Philippines: toolbox for rural water utilities launched

The Philippines and the World Bank have created the Rural Water Supply (RWS) manual for small-scale providers. Photo: Department of Interior & Local Government(DILG).

The Philippine government – together with the World Bank, the United Nations through the Millennium Development Goal Achievement Fund (MDG-F) and other development partners – have launched a ‘local water governance toolbox’. The toolbox is aimed at small-scale water service providers (SSWPs) with less than 5,000 connections.

Otherwise known as “Tubig Yaman,” this new set of manuals and knowledge products on water and sanitation was unveiled at the ‘Water Knowledge Fair’ held in Manila in celebration of World Water Day. The manuals present a coherent set of guidelines that hopefully will help overcome operational difficulties and sustainability issues, which occur due to flaws in design assumptions, deficiencies in construction, and poor knowledge on operation and maintenance.

Asia: leadership for sanitation needed at both central and local level

The responsibility for sanitation in Asia is fragmented over different agencies, and in most cases the priority given to sanitation is low. Therefore more leadership and political will is needed to make sure that organisational structures function, that plans with good intentions become a reality on the ground and that resources go to the right places. While leadership for sanitation is needed at all levels, it’s most urgent at sub national level, in districts and provinces, because it’s there where the actions take place.

This is the outcome of an email discussion [1] of the WASH Asia Dgroup platform held from 9 August to 9 September 2011. The discussion was moderated by the SNV Asia knowledge network and IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, and involved 120 WASH practitioners from 5 different countries in Asia.

Bangladesh: WaterAid gets Swiss and Swedish grants for WASH projects

WaterAid has signed funding agreements with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) for two WASH projects in Bangladesh.

Photo: WaterAid/ Abir Abdullah & ASM Shafiqur Rahman

SDC and WaterAid signed a grant agreement on 30 November 2011 for a 316 million Taka (US$ 3.84 million) three year rural WASH programme. SDC will provide 265.5 million Taka (US$ 3.23 million), and WaterAid the rest. If successful, SDC will extend support for another 3 years.

Most of the funding will go the ‘Promotion of water supply, sanitation and hygiene in hard -to-reach areas of rural Bangladesh’ project, which aims to provide safe drinking water to 500,000 rural people, latrines to 1.3 million and hygiene education to another 1 million people. WaterAid’s inclusion and climate change programmes will also benefit.

Cambodia: ADB plans US$ 27 million loan for rural water and sanitation

As part of the new Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for 2011-2013 for Cambodia, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is planning a US$ 27 million loan and a US$ 800,000 technical assistance grant for the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation III project.

Source: ADB Country Operations Business Plan : Cambodia 2011–2013. June 2011. Download full plan ; ADB, Cambodia Announce $500 Million Three-Year Partnership Strategy, ADB, 07 Jul 2011

Vanuatu and Fiji: gender in WASH case studies

The outputs of the the project “Researching Gender Aspects of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Projects with Pacific Communities” (2009-2011) have been published on genderinpacificwash.info

The study focuses on two Pacific case studies that incorporate gender strategies and support community decision making processes: World Vision’s Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation (PHAST) initiatives in rural Vanuatu and Live and Learn’s water governance and sustainable communities projects in Fiji.

The research findings have been translated into a set of guidance materials for organisations undertaking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) activities. The guidance materials include a resource guide, flash cards, a poster, and case study snapshots.

The research project was implemented by the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) and the International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) with funding from the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID).

Bangladesh: Denmark and Australia sign MoU with Hygiene, Sanitation and Water (HYSAWA) Fund

Denmark and Australia have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 24 August 2010 for joint collaboration and support to the Hygiene, Sanitation and Water (HYSAWA) Fund.

The HYSAWA Fund provides direct financial and technical support to local authorities in Bangladesh for improved hygiene promotion, water supply and sanitation. The Government of Bangladesh, Denmark and now also AusAid are supporting the HYSAWA Fund with financial and technical assistance.

Dr. Justin Lee, Mr. Monjur Hossain and Mr. Jan Møller Hansen signing the MoU. Photo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark

Since April 2008 the HYSAWA Fund has financed the implementation of 16.000 tube wells and 200 piped rural water supply schemes and supported the construction of some 450.000 household and community latrines in the country. It is estimated that around 1 million people have benefitted from the activities so far. Furthermore, app. 2 million people have been trained on hand washing.

AusAid will over the coming two years allocate 7.7 Million AUD (US$ 7.8 million) to the HYSAWA Fund. Denmark and the Government of Bangladesh have since 2006 contributed with app. US$ 32 Million and US$ 5.5 Million, respectively. New additional Danish support to the HYSAWA Fund is expected from 2012 until 2015.

