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Published on: 16/06/2014

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is one of the well-known international NGOs in Ethiopia, so it was a pleasure for me to see so many CRS advisers in Addis Ababa for their WASH Community of Practice meeting on 23rd May. Staff participated from across East Africa.

I was there to share my experiences on Self-supply, in Ethiopia but also from my visits to South Sudan and Uganda. We are currently working with CRS in Ethiopia to promote Self-supply as a complementary approach that can fill some gaps in communal water supplies. This focuses on how government and NGOs can provide software support to trigger the investments by households that form the Self-supply approach. But what is the situation like with respect to Self-supply in other East African countries?

My presentation focused on Self-supply concepts and the general approach, while the Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy shared insights about government strategy, policies, roles of the public and private sectors, and current progress. The questions that came back reflected the concerns of CRS advisors about Self-supply

  • How do you view the risks of groundwater depletion if everyone has their own well?
  • How can the poorest of the poor be reached through a Self-supply approach?
  • What are the strategies to increase access to micro-finance?
  • How is government financing and providing technical support for Self-supply?
  • How is contamination to be prevented since at the same time the health sector is promoting a latrine for every household?
  • Who is responsible for water quality monitoring linked to Self-supply?

That is a nice list of issues about Self-supply. We had some answers of course, but I think the list nicely captures the concerns of many about the approach and highlights some of the interesting issues that we are working through in Ethiopia.

Related presentations on sanitation marketing also gave me food for thought. WSP shared progress with the national sanitation marketing guideline where they collaborate with FeMSEDA (the Federal Micro and Small Enterprises Development Agency). The idea is that sanitation marketing can support job creation as well as getting sanitation-related goods and services to consumers. Growth in GDP and reduction in poverty, all through job creation. One challenge the sanitation marketing experts discussed, that we also see with Self-supply, is the lack of interest from micro-finance institutions to see sanitation as a business.

There looks like a lot of potential synergies between Self-supply for domestic use and household irrigation, sanitation marketing and rural energy promotion (biogas). These are the areas where I want to explore more to look for coordination and synergies. Biogas requires waste and lots of water so it goes well with Self-supply (for water) and a household latrine (for waste). Similarly, income generated from household or micro-irrigation can attract the micro-finance institutions to Self-supply, which otherwise they tend to see as a luxury rather than an asset.

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