I had been eagerly awaiting an Akvo training experience ever since joining the organisation in April. Fortunately, I did not have to wait too long and was chosen to attend my first Akvo FLOW 1.5 training in Dhaka, Bangladesh. WASH Alliance Bangladesh (BWA) has 14 partners, of which some were trained by my colleague Amitangshu earlier this year. This was a refresher training facilitated by ICCO partners, Sairas Rahman (AIMS) and Kawsar (DORP).

Though I was attending the training as an observer, I prepared myself on basic FLOW functionality, phone specifications, assistance, etc. I also had to oversee how the training was conducted, making sure the trainees found it easy to follow and prepared myself for any technical queries that they might have. My interaction with most of the participants was hindered by the fact that the medium of instruction was in Bangla – a language I’m not very proficient in. However, facilitators and BWA country coordinator, Mr Alok Majumdar intervened at regular intervals to explain their interactions.

Though it was a refresher training, we had a lot of new participants, some of whom had never engaged with a smartphone and computer in such an extensive manner. It is evident that mobile-based technology has become a significant tool for development activities and social inclusion. However, this shift from insufficient knowledge & exposure to understanding and adapting mobile and FLOW software was one of the biggest challenges of the training. We did experience initial teething difficulties such as getting them acquainted with basic phone specifications, software, etc. However, there was a visible change in the level of participation and clarity on the last day of the training. Some of them were very inquisitive to explore their phones and start using the dashboard while others were still stumbling over logging into a Gmail account.

A journey of a thousand miles always begins with a single step.

Participants getting acquainted with Akvo FLOW

One of the most defining moments of the session was when the participants saw their collected data on a Google map. It helped them connect and understand the significance of the activities done throughout the day. Experience in this training also made it clear that the participating organisations will require initial hand-holding and guidance before they start using FLOW independently.

Fruits of labour: trainees viewing their collected data on a Google map

With Akvo getting busier in Asia, it has become imperative to review our ongoing work (FLOW & RSR) and establish consistent communications with our partners. There has also been a certain disconnect that has been keeping some of our partners in Bangladesh from using FLOW to its potential and sharing their learning and project stories using Akvo RSR. The underlying objective of my visit was to introduce the Akvo Asia hub and extend support to partners in filling this gap and creating an enabling environment for our tools.

Attending the Akvo FLOW training in Bangladesh was an extremely edifying experience as I learnt to grapple with new ideas in a different environment. The entire experience was challenging yet fulfilling and I look forward to many more in the near future.

Isha Parihar is a programme officer based in Akvo’s Asian hub in Delhi.

Voor het PME binnen de alliantie, is de WASH alliantie op zoek naar een PME manager (32- 36 uur per week). De PME manager rapporteert aan de Programma Manager van de WASH Alliantie.

Verantwoordelijkheden

De PME Manager stuurt de PME werkgroep (Planning, Monitoring, Evaluatie) aan, die verantwoordelijk is voor het ontwikkelen en uitvoeren van het WASH Alliantie beleid op het gebied van resultaatmeting en evaluatie en voor het organiseren en begeleiden van programma evaluaties voor de WASH Alliantie.

• Aansturen van de PME werkgroep van de WASH Alliantie, zodanig dat beleid ontwikkeld en uitgevoerd wordt voor planning, monitoring en evaluatie en dat data voor rapportages op tijd beschikbaar komen
• Ontwikkelt procedures, processen, methodes, voorstellen, plannen en rapportages in consultatie met de PME groep en met assistentie van de PME groep.
• Eindverantwoordelijk voor het schrijven van het PME deel (mbt Monitorings Protocol) in rapportages aan ministerie
• Ontwikkelen van PME jaarplan in overleg met PME groep, verantwoordelijk voor PME budget
• Faciliteren of geven van training aan PME medewerkers op het gebied van PME (en eventueel aan partners)
• In diens afwezigheid, vervanging van de Programma Manager
• Communicatie met Partos over gezamenlijke MFS evaluatie en acties daaruit voortvloeiend,
• Planning en uitvoering van het WASH Evaluatie Plan inclusief de twee externe evaluaties (Mid-Term en Eind).

Werk- en denkniveau, professionele kennis en vaardigheden

• Academisch werk- en denkniveau;
• Minimaal 5 jaar relevante PME ervaring;
• Management vaardigheden en hands-on mentaliteit;
• Bij voorkeur kennis en ervaring met WASH;
• Kennis en ervaring in het werken met maatschappelijke organisaties in ontwikkelingslanden;
• Uitstekende beheersing (mondeling en schriftelijk) van de Nederlandse en Engelse taal, beheersing Franse taal is een pre.