The new financial contributions from AusAid and Danida are expected to improve hygiene, water supply and sanitation for an additional 600.000 people in Bangladesh.

Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, 24 Sep 2010

China, Sichuan: project brings safe water and sanitation to the rural poor

Ziyang County in Sichuan province is not only one of the poorest in China, but it also suffers from a water shortage like other regions in the southwest. Over the last few years, most of the existing wells in the village are either contaminated or have dried up.

“In the past, villagers had to fetch water. During the drought season, they have to go fetch and walk back from a long distance, which is tough,” said village head Ji Hongli.

But since December 2009, Singapore non-governmental organisation, Mercy Relief has stepped in by boring new wells supplying potable water to five villages within the township.

The water is delivered to each of the 574 households through a new piping system.

Clean, drinking water has been made available for every household under the purview of Mercy Relief’s development project at Dong Feng. Photo: Mercy Relief

Villagers are not just grateful for having access to safe drinking water.

“Washing the clothes with the clean water is good as we won’t feel itchy after putting them back on. In the past, we sometimes get little spots on our bodies and we keep scratching them,” said one villager.

“In the past, the water had sediments so we had to let it sit for a while. The top portion was used for cooking and washing vegetables, while the cloudy layer was used for washing our feet and feeding the livestock,” said villager Chen Shifang.

Now with extra water for their livestock, villagers are able to have more of them, thereby increasing their earnings.

Incomes are expected to rise by about US$60 a year – not an insubstantial increase in an area where annual incomes are about US$300.

“We had to dig deep into the earth to get water, and to pump the water up, which means that they could get water easily, not only for their own drinking and cleaning, but also for their fields,” said Abdullah Tarmugi, Mercy Relief advisor.

The project was developed with assistance from the local poverty alleviation foundation at a cost of over US$200,000.

Sanitation

Prior to Mercy Relief’s project implementation in December 2009, the 1,025 villagers of Fei’e Village were living in an unfavourable sanitation environment where human and animal excrement were not managed properly – a hygiene issue exacerbated by the prevalence of open-pit toilets. Through the installation of biogas digestors serving all 224 households, an efficient waste management system was thus developed where the excrement is stored in the digestors underground and used to harvest biogas fuel, which is used as alternate fuel for cooking and lighting via the provision of biogas cookers and lamps. The residue excrement from the digestors is also used to fertilise the villagers’ crops – their main source of income.

This has generated savings for the villagers, from not having to use electricity from the grid for lighting, and encouraging them to abstain from the environmentally-unfriendly practices of buying coal and wood for cooking and chemical fertiliser for farming. More importantly, the project has revamped the sanitation environment to minimise the outbreak of epidemics.

Besides lighting and cooking, the residu excrement in the biogas digestor is used to fertilise the villagers’ crops. Photo: Mercy Relief

Source: Maria Siow, Channel News Asia, 01 Jul 2010 ; Mercy Relief, 17 Jun 2010

Viet Nam: VND54 trillion for rural water supply programme

More than VND54 trillion [US$ 2.77 billion] will be allocated for the national target programme o­n rural water supply and environmental sanitation from 2011 to 2015 to improve locals’ living conditions, according to the Standing Office of the National Target Programme for Rural Water Supply and Sanitation.

Of the total, VND21.8 trillion [US$ 1.12 billion] will be earmarked for water supply and VND25.6 trillion [US$ 1.32 billion] for hygiene in households and schools.

The programme aims to improve water supply services, raise people’s awareness and change the community’s behaviour regarding environmental protection. Priority will be given to remote, island, drought-stricken and polluted areas to benefit poor and ethnic minority people.

Vietnam has set a goal of supplying running water to 83 percent of the rural population by the end of 2010. A programme official says the goal would be [surpassed] this year, with 85 percent of the people accessing safe water. However, o­nly 63 percent of rural households would have [hygienic] latrines, 7 percent less than the goal.

Related web site: Viet Nam – Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Partnership (RWSSP)

Source: Hanoi Times, 12 Jul 2010 ; Nhan Dan 12 Jul 2010

India, Orissa: Bonita Trust funds water and sanitation facilities for 1,500 rural families

With financial support from The Bonita Trust, based in Gibraltar, Gram Vikas has recently launched a water and sanitation project in 20 rural habitations in the state of Orissa.

MANTRA – Movement and Action Network for the Transformation of Rural Areas project aims to provide a toilet and bathing room with piped water supply to each of the target 1500 families in 20 villages over a two year period. The establishment of community-led water and sanitation infrastructure is complemented with a series of capacity building activities around health and hygiene education, leadership development and fund management

Ruth Parasol DeLeon, founding member of the Bonita Trust’s International Advisory Board says “We visited Gram Vikas during our field trip to India in January [2009], and were extremely impressed by the development work that they have undertaken in one of the most disadvantaged areas in the country. They have an entrepreneurial approach to developing the necessary technology to provide for the most basic needs of the communities, and have established working partnerships with the families which lie at the heart of the development programmes.”

