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.
Youssouf, le coiffeur a de la peine à coiffer l’enfant de Bayi, la vendeuse qui tient solidement les deux bras de son enfant. Soudain, passe un communiqué radio sur le lavage des mains : « Il faut se laver les mains au savon avant et après les toilettes et les repas » disait le communiqué en langue... Read more...
This story is fictional. Any resemblance to real situations or persons is pure coincidence. When Alice stepped through the mirroring water surface into waterland, the first creature she came across was a rabbit, wearing a UN-blue jacket, looking frantically at its watch. "It is nearly time. Only... Read more...
A few weeks ago, an interesting email discussion was held on “water point mapping” D-Groupof the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN). Part of the discussion focused on how much it costs to map or monitor all water systems in a country. Various figures were floating around in the discussion. But when... Read more...
Learning is not optional or just a box to tick off. Knowing what works, what doesn't, for whom and in which contexts is crucial to improve water, sanitation and hygiene interventions for services that last. But using lessons learned requires linking learning to purpose, with a joint vision and... Read more...
This short summary of recent progress and current issues was prepared for the Self Supply Working Group based on discussions with the MoWE Self Supply Team and CoWASH project team as a contribution to an RWSN e-conference on self supply. Read more...
Research and learning are set to become important elements in national planning and monitoring of sanitation and water services. That is, at least, the aim of the Research and Learning (R&L) constituency of the Sanitation and Water for All global partnership (SWA). The R&L constituency will... Read more...
The report of a recent workshop on 'Consensus building .. on the provision of micro-finance for water supply, sanitation and hygiene and multiple use services in ethiopia' includes some interesting ideas of insurance products and multiple use systems that deliver productive benefits beyond... Read more...
IRC’s roots are in knowledge management, capacity building and advocacy. Since our founding in 1968, our focus and ambition have evolved from generating knowledge and making it accessible to the sector, towards playing an active role in the facilitation of learning and systemic change in the... Read more...
The WASH sector is in consensus labelled as a complex system. Interventions need to cope with wicked problems and solutions strive for adaptive management as exit strategy. The bulk of the WASH projects deliver on the short-term. In three year Hygiene projects populations / schools / communities... Read more...
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...
Driven amongst others by the mobile phone applications, more and more statistics are becoming available on the state of water services. These go well beyond the coverage data we were used to in the JMP reports (and which this year gave us some reason to be mildly optimistic). The new stats provide... Read more...
Driven amongst others by the mobile phone applications, more and more statistics are becoming available on the state of water services. These go well beyond the coverage data we were used to in the JMP reports (and which this year gave us some reason to be mildly optimistic). The new stats provide... Read more...
One of the key premises behind community-based management is that users pay for the operation and maintenance costs. On this blog we have reported at various occasions about the non-payment of major repairs. But some of the data presented this recently, show that even payment of minor O&M costs... 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...
L’assainissement des ménages dans le Nord Cameroun se fait principalement de manière autonome. Plus de 80% des ménages utilisent des latrines pour l’évacuation des excrétas et des eaux usées, soit sensiblement 450 000 fosses septiques (l’Institut National de la Statistique du Cameroun, 2009). Read more...
Chaque année à travers le monde, il est estimé que plus de 3 millions d’enfants ne peuvent pas célébrer leur cinquième anniversaire de suite de maladies évitables liées aux mains sales – la diarrhée, la pneumonie… Read more...
This report brings together the findings of two complementary research studies on the role of Self Supply in rural water services provision in two different regions of Ethiopia. Read more...
Last week, we had our first Triple-S research seminar, discussing the first findings from the assessments of service provision around point sources in Ghana and Uganda. Read more...