Competenties

• Conceptueel vermogen
• Overtuigingskracht
• Pro-actief en zelfstandig
• Samenwerkingsgericht
• Resultaatgericht
• Planmatig en procesmatig werken (doelen en prioriteiten stellen, zorgt voor gestructureerde aanpak, weet mensen en middelen tijdig te mobiliseren)
• Flexibel en gewend om onder druk te werken

Wij bieden:

• Een uitdagende, zelfstandige positie in een ambitieuze alliantie
• Een inschaling in functiegroep F met een bruto maandsalaris tussen €2.426 en €3.852 op basis van een aanstelling van 36 uur
• De standplaats in Haarlem
• De kandidaat kan, indien beschikbaar, vanaf 1 juli beginnen.

Informatie
Indien je belangstelling hebt, kun je tot en met maandag 17 juni a.s. je CV en begeleidende brief mailen aan Mirjam Cornelisse (trainee@washalliance.nl) , met kopie aan Maaike Kempkes (maaike.kempkes@washalliance.nl),  onder vermelding van “Vacature WASH PME manager”. De eerste ronde sollicitatiegesprekken worden gehouden op donderdag 20 juni.

Voor aanvullende informatie kan contact opgenomen worden met Maaike Kempkes, PME Manager, tel: 023- 5101579 of per email: maaike.kempkes@washalliance.nl.

In normaal Nederlands: het wildplassen en wildpoepen te bestrijden, want dat leidt tot vervuild water en soms ernstige ziekten. Hoe meer huizen een wc hebben, hoe beter het is.

Om dit doel te verwezenlijken werkt de Nepalese overheid samen met Nepalese en internationale ontwikkelingsorganisaties, zoals de Nederlandse WASH Alliantie, waarvan ICCO lid is. Doel van dit consortium is om in acht landen iedereen op een duurzame manier toegang te geven tot water, sanitatie en hygiëne, vandaar ‘WASH’.

WASH staat op de politieke agenda in Nepal sinds de uitbraak van een diarree-epidemie in 2009, die tot ongeveer 60.000 zieken en 370 doden leidde. Het land was geschokt. Er werd een ‘WASH-masterplan’ gemaakt op nationaal en decentraal niveau met als doel: 1 huishouden = 1 toilet. Het aantal huishoudens met toiletten is inmiddels gestegen, en voor de overheid en veel ngo’s hebben de ‘Open Defecation Free Zones’ (lees: poepvrije zones) topprioriteit. Maar in vele huishoudens ontbreekt nog altijd een gezonde leefomgeving.

Na een eindeloze autorit, een lange wandeling over een hangbrug en vervolgens langs steile afgronden, worden we met bloemen en een tikka – rode stip ter bescherming op ons voorhoofd – hartelijk ontvangen door dorpsleiders, vrouwen en kinderen. Veel mannen zijn geëmigreerd naar India, Dubai, of Doha. (Ik merk overigens elke reis weer dat Nederlanders veel zouden kunnen leren van de ontzettend vriendelijke en gastvrije wijze waarop reizigers elders vaak onthaald worden, maar dat terzijde.) Vol trots tonen dorpsbewoners en lokale partnerorganisaties hun resultaten:

- Waterpunten en tanks voor kleinschalige landbouwirrigatie
- Coöperatieve bewegingen die leningen bieden om aan sanitatie te werken
- Nieuwe financiële modellen (zoals een basket fund) die samen met de lokale overheid worden uitgeprobeerd
- Initiatieven van de private sector op het terrein van biogas en een mobiel toilet
- Goed georganiseerde comités die het watergebruik regelen

Een onderzoeksorganisatie met wie we samenwerken zal deze successen (en eventuele mislukkingen) documenteren en online beschikbaar maken. In Nepal spreken we met vertegenwoordigers van overheden op nationaal, regionaal en wijkniveau en ontmoeten we vertegenwoordigers van maatschappelijke Nepalese organisaties en internationale spelers.

Het valt me op hoeveel nieuwe initiatieven lokaal worden ontplooid, modellen uitgeprobeerd voor meer impact tegen lagere kosten in de hoop de sprong naar toegang tot water en sanitatie voor allen sneller te maken. Het is ongelofelijk interessant om te merken hoe lokale organisaties, net als wij, proberen de volgende generaties en alle bevolkingsgroepen van goede water- en sanitaire voorzieningen te voorzien.