Bonita has focused the majority of its community grant-making in the United Kingdom, India, Israel, and Gibraltar and has since inception in 2004, donated over £7.5 million (US$ 12.2 million) to charities leveraging technology to deliver programmes in the areas of education, health and entrepreneurship working in partnership with communities worldwide.

The MANTRA project in Orissa is the first water and sanitation project to receive funding from the Bonita Trust.

Source: PR.com / Bonita Trust, 28 Oct 2009

Bangladesh: lessons from implementing water supply, sanitation and hygiene promotion activities in the coastal belt

A new document [1] describes the key lessons learned from the large Coastal Belt Project, which was supported by Danida and the Government of Bangladesh during 1997-2009. The document highlights the processes, achievements and challenges of providing more than 12 years of extensive assistance to rural and small towns water supply, sanitation and hygiene promotion in the coastal regions of Bangladesh. During the years the project gradually changed its implementation modalities towards a high degree of alignment with national institutions and systems, including use of national planning and budgeting processes and public procurement rules.

The Project was largely successful in achieving its physical targets of more than 30,000 arsenic-free deep hand tube wells (DHTWs) and promoting construction of over 300,000 household latrines, construction of piped water supply in core areas of nine pourashavas, albeit with delays and additional costs.

The Project was implemented as a bilaterally-executed project. This gives rise to inherent differences resulting from parallel management structures, multiple sets of roles and rules and differing personal and institutional loyalties.

Following the devastating cyclone Sidr (“The Eye”) in November 2007, the Project constructed 1,050 additional tube wells, 1,000 household latrines and other infrastructure in storm-ravaged areas.

Photo from the Danida report

The sustainability of DHTWs and household latrines in rural areas is seen as high. Additional management and technical support is required to ensure the long-term sustainability of piped water supplies in pourashavas and mini-piped systems in rural areas, as well as public toilets and school latrines.

The Project’s efforts to assist pourashavas to improve solid waste management and drainage was less than successful. The situation in pourashavas in these areas remains unsatisfactory. There are serious difficulties locating sanitary dumping sites, which pose a potentially serious environmental hazard.

Following the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness in 2005, the Project’s planning process and management has been more closely aligned with GOB and DPHE’s systems and procedures.

During its long life, the Project produced a wealth of documentation; manuals, guidelines, training and IEC/BCC materials. This material constitutes an important part of the Project’s contribution to the sector. Some of the most important and useful of these materials are listed in the publication.

In spite of its long life, the Project leaves behind unmet demand and a number of unresolved issues which will to a large extent determine the long-term impact of the Project’s many achievements.

A number of factors are seen as contributing to the Project’s successful achievements.

1. Conducive policies, strategies, regulations, rules and procedures adopted and practiced in implementing organizations
2. Experienced and dedicated professional/technical staff
3. Responsibility, commitment and accountability for results at all levels
4. Firm commitment to guidelines and procedures for poverty targeting, social mobilization and siting of facilities
5. Rate and quality of DHTW construction
6. Social mobilization/customer briefings supported by high quality IEC materials
7. Adequate cost-sharing to promote ownership
8. Cooperation from DPHE and local government (pourashava mayors and UP chairmen)
9. Appropriate and adaptable technologies to suit various hydrogeological conditions
10. Thorough documentation, accurate reporting, MIS and database updated and used
11. Baseline data, effect monitoring and impact assessments
12. Post-construction technical and managerial support for urban and school WSS facilities

The Project has helped to produce a number of competent sector professionals who continue to make important contributions to the sector. Outside the coastal belt, this may prove to be one of the Project’s most important and lasting legacies.

[1] Pendley, C.J. and Minhaj Uddin Ahmad, A.J. (2009). Learning from experience : lessons from implementing water supply, sanitation and hygiene promotion activities in the coastal belt of Bangladesh. Dhaka, Bangladesh, Royal Danish Embassy. 27 p.
Download full document [PDF file]

Web sites:

• Danish Embassy Bangladesh – Water & Sanitation
• Bangladesh – Department of Public Health Engineering
• GoB-Danida WSS Policy Support Unit

Contact persons:

• Dr. Guna N. Paudyal, Danida Senior Adviser, Bangladesh. (e-mail: guna [at] hysawa.org)
• Dr. Niaz Chowdhury, Programme Officer, Embassy of Denmark (e-mail: niacho [at] um.dk)
• Mr. Jan Møller Hansen, Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of Denmark, Dhaka. (e-mail: janmha [at] um.dk)