ICT for WASH in 2013

Published on: 19/12/2013

Information and communications technology (ICT) is quickly changing relationships in the WASH sector. Distances are becoming shorter and ICTs are now being used to facilitate the measurement and monitoring of interventions with data from customers, operators and government. Using these new rich sources of data promises to guide decision making for the equitable WASH services.

Despite the promising outlook, several challenges exist to use the full potential of ICT. Is there sufficient knowledge to apply the new technologies effectively? What has worked and how? Who has access to the information and are incentives in place for using information to improve services?

Throughout 2013, a number of different events and many organisations explored the potential of ICT for monitoring, to improve water and sanitation service delivery and to improve accountability. Some of these are:

• ICT for Monitoring Sustainable Service Delivery organised by WaterAid and Demo Space at “IRC Symposium 2013: Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery” in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
• Changing Relationships: ICT to Improve Water Governance at the Stockholm World Water Week
• Presentations at the IWA Development Congress 2013 in Nairobi, Kenya
• ICT Expo: Using Appropriate Technology for WASH Implementation at the “2013 Water and Health Conference”, University of North Carolina

Discussions and lessons from the last three events are summarised in briefing note “ICT & WASH Fall 2013” with contributions from IRC, TetraTech, Akvo, and SeeSaw. Topics covered include:

• Open data and IATI
• Web dashboards and mobile applications
• SMS, IVR, and 3G
• Mobile billing and banking
• Remote sensing and metering
• Fully automated systems
• Sustainability of hardware and software solutions

Please see reports for download and links to relevant conferences below.