Dit vereist een ‘systeemverandering’. Maar al reizend door dat prachtige Nepal kan het geen kwaad jezelf de vraag te stellen wat dat precies inhoudt. Voor mij betekent systeemverandering allereerst dat je uitgaat van de bewoners die water en sanitatie nodig hebben. Wat zijn hun wensen en ideeën? En wat zijn hun gebruiken, wat willen ze wel en niet veranderen en waarom? Hoe kunnen we hun organisaties versterken? Hoe willen en kunnen lokale maatschappelijke organisaties succesvolle, betaalbare modellen en technologieën neerzetten?

Vervolgens gaat het erom de juiste partijen te betrekken – denk aan ngo’s, private sector, overheid en onderzoeksinstellingen – om je doelstellingen te behalen, en te zorgen voor financiële duurzaamheid. Voor ons betekent dat slimme verbindingen leggen om een proces te versnellen. Dat betekent ook sociaal aanvaardbare producten of technische en sociale oplossingen bieden die blijvend zijn. Dan moet je denken aan een systeem waarbij mensen zelf de uitvoering en het onderhoud bekostigen en ook extra investeringen kunnen doen.

Om meer mensen te bereiken, is de overheid essentieel, evenals de capaciteit van organisaties om slimme verbindingen te herkennen en gezamenlijke activiteiten in een breder kader te plaatsen. We zouden als alliantie meer kunnen inzetten op het versterken van de institutionele capaciteit. Dat klinkt misschien abstract, maar goede organisaties met oog voor sociaal-culturele machtsverhoudingen leiden tot goede resultaten. Ook valt te denken aan een ‘scale down-strategie’ in plaats van opschaling, om de kosten per eenheid omlaag te brengen en WASH bereikbaar en betaalbaar te maken, ook voor groepen aan de onderkant van de maatschappelijke ladder. Dit vereist geheel nieuwe modellen, relaties met nieuwe partijen en mogelijk vernieuwende rollen die lokale maatschappelijke organisaties kunnen spelen.

In de nota ‘Wat de wereld verdient’ van minister Ploumen krijgen water en maatschappelijke organisaties een belangrijke plek toebedeeld. De bewegingsvrijheid van maatschappelijke organisaties staat in veel landen onder druk, en water is, net als land, bij uitstek een onderwerp waarover conflicten ontstaan.

Het pleidooi van de minister voor onafhankelijke maatschappelijke organisaties die ‘tegenkracht bieden aan overheden en bedrijven en burgers mobiliseren’ kan ik onderschrijven. Om de gelijkwaardige samenwerking van Nederlandse en Nepalese organisaties en de technische steun in Nepal te kunnen voortzetten, hebben organisaties als ICCO die ruimte én financiële mogelijkheden nodig. Dit zal bijdragen aan duurzame resultaten, zo heb ik tijdens deze reis kunnen zien. En internationale netwerken zoals dat van de WASH Alliantie zijn daarvoor onmisbaar.

Machteld Ooijens is Head Policy and Development Department at ICCO and member of the WASH Alliance steering committee

On the same day, the team also visited eco-san in the target area of HoAREC/N where eco-san is being implemented. This improved sanitation technology is being piloted and expected to scale up in the communities in the area. This technology in addition is to improve the hygiene conditions. As compared to other improved latrines it has the advantage of using rural land more efficiently as the community can land for agricultural purposes, which is not the case for other type of latrines. Moreover, when the land is filled people can plant fruit trees which brings income for the household. The technology is expected to benefit the rural communities in the areas where it is being implemented (HoREC/N in this case).

Tamene Chaka is country coordinator of the Ethiopia WASH Alliance

The training is expected to support the fund raising strategy that the EWA is planning to prepare. After the training, participants from the EWA discussed how to go about the preparation of the strategy which ended up with the establishment of a small team to take the case further.

Tamene Chaka is country coordinator of the Ethiopia WASH Alliance

The videos can be viewed by clicking on the countries below or at the WASTE Vimeo page.

Bangladesh
Sanitation is a good business in Bangladesh. Financing of businesses working in this sector is quite difficult however. For households it is also very difficult to get loans to build a toilet. This video seeks to show the opportunities for banks. 
It gives examples of successful entrepreneurs who with the help of a loan were able to expand their business and even can offer their customers the option of paying in installments.

Uganda
In this video people working in sanitation explain their businesses and the problems they encounter in doing their job. The video is being shown to bank people who realise that these people should get access to financial means, but might need some support in setting up business plans.

Ghana
Sanitation entrepreneurs show how they work, and what problems they encounter during their work. 
It is clear that there is business in this sector and that the citizens are willing to pay for services rendered. This film is used in our trainings on finance and to show banks to show the bankability of businesses working in sanitation.

