternoon session on “post construction support and partnerships for sustainable rural water services” my colleague Jeske Verhoeven makes a presentation based on our latest WASHCost working paper on the costs of providing recurrent support to service providers. One of the slides showed the diagram that I’ve included here. This is a slightly modified … Read more
Mr Phiri’s story – bypassing local government doesn’t lead to lasting services
Mr Phiri’s story – bypassing local government doesn’t lead to lasting services An excellent presentation by Mr. Edgar Phiri – district Water Officer from Mwanza District Council in Malawi – during one of the parallel sessions on day one (the proceedings don’t seem to be on the RWSN blog yet – but as soon as they … Read more
Handpump functionality: what is the threshold for area mechanics?
My colleague Catarina Fonseca attended the “managing handpump water supplies” session. She says “after three hours of plenary and sessions, we keep hearing about low levels of functionality. 65% of handpumps in Chad being non-functional was the latest figure reported by Philippe Lacour-Gayet from IDO. In the session (again – when links are available we’ll … Read more
