Opinions and voices for change
Navigate the blogs from our experts, water, sanitation and hygiene sector colleagues and guests. Narrow down your search by using the filters.
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. Read more...
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... Read more...
The assumption information is 'only' required to 'flow' turned out to be false! First information has to be made... Read more...
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... Read more...
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... Read more...
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 name. Read more...
We all know how successful team GB was at the London Olympics with 29 golds and 65 medals overall. This was a fantastic achievement and the result of years of preparation and putting into practice a comprehensive sports policy for the UK. It wasn’t just investment in the athlete or their equipment... Read more...
On the 20th of August the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre organised an in-house debate on the pros and cons of adding a sustainability clause in contracts between donors and implementers in Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programmes. Despite challenges in terms of creating a chain... Read more...
Our talk about 'sector learning' sometimes obscures the fact that it is people, individually or collectively, who learn and catalyse change. So, it's been inspiring to check in with four young professionals from Bangladesh, Ghana, Guatemala, and Uganda who are visiting IRC for their final de-... Read more...
Sustainability is on top of the list of countries, of development partners and of IRC. Now that we know about the high break down rates of pumps and pipes, we are alarmed. And we should be! Not only because breakdowns are a waste of investment and a waste of tax payers’ money, but because people... Read more...
Could Zimbabwe's once-strong lead in water and sanitation coverage in Southern Africa be recovered through the joint project Zimwash? Read more...
What does it cost to provide water services that last? What do we mean by a water service? Read more...
During our workshop last week we explored how Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Resource Centre Networks support learning in their WASH sectors and what change has resulted from their work so far. Read more...
Over the past days we discussed the conditions that have to be in place for a Resource Centre Network (RCN) to act as a vehicle for WASH sector learning. One of the conditions is to have a strong facilitator or coordinator in place . RCN facilitators in the ideal world have the right background,... Read more...
This week has brought a lot of reflecting and sharing about the ways that WASH Resource Centre Networks facilitate sector learning. Today, we spoke to Ton Schouten about the approach undertaken by the Triple-S project. Triple-S has developed a Service Delivery Approach for achieving sustainable... Read more...
How different or similar are the activities and outcomes of the Resource Centres Networks (RCNs) that IRC is collaborating with on strengthening sector learning? What the resource centres from Ghana, Nepal, Uganda and Burkina Faso have in common is that All resource centres are carrying out... Read more...
The term 'sector learning' has been coined and promoted by IRC as a key element in improving the ability of WASH sector actors to provide sustainable services to all. It is an elusive concept with multiple meanings and layers or perhaps no meaning at all (some say that s ector learning does not... Read more...
IRC has supported WASH Resource Centre Networks in 5 countries (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Honduras, Uganda and Nepal) since 2003. In April 2011, we came together as a group to share our reflections about sector learning, theories of change and visions for the WASH sector. Read more...
On April 20, Ministers of Water and Sanitation from around the world will meet with their Ministers of Finance in Washington D.C. as part of the Sanitation and Water (SWA) for All High Level Meeting. There, they will discuss sector goals and progress, and it goes without saying that the recent... Read more...
I've been thinking about that we actually mean by development, and came across this really good presentation on Slideshare which, I think, sums up the main issues and approaches commonly used to define development. Read more...