Winners of the Environmental Challenge 2012

Reed Elsevier has asked the WASH Alliance to partner with them, and even to be on the jury. We are very proud that WASH Alliance’s Hanny Maas will represent us in expert panel of external judges. And even more that she can award a price to the third place entry on behalf of the WASH Alliance. There is a $50,000 prize for the first place entry and a $25,000 prize for the second place entry. The Award Ceremony will take place in September in Stockholm during the World Water Forum. Of course, we will be there to share our story and congratulate the winners. Read more on the Environmental Challenge.

Although the problems with community management are widely acknowledges within the sector (by e.g. RWSN, WEDC, Worldbank and IRC), innovative alternatives are not widespread. But still some six different approaches were identified, see the table below.

Based on this overview it needs to be said that most results from alternative handpump management models are not hopeful. The first three alternatives are similar to each other. In all these cases there were problems with the payments. An extra factor in the first approach was that the piped scheme operators were not interested in the handpumps (compared to their piped scheme) because it is more difficult to make profit out of it. In the second approach it turned out that it is very difficult to have a contract with a community, which is a group of people and not a legal person. In the third model in Burkina Faso, the users were not paying the regular fee and therefore the system did not work. The fourth option with the HPMAs gives improvements relating to the maintenance. But the inefficient structure with the water point committees remains.

The fifth option is not widely described in the literature. In Kenya some studies give very good results for these handpumps. There is a clear ownership and responsibility and a strong incentive for a rapid repair. The private owned handpumps exist both for self-supply as for selling water to the community. Although this option seems to work well, the high investment costs for the owner make that this option is not widely used.Based on this overview it needs to be said that most results from alternative handpump management models are not hopeful. The first three alternatives are similar to each other. In all these cases there were problems with the payments. An extra factor in the first approach was that the piped scheme operators were not interested in the handpumps (compared to their piped scheme) because it is more difficult to make profit out of it. In the second approach it turned out that it is very difficult to have a contract with a community, which is a group of people and not a legal person. In the third model in Burkina Faso, the users were not paying the regular fee and therefore the system did not work. The fourth option with the HPMAs gives improvements relating to the maintenance. But the inefficient structure with the water point committees remains.

The last option is only in the development phase. It is based on some calculations regarding profitability of business models. Within this model use is made of payment with a chip card, which is expensive in terms of technology but saves a lot of money in terms of labour for fee collections.

So far about the experiences with different alternative handpump management models. The experiences are not yet convincing enough to start broader implementation. But surely they give useful input for developing another alternative, combining strengths of the different alternatives. If you want to give any input regarding alternative handpump management or if you are interested to read the whole elaboration of alternatives (including references), please send an email to alida.adams@practica.org.

Alida Adams is project engineer drinking water technologies at PRACTICA Foundation

To read more about the contest, click here. For more information you can contact the focal point for the Emergency Sanitation at WASTE through: emergencysanitation@waste.nl

Weeks of assembling rubbish & bricks, inquiring about pool liners and gathering the most beautiful WASH pictures we could find, followed. With success! Friday the 22nd of March, we welcomed the high level guest of World Water Day with the smells of an open sewage; with a glass of cold purified water from the sewage and with in the background, the sounds of a typical african village. It is in this setting, that we invited the guests – from politicians to business leaders and from scientists to journalists – into the world of sustainable Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. How? A 10 meters long banner wall displayed six different situations where WASH solutions were looked upon from a FIETS sustainability point of view: financial, institutional, environmental, technological and social sustainability.

Are you interested in the WASH Alliance sustainability experience (including smell & sound)? Contact communication@washalliance.nl

After extensive preparation, a local camera crew from Africa Interactive, visited Fort Portal to produce images of WASH-related activities and interview key WASH stakeholders. 5 local stakeholders were interviewed to share general insights on each of the 5 aspects of FIETS. This footage will be edited and combined with a dynamic animation to produce a video that can explain the relevance of the FIETS approach to various (WASH) stakeholders.

The footage is currently spotted to select the strongest quotes and the animation is developed parallel by Africa Interactive’s creative team. Soon a sneak preview will be available.

This alliance has taken a distinct approach to ensure its interventions are sustainable – launching the FIETS sustainability model, which has since been adopted into policy in the Netherlands.

Photo top: A kid snapping away on a camera phone at a Nepalese WASH community meeting. Photo above (in panorama): Community welcome to steering group. Surkhet, Nepal, 5th April 2013 . Click then roll the mouse around the image above for a 3D view via Dermandar. It works even better in full screen mode. (Peter van der Linde)

As the half-way point of this programme is approaching, the steering group had originally planned to meet in Bangladesh, but due to current unrest that was judged impossible. We’re very thankful that the programme could be diverted to Nepal at short notice, so we could all see and learn from experiences directly in the field.

