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.
IRC Burkina Faso s'est intéressé aux facteurs expliquant la fréquence élevée des pannes des forages équipés de PMH dans la région du Sahel. Read more...
America's crumbling infrastructure: It's not a sexy problem, but it is a scary one. Read more...
Nothing less than universal and equitable access to water and sanitation for all by 2030 is what the world wants. Some 50 Dutch water and development specialists came to The Hague on March 4th, 2015, to discuss what it will take to make this goal a reality. Read more...
Globally we see a new movement focusing on "breaking the silence" around menstrual hygiene management. Menstrual hygiene has a serious impact on the education, health and dignity of women and girls. We cannot talk about universal education and services for all without addressing this topic. Read more...
In this blog, economist and IRC's head of innovation and international programme Catarina Fonseca argues that taxation is crucial in reaching the post-2015 development agenda. "Tax is a prerequisite for governments to become truly democratically accountable to their people," she says. Read more...
Uttam Majundar is een succesvolle Jalabandu, een mecanicien die handpompen repareert, in Digambarpur, West-Bengal, India. Maar hij dreigt slachtoffer te worden van zijn eigen succes. Stef Smits, programma officer van IRC, schetst een dag uit het leven van Uttam en laat zien waarom te goed je werk... Read more...
The India WASH Summit focused on solutions for Swacch Bharat (Clean India mission), to find ways to meet the goal of making India Open Defecation Free by 2019. The Summit drew sector players, government, elected representatives, bilaterals, multilaterals, donors, INGOs, NGOs, academia and the... Read more...
The 2014 update on Progress on Sanitation and Drinking-Water (WHO and UNICEF, 2014) mentions that between 1990 and 2012, open defecation decreased from 24 per cent to 14 per cent globally. However, the update also states that more than one third of the global population – some 2.5 billion people —... Read more...
In this blog on the UN-Water meeting that was held in Geneva last month, Joseph Pearce and Ton Schouten give an intriguing insight in the monitoring of the new sustainable development goal (SDG) for water. They argue that the SDGs, as they are now formulated, demand for strengthening national... Read more...
Faute d'un statut social élevé, les hygiénistes locaux formés pour faire la promotion de l'assainissement familial en milieu rural ont un impact limité. Le recours aux coutumiers et au religieux qui jouissent d'une plus grande écoute ne serait pas superflu. Read more...
Today there are more people without access to adequate sanitation than in 2000, despite the commitment included in the MDGs to halve by 2015 the proportion of people without sustainable access to basic sanitation. So what are the key challenges to increase the number of people with access to... Read more...
Thinking critically about how you do your work and seeing the bigger picture towards which you are working, can improve the effectiveness of your work. 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...
La corrélation directe entre l’accès à l’eau potable et le niveau de santé, de nutrition et autres indicateurs de développement est aujourd’hui largement reconnue. Sur cette base, le secteur conclut souvent qu’il est nécessaire d’allouer davantage d’investissements aux infrastructures (en milieu... Read more...
Uttam Majundar is a successful Jalabandu (handpump mechanic) in Digambarpur (West Bengal, India). But now he risks becoming a victim of his own success. Following a day in his life explains why. Read more...
Selon l'UNICEF, la majorité des écoles du Burkina Faso ne disposent pas de d'installations sanitaires ou d'eau potable. Ce constat est décrit comme l'un des obstacles majeurs à l'éducation des enfants. 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...
It's hard to predict what impact investments and innovations in the water sector will have on citizens' access to services. Understanding underlying mechanisms and potential bottlenecks of change can help decide how and where to invest resources, while also giving a more realistic picture of the... Read more...
700 FSM fans can't be wrong. Faecal sludge management is hot but we need to collaborate more to see the big picture. Forget pilots, think at scale! Read more...
Unlike droughts, floods and oil spills, non-functioning water and sanitation systems seldom make the headlines, even though water crises top the list of global risks. Read more...