The African water sector needs qualified staff in all disciplines, not just engineering. Read more...
Creating the capacity to adapt and innovate within national water, sanitation and hygiene sectors Read more...
My Water, My Business 2016 is an exhibition and seminar focused on Self-supply and linked to World Water Day 2016. The ambitious aim this year is to bring together different approaches to household-level provision, so going beyond domestic water supply to include household irrigation, water... Read more...
For less than US$12 per person per year a town in Honduras can ensure that everyone's water supply keeps working. Read more...
In reactie op een artikel dat deze week verscheen in NRC over fraude met Nederlands ontwikkelingsgeld voor schoon drinkwater in Benin, schrijft Stef Smits deze blog. Terugkeren naar projecthulp is geen optie, zegt hij. Read more...
We all know that "he who pays the piper calls the tune" - but what if the tune is the wrong one for the times? Can pipers push for new tunes? IRC's CEO Patrick Moriarty thinks so. Read more...
At IRC we're pretty clear about our aims – about the world we want to see. Everyone, everywhere enjoying access to water, sanitation and hygiene services that last forever. But how to get there? And what's our role? Read more...
The King's speech marks the opening of the Dutch parliamentary year. This year he drew attention to the important position of the Netherlands in the international water sector. The budgets that were presented alongside the speech also reflect this, notably with a 6% increase for the budget for WASH... Read more...
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have the target of reaching universal access to water and sanitation by 2030. But can this target realistically be achieved in the most difficult of settings: fragile states? 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...
On the 23 April 2015, a technical discussion was held at the Jupiter hotel in Addis Ababa to debate the findings of a study "Private Sector Landscape for WASH in Ethiopia – Bottlenecks and opportunities" commissioned by UNICEF and undertaken by IRC within the scope of the DFID-funded One WASH Plus... Read more...
The COMAS – Municipal Water and Sanitation Committee – of the municipality of El Negrito (in the Department of Yoro, Honduras), is strongly committed to providing universal water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services to its citizens. But it needs a plan to get there. And it needs to make a plan... 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...
Ultimate success in water service delivery is defined by the service level received by households. There can be excellent infrastructure and impeccable administration, but if households don't receive enough water of good enough quality without spending an excessive amount of time collecting it,... 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...
One of the nicest water-related customs in Honduras is the breaking of the pot. When a village gets connected to a water system, part of the inauguration ceremony consists of an old woman from the village symbolically throwing a clay water-pot on the ground, so that it breaks. She will never need... Read more...