Photo: In many of the communities where the WASH Alliance is active, there is a lack of basic understanding related to water, sanitation and hygiene. For example, the dangers of open defecation often feature educational murals on walls. This one is in Surkhet, Nepal. 6th April 2013. (Peter van der Linde)

Over recent days we’ve been introduced to the Nepal steering group members, met local partners and have visited several project sites. The projects we are visiting deal with a wide range of water, sanitation and hygiene approaches in both urban and rural settings, ranging from biogas and rainwater harvesting to ecological sanitation and community-led “total sanitation” approaches.

There are several days to come, but it’s already been a valuable lesson ‚Äì and created lots of insight into how we can better support local activities and adjust our strategy towards 2015. We’re having quite fundamental discussions, but also really enjoying the hospitable welcome of the local partners and communities – that for me no doubt reached its peak yesterday (as you can see in the photo below).

Peter van der Linde is co-director of Akvo.

“I, including my family, was living at our small home. My husband was caught by police in one unavoidable and tragic case and he was died in the jail. I was so horrified with that case and surrounded with lots of problem and legal process. Another, I had to admit my two small children in school. I did not have any financial back up to do that job due to poverty. At the same time, our tole member forced me to construct toilet and also staff from ENPHO shared the benefits of having toilet at home but, still I didn't have resource to construct toilet and it was just like a day dream to construct permanent toilet at that moment. Despite of these problems, I had committed to build toilet and the partial support was provided by ENPHO and Municipality which made me easy to construct it in time. On the next day there was open defection free declaration program in my ward and I was also there to celebrate that program. Suddenly, my name was announced to receive first sanitation card and I went in front to receive the card and they asked me to share something. At that time I became a speechless for a while and tears were flooding on my eyes and I was so happy at that time because I was also part of the program. Than after I returned back to my own schedule but, the ENPHO staff came to my house and show my photo in national newspaper which made me to forget all my pain for a while due to great happiness.

This time, proudly said that I am a first sanitation card holder from municipality and also my days are so much easier because I have a toilet at my own home.”

The case study was written in Nepali by Jwala Raut and translated into English by Giri Raj Khatri from ENPHO

Apart from getting to know each other as there were some new faces, including myself, the day was a great way to reflect on the past years and to look at the challenges and opportunities the future might bring. In the morning, after an interactive DWA Bingo game, this was done with the help of three country cases, Nepal, Ghana and Ethiopia after which interesting indicators for success factors were determined and some conclusions on added value were drawn. In the afternoon, after a fun group exercise on team work and sustainability, there was a ‚ÄòWorld Café' where a variety of issues ranging from upscaling to fundraising were discussed in small groups.

As a brand new intern at the WAMU this day was on the one hand perfect for me to get to know the organizations and many faces within the Dutch WASH Alliance, but also learn in a different (but fun!) way more about the work that is being done. By closely examining the issues and challenges on the road to 2015 and beyond I think I can speak for everyone that we have learnt a lot and have gained fresh insights and new energy.

Mirjam Cornelisse is intern at the Dutch WASH Alliance

Dear all,

At short term the Dutch WASH Alliance will commission an external Mid Term Evaluation of its MFSII program to be finalized in October 2013. A call for proposals & Terms of Reference will be circulated after Eastern to interested evaluation researchers.

Are you interested in this assignment and willing to receive the Terms of Reference of it?

Please let us know by sending an e-mail with a very brief CV, to the WASH Evaluation Manager Maaike Kempkes (Maaike.Kempkes@washalliance.nl) before March 31, 2013.

Kind regards

Maaike

The ToC exercise facilitated by a consultant, Tom Olila, was challenging at the start. However, when we go into it with the support of Tom, Maarten and Straton who have got experience in Kenya, we reached to the point of an unstoppable group discussion resulted with per-conditions, pathways and activities.

At the beginning, the week was thought to have been a longer week which every single day went being busy and finished the five days went quickly.

Tamene Chaka is Country Coordinator of the Ethiopia WASH Alliance

Akvopedia is an online resource supporting knowledge sharing on water and sanitation. Anyone can use it as well as contribute information to it. In 2012, the site garnered over 1.1m page views – an average of around 3,000 page visits per day. This week I spoke with Akvo project manager Hans Merton and Winona Azure, Akvopedia editor, on the upcoming expansion of the site.

It is about connecting people to experience gained…and thus to each other's knowledge. (Hans Merton) Photo: Mark Charmer

In the coming months, the Finance Portal on Akvopedia will be extended? What was the catalyst?

Hans: Two things really came together to kick off the expansion of the Finance Portal. When I was coming on-board at Akvo, I had done some research on Akvopedia and, while no wiki is ever complete, there were some obvious gaps in the content that was covered. The Finance Portal was one example.

