The challenge of making India open defecation free through WASH Dialogues Read more...
Mr Belwal is a community facilitator with the Himalaya Institute Hospital Trust, an NGO that, amongst others, develops water supply systems in the Uttarakhand Himalayas, through a programme supported by Himmothan Society. His main responsibility is ensuring that villages that have been "phased out... Read more...
Sangeeta Ramola is the former Pradhan (president) of the Gawana Gram Panchayat (local government), in the State of Uttarakhand, India. Her work and effort shows the importance of local political leaders in achieving access to rural water supply that lasts. Read more...
Two years ago, I posted a blog summarizing discussions on whether insuring rural water supply systems is a good idea. But these remained largely theoretical discussions, as there are few examples of such insurances put in place. During field work for the Community Water Plus project in the State of... Read more...
The Community Water Plus project investigates the support that is being provided to community-managed rural water supplies. This is being done for twenty case studies of programmes from across India. Read more...
For community-managed rural water supply to be sustainable, a "plus" is needed: special efforts to empower communities during project implementation, and continued support from government during service delivery. The Community Water Plus project seeks to get a better understanding of the costs of... Read more...
Saraswati Halder, the president of the Durganagar Kanchantala water committee, shows me the committee's bank booklet. It shows only one transaction: 100 Rupees (about 1.50 US$) deposited in 2011, more than 3 years ago. Read more...
The Community Water Plus project assesses twenty cases of support to community managed rural water supplies across India. IRC carried out one of these studies around support to community-managed handpumps in Patharpratima, West Bengal. The case study concludes that an effective mechanism for... Read more...
We were here to find out what the water committee does about water supplies, but only a local government official was around to explain it all. Read more...
Working with the Ethiopian government and partners to deliver universal access to WASH services. Read more...
The 9th FLOWS seminar took an in-depth look at two service delivery models in Ethiopia's highly decentralised water supply. Read more...
It would be easy, and wrong, to say that global conferences rarely deliver results, for sometimes they offer brand new ways of seeing things. Read more...
Alternative service provider options refer to models such as self-supply and public-private partnerships, that are a departure from the conventional model of community-based management that has tended to dominate rural water supplies. Read more...
The professionalisation of community based-management means moving away from an approach based purely on volunteerism, towards a more professional, competent and effective management of rural water services working to agreed standards, and with greater transparency and accountability. Read more...
Sagar is an island at the mouth of the river Ganges where it meets the Bay of Bengal. Every year in January, about half a million pilgrims visit the island to worship at the holy Ganges. The hundreds of mobile toilet units standing on the empty festival terrain during the rest of the year are... Read more...
Water and sanitation facilities: a service provider is needed for day-to-day administration. 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...
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...