Seminar: lasting and inclusive
water and sanitation services
Prof Richard C Carter
WaterAid, Cranfield, RWSN
Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in
low-income countries and communities
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Outlining the problem
Why do anything?
Who should be served, who do the serving?
To achieve what?
How to deliver sustainable inclusive services?
When will this be achieved?
Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP)
884m people still do not enjoy an improved
water supply. More than a third of the unserved live in sub-Saharan Africa. Five out of
six of the global unserved live in rural areas.
Drinking
water
Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP)
2.6bn people still do not enjoy improved
sanitation. 72% of the unserved are in S. Asia,
and sub-Saharan Africa is poorly served. Seven
out of ten of the unserved live in rural areas.
Sanitation
What does ‘improved’ mean?
Disparities in access to improved services
Drinking water
Sanitation
So why should we do anything? (1)
Adequate water supply and sanitation are human
rights. What does this mean?
‘Access to safe water is a
fundamental human need
and therefore a basic human
right’. [Kofi Annan]
[Right to water information portal
http://www.righttowater.info/ ]
‘Human rights are the
inherent rights every
individual has, just for being
human. They are therefore
independent from any state
rule. Human rights reflect a
global moral conscience,
with roots in philosophies,
religions and cultures
throughout the world.’
So why should we do anything? (2)
Access to services is a matter of justice and equity –
‘what is it that your God requires …?’
Are there dangers in polarising people into ‘rights-holders’
and ‘duty-bearers’? How do rights relate to responsibilities?
Is there a difference
between something
being ‘a right’ and
being right and fair?
What do the faiths
of the world say?
So why should we do anything? (3)
Water and sanitation services are public goods, not
merely private goods.
In the case of hygiene and
sanitation especially, your
behaviour can have a serious
impact on my health.
Should the improvement and
maintenance of good
sanitation and water supplies
be mandatory, not merely a
matter of individual choice?
So why should we do anything? (4)
Good business – a win-win situation in which
providers make a living and consumers are served.
What do you think?
From why to who …
• Should WASH programmes target the poor(est)?
• Should we serve those who can pay?
• Should we aim to serve all?
A proposition: to serve all
• Remove the structural barriers which exclude
the poorest – institutional ignorance, the
invisibility of the rural poor, the myth (at least
in urban contexts) that the poor can’t pay, the
poverty of those who really cannot.
• Find ways to cross-subsidise the poorest (and
most poorly served) with revenues from
wealthier, better-served households.
Who should provide WASH services?
• National Governments
Mandate, decentralisation,
delegation, scale
• Donors and lenders
Domination of ideas and
investment, fickleness
• The private sector
Normative provider of
goods and services.
Investor?
• NGOs & faith-based agencies
Scale, independence,
groundedness
What are we trying to achieve?
• Better health.
• Time saving leading to
increased incomes.
• Better school attendance.
• A cleaner environment.
• ‘Green’ solutions – re-use /
recycling of waste.
• Others …… ?
What do water and sanitation users want?
• Services which are
• For water supply: ready
reliable and affordable
access enabling
and which impose only sufficient quantity of
a limited management
water to be taken, of
burden on users.
acceptable quality.
• For sanitation: the
safety, privacy, comfort
and dignity of an
accessible toilet (plus
status, utility).
Perspectives of professionals and of service users
[Gates Foundation WASH Landscaping Study http://www.irc.nl/page/35950 ]
What users want to have and
what sector professionals
want to give:
Goals of sector
professionals:
MDGs, coverage
If the objectives of all the stakeholders are not focused on a
common goal – a goal especially shared and articulated by the
users of water and sanitation services – then efforts will be diluted.
• poverty reduction
• time & energy
saving
Goals of end users:
access, convenience,
dignity, income
• health/quality of life
policy makers &
donors: coverage,
health
• permanent change
engineers:
construction,
water quality
women: access,
dignity, sustainability,
convenience
men: income,
influence
Sector professionals need to have a better understanding of what users want
and need. This requires a greater degree of exposure to end users and their
problems, and a greater degree of accountability to those users.
Two principles: for all, for good
How to achieve inclusive
and sustainable services?
Three propositions
1. Technology and approach are inextricably linked,
and need to be fit for purpose and context.
2. Management and (post-construction) financing
arrangements are crucial.
3. Monitoring and trouble-shooting are essential.
Technology and approach are inextricably linked, and
need to be fit for purpose and context.
• Context matters: what works in one context won’t
necessarily work in another.
• Purpose: good programme design requires relevant
and precise criteria.
• There is no such thing as ‘sustainable technology’.
Technology is delivered as part of a package – as a
deal with the users. What is the nature of the deal?
Approaches – the ‘deal’
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•
•
•
•
Total self-supply
Assisted self-supply
The ‘conventional approach’
Private sector provision
Urban utility model
Management and (post-construction)
financing arrangements are crucial.
100
90
80
70
90
80 80 78
75 75 75
70 70 70 69 68
66 65 65
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Rural handpump
functionality, 20
countries (RWSN)
60
50
35 35 33
Non-functional
water points as a
function of year of
installation, S.
Bombali District
Sierra Leone
The human factor
The standard Community Management model
organise, train
External
intervention
Water user
committee
manages
design, construct
Water supply
assets
Community management plus
Water user
committee
External
intervention
limited ability
to maintain
External support (to
both “hard” and
“soft” infrastructure
Water supply
technology
Community management plus external support (technical,
financial, conflict resolution ...)
The key questions
Who manages the
water point and supply
system and how
competent are they?
How much does it cost to maintain
and replace the major components,
how often, and who pays?
Who will handle and
pay for the major
breakdowns and
periodic capital
maintenance?
Community management plus requires ….
• … external management support, from local
Government or another permanent institution
(eg the local Church),
and
• full attention to the real costs of the service,
either through revenues raised by consumers or
subsidies or transfers from outside the
community,
or
• acceptance of a reduced service level.
Monitoring and trouble-shooting are
essential.
• Simple ‘red flag’ monitoring
of functioning, utilisation and
inclusion, and of water
resources.
• Follow-up in case of
identified alerts.
• Example of WaterAid postimplementation monitoring
and water resource
monitoring.
When? The question of goals and targets
• MDG targets – ‘reduce by half … by 2015’
• After 2015?
• What can we learn from the UN Water Decade
(1981-90), Safe Water 2000, the MDGs …?
• Smarter targets? Country-specific targets?
Performance measurement in rural, as in
urban?
Smarter investment
120
100%
95%
100
80
60
90%
Getting it right: coverage
increasing as a result of sound
design and construction with
adequate capital and recurrent
investment (right axis).
85%
Population (m)
on left axis
80%
75%
Pop (m)
Full O&M
70%
40
Stagnation and decline in coverage as a
result of inadequate investment in
investigation, supervision, management
and recurrent funding requirements.
20
0
2010
2015
2020
2025
2030
2035
2040
2045
65%
60%
55%
50%
2050
Low O&M
Summing up …
• The problem – the unserved and the poorly served.
• Why do anything?
Rights, justice, public good, sound business.
• Who? Only the poor, only the rich, all?
• What? Who decides - professionals and donors, or
users / consumers?
• How? To achieve inclusive and sustainable services.
• When? The question of targets.
WASH – for all, for good