The portal is being expanded in co-operation with IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre and is partially funded by Akvo, IRC and the Partners for Water programme. In 2012, we signed an MOU with IRC to cooperate in certain areas and Akvopedia was one of those areas. We began the work in early November 2012 and we expect the content and new structure to be in place by mid-March 2013.

Can you talk more about the new Emergency and Sustainability portals that are currently in development?

Hans: Why emergency? The field is very vast. There are a number of organisations providing assistance in various stages of emergency, such as The Red Cross and UNICEF. Every organisation is publishing its own information on this individually, but the information is scattered. There is currently no central overview of assessment tools and best practices. I've discussed it with partners and they agreed this would be a good thing to embed in Akvopedia.

Winona: Akvo intends to take a role not only in the “how to” information (as seen throughout Akvopedia), covering the many stages of a disaster, but also in mobile phone app technologies. A mobile phone is nearer to you in a crisis than physical aid that might not reach you before 72 hours.

Hans: A catalyst for the Sustainability Portal was FIETS, an approach developed by the Dutch WASH Alliance which takes into account five key areas of sustainability Рfinancial, institutional, environmental, technical and social. This sustainability check is important both on a project and programme level. If you want to submit a proposal to funders, you need to show that your project contributes to sustainable change. The FIETS approach is a very important decision making tool for funders to decide between “project A” and “project B”. How do we prove that something will continue to operate once funding has been used?

Beyond the funding aspect, it forces you to really think twice about your project: in the end it's about making a real difference and not just burning your funders' money. The Sustainability Portal within Akvopedia will provide a very simple overview on the FIETS principle for anybody involved in WASH programmes [Water and Sanitation and Hygiene] to prove to themselves and to prospective funders that what is being proposed is sustainable.

Winona: There has been a fair share of project failures in the past. For example, functioning pumps breaking down and, as the result of many issues, being abandoned. Many funders now require sustainability as a criterion for project financing approval, so there is a real need for it. It is becoming standard and greater accountability is coming from many angles.

Akvopedia is currently a water and sanitation resource. Is it headed in the same direction as Akvo FLOW, which has its roots in WASH but has evolved to become a sector agnostic tool? Will the content on Akvopedia at some stage extend to other sustainability issues?

Hans: This is under discussion. Longer term, we probably need to say yes. But in the short term, there is still a lot of work to be done on WASH related issues. In the near term, the focus is on expanding the functionality of Akvopedia as a platform for knowledge and connecting people together. Akvopedia has a lot of traffic and we are really good at that. But the strategy is to take what you are really good at and make it even better to help your visitors to answer questions. It is not just about reading articles. It is about connecting people to experience gained in implemented projects and thus to each other's knowledge. If we are able to do this, then we are really making a difference.

Winona: We have had requests from Akvo's project partners to expand Akvopedia to cover sectors, such as education and health. But the aim is to get a really good, solid model for WASH in place and then duplicate that.

Emily Armanetti is communications manager at Akvo, based in New York City.

I thought it would be timely to give everyone an overview of the range of programmes Akvo is supporting around the world, and which tools they’re using right now.

Dutch WASH Alliance
This five year Dutch development aid programme is valued at around 50 million Euro, and focuses on improving water, sanitation and hygiene in eight countries – Bangladesh, Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Nepal and Uganda. Partners include Simavi, AMREF, ICCO, RAIN and WASTE. The goal is to provide 2 million people with improved water and sanitation facilities.

The WASH Alliance has taken a distinctive approach to ensuring its interventions are sustainable – launching the FIETS sustainability model, which has since been adopted into policy in the Netherlands Рand included in other programmes such as Football for Water. Akvo has worked with around 100 field partner organisations to collect project information and we've supported these partners to simplify reporting from the field with Akvo RSR. In 2012 we delivered four workshops in four countries, and introduced Akvo FLOW through pilots in Nepal, Bangladesh and Kenya. We further developed our support materials and set up local support structures, including our East Africa hub. This year is the halfway point of the five year timeline. There will be a mid-term evaluation meeting in Bangladesh this summer. Akvo has worked with the consortium to roll out a website, in two phases. The latest version came online at the end of 2012. This year will see further rollout of Akvo FLOW, workshops in the remaining countries, introduction of the Openaid open data strategy and general support now the consortium is really powering forward with all its tools in place. As a result of the experience consortium partners gained while using RSR, Akvo has also signed contracts to roll out Akvo RSR and FLOW with ICCO, RAIN, AMREF and Simavi, covering projects beyond this programme. AMREF and Simavi have also introduced us to the SRHR Consortium, focused on sexual and reproductive health and rights, which we're expecting to support in 2013. We're also helping the alliance with communications strategy and implementation.

