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.
Donors have many competing concerns and this can have negative effects as shown in some villages in rural Burkina Faso. Read more...
IRC Board member Henk den Boer reflects on his visit to Burkina Faso. Read more...
What would happen if we outlawed and started to punish open air defecation in Burkina Faso? Read more...
IRC Burkina Faso saw the election campaign as the ideal opportunity to bring water and sanitation to the forefront. Read more...
The answer lies in four strategic changes in water sector governance. Read more...
Three takeaways from a field visit to a rural sanitation project in Burkina Faso. Read more...
IRC has highlighted some useful lessons for the sector as the USAID West-Africa Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene Programme is drawing to a close. Read more...
In this blog, I explain the process behind my research on human rights in Burkina Faso's water and sanitation sector. The resulting research report focuses on how the integration of sanitation as a human right in national policies and strategies can improve access to sanitation in rural areas, in... Read more...
IRC Burkina Faso looked into management models that would permanently reduce the number and length of breakdowns of boreholes with hand pumps in rural Burkina Faso. Read more...
IRC Burkina Faso investigated the factors that explain why boreholes with hand pumps in the Sahel region break down so often. Read more...
The correlation between access to drinking water, health, nutrition and other development indicators is well known. At sector level, this often translates into the requirement to allocate additional funding to new infrastructure (in the rural sector, mainly to water points), that would naturally... Read more...
According to UNICEF, the majority of schools in Burkina Faso don't have drinking water or sanitation facilities. This has been identified as one of the major obstacles to children's education in the country. Read more...
In the context of IRC's work on aid effectiveness and on official development assistance (ODA), a financial analysis of the national WASH programme implementation between 2007 and 2013 has been conducted in Burkina Faso. The following blog summarises the main findings and recommendations to better... Read more...
One of the main conditions for providing potable water services is that the service provider must be able to guarantee that the water is safe for consumption. But what happens when you live in an area where such services are not within reach? Can you be sure that the water that is available is safe... Read more...
Not only does the accessibility of water play an important role in improving the well-being of Burkina Faso's women, but women too, play a crucial role in guaranteeing the sustainability of water services in the country. But what is the main challenge that women in Burkina Faso face when it comes... Read more...
IRC asked a private operator if it was possible to improve the service provided by hand-pump at current tariff. The answer is yes but the scale at which hand pumps are managed must change. Read more...
This blog, written in the context of Burkina Faso, sets out how the lack of integrated approaches to WASH is one of the limiting factors in achieving universal access to WASH services. National policy makers and donor agencies insufficiently take the one-package WASH advantages into account, with... Read more...
It took high income countries 100 years to universalise the access to water and required long-term and massive public financing. Read more...
M&E are key to improving both the performance and the sustainability of WASH services. But how much do they cost and how should it be paid for? Read more...
Last week it was World Water Day 2014 , with the topic of "water and energy". I see obvious issues coming by on the water-energy nexus (which by the way is one of those development sector buzz words that I start disliking more every day. I hope the next buzz word is a bit more, uh, sparkling), such... Read more...