To read about Akvo’s other programs, please read the entire blog here.

Peter van der Linde is the partner director at Akvo. Drafted in conjunction with Mark Charmer.

Two of the 36 problems in the questionnaire were most often mentioned to be present in the project areas of these partners. The first problem is that spare parts are not easily available and the second that the voluntary basis is not enough motivation for the water committee members to commit to their tasks. Eight other problems were mentioned often, namely:

• Water committees do not have the capacity for the financial management;
• Communities do not feel ownership over the handpumps;
• Too many users per handpump;
• There is no external support to strengthen the spare parts supply;
• Government does not take care of the handpumps;
• Spare parts are too expensive;
• Water committees do not have regular meetings; and
• There is no preventive maintenance.

Spare parts: Problems with spare parts are most often mentioned. Spare parts are not easily available, there is no external support to strengthen the spare parts supply and the spare parts are too expensive. It is beyond doubt that in many Sub-Saharan African countries there are problems with the spare parts supply chain for handpumps. Out of the 14 partners who gave input, there was one partner from outside Africa and that was the only one who did not mention problems with spare parts.

Water point committees: After the spare parts, most mentioned problems are related to the water point committees. The voluntary basis is not enough motivation for the committee member, they do not have the capacity for the financial management, they do not have regular meetings and do not conduct preventive maintenance. At many locations the committees do not fulfil their tasks and responsibilities.

Other: Other often mentioned problems are that communities do not feel ownership over the handpumps, which also makes them feeling less responsible for the maintenance. And the fact that too many people are using the handpumps makes that the handpumps need more maintenance. The last point is that governments do not take care of the handpumps.

Combining the literature review and the input from the partners, two main problems remain: poor spare parts supply and disfunctioning of the water committees (in literature review in reverse order). Peter Harvey states in a recent RWSN publication that it is very difficult to have a good supply chain for spare parts in Sub-Saharan Africa since the production of handpumps and components is mainly in India and most customers are water committees or private mechanics based in rural areas. This requires a good distribution network from the point of manufacture to the points of use. All actors in the chain need to have some profit and still the price and quality need to be acceptable.

It is clear that there are also many problems with the local water committees. They have difficulties doing their job, partly because they have to do everything on a voluntary basis and because they do not get the external support they need. They face problems in collecting money and managing the finances well. They neglect to do preventive maintenance.

It is also useful to analyse this situation from a higher organizational level. For example in one district there might be a few hundreds of handpumps. At every handpump there is a local water point committee who needs training on financial matters and on preventive maintenance. And in literature it is widely acknowledges that this support is not only once at the beginning but it needs to be followed up. This takes an enormous amount of time for the local government or any other local institution. Looking from a country or province perspective with many handpumps, it might be that the current (maximal decentralized) situation is not the most efficient option. In the process of searching for alternative management options, it is important to look for options where the management is arranged at a more central level (e.g. district level).

More about this search for hopeful alternative management options will follow soon in a third blog. If, in the meantime, you are interested to get a more detailed elaboration about the literature review and the input from the partners, you can send an email to alida.adams@practica.org.

Alida Adams is project engineer at PRACTICA Foundation

Financial: This is probably the most important factor where many things go wrong at the handpumps. Handpumps in most (African) countries are managed by the local communities. A local water point committee has the responsibility to, amongst others, collect money (either per volume of water or per period) for the maintenance of the pump. Unfortunately, at most locations this does not work out well. Given reasons in literature are the lack of motivation (since everything has to be done on a voluntary basis) and the lack of skills for the financial management.

Institutional: Activities within the WASH Alliance include capacity building at different levels, and that is exactly what is needed for handpump sustainability. Water point committees, but also the handpump mechanics and the local government entities need this capacity building. Related to the water committees, the capacity building can include training for managerial and administrative skills.

Environmental: Problems related to handpump sustainability are not in first instance environmental challenges.

Technical: In this respect, the WASH Alliance has a twofold approach. The first is to adapt the technology to the context: a preference for the use of local materials, a level of complexity matching with local expertise levels and the use of affordable technologies. But the current practices of handpumps show that mostly imported materials are used (most handpumps are imported from India) and that it is difficult for local people to conduct repairs. The second part is to adapt the context to the technologies needed. This involves the training of local stakeholders, the involvement of local entrepreneurs and the introduction of appropriate revenue systems. But in practice, there is a lack of training of stakeholder and involvement of local entrepreneurs and the revenue systems are not in place or not functioning well. An often mentioned problem which is related to both parts of the technical sustainability is the bad availability of spare parts. The long supply chain of spare parts has many weak links and the local context is not enough adapted to arrange this supply chain in a better way.

Social: In order to be social sustainable, one of the requirements is that the intervention is fully inclusive for all groups. Here again, finances play a role. Are defaulters excluded from using the handpump? What if they really have financial problems? These issues arise in every community, but it is hard to find locations where the responsible committee is well prepared to handle these issues. Introducing a situation where payment for water is normal is often hard to combine with the social conditions in rural areas.

To summarize, within the current mode of implementation the sustainability of handpumps is in great danger. This fact has been widely acknowledges in literature in the last few years, but there have not been large scale reforms in handpump implementation projects. The main problems described in literature are the lack of a regular money collection and the bad spare parts availability. These problems make that a handpump will only sustain as long as operation and maintenance is supported by a project or as long as no maintenance is required.

A summary of the literature review can be found here.

Alida Adams is project engineer at PRACTICA Foundation

Deres Abdulkadir, executive director of RiPPLE, who is also chairperson of the EWA steering committee, said that EWA is hosting its Kenyan counterpart following an invitation made by EWA back in November 2012 when a seven member EWA delegation made a 6-days working visit to Kenya. I wrote a blog about this exchange visit as well.

During its stay here in Ethiopia the delegation had made visits to various projects implemented by EWA members such as AMREF, RiPPLE and ECC-SDCOH. During its visit to AMREF projects in Awash zone of the Afar Regional State, the delegation was able to see school WASH, public toilet and sanitation services, a waste management project for Awash town that also integrates support to an association of HIV positive persons.

Visiting a water point

The KWA delegation has also been to the Erer water supply project and the joint (MUStRAIN, RiPPLE, & HCS) Kenchera subsurface dam project which is believed to provide multiple services (water supply, irrigation, sanitation, etc.) to the surrounding community members located over 550 km east of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. The delegation has paid a visit to the Meta Woreda water supply and multiple use services project which provides services to 24,000 households. This project, run by the HCS East Hararghe, is probably by far considered to be the largest WASH services NGO project in the country with regards to the size of the target communities.

In addition to observing projects firsthand and interacting with community members on site, EWA members have made ample briefings to the delegation on each project activity. The two sides have also benefitted from a debriefing session by the KWA team on lessons learnt and inputs for improvement on project implementation issues as well as a joint discussion on way forward.

Delegation discussing with community representative

The KWA delegation was drawn from organizations such as AMREF, SASOL, NOSIM, KEWASNET, Practical Action, ICRAF, Kenya Ministry of Public Health, NIA and KWA.

It was learnt that the exchange visit hosted by EWA was made possible through the support of ICCO.

Read also about this event from an Ethiopian perspective here.

Solomon Kebede is Media and Communications Officer at RiPPLE

The KWA and EWA team together

The two groups joined and made a bigger one which shared common transport that made to travel along the big East African Rift Valley and eastern mountains of the country. During the travel, there was also great opportunity for both alliance members to make bi-lateral discussions.

The visited includes sites Afar region where AMREF Ethiopia is implementing followed by Oromiya where two of our partners (HCS and RiPPLE) are implementing. The field visit was complemented not sharing the program overview of EWA but also EWA partners profile & program activities they are implementing in relation to WASH Alliance.

Besides the lessons that EWA shared to KWA, the EWA team also learned a lot from the discussions carried out at the different sites and plenary ones made at the beginning and end of visit.

The team making discussion at the site (Awash)

EWA as a host of the learning visit values the importance of such kind of horizontal learning visits among the different local WASH Alliances now and then.

Read also about this event from a Kenyan perspective here.

Tamene Chaka is Country Coordinator of the Ethiopia WASH Alliance

L’article lié décrit une formation sur la durabilité financière de programmes eau assainissement hygiène, par formatrice Jacqueline Barendse de l’ONG Néerlandaise WASTE et le consultant business Ignacio OLafa aux acteurs du programme WASH au Bénin.

Niels Lenderink, WASH program manager at WASTE

This is the story of Arunachalam Muruganantham of Jayaashree Industrees. Arunachalam Muruganantham decided to help his wife solve the problem of the sanitary pad when he realised she had to choose between buying food for the family or her monthly supplies. He designed, created, tested and implemented a system of simple machines to make modern affordable sanitary napkins, which nowadays provide access to hygienic comfortable pads for millions of women around the world and provide employment for rural women making the pads. His research led him to a powerful business model. The video was filmed in Bangalore, India, as part of the TED Global Talent Search.) His goal is to reach full ‘sanitary pad' coverage in India and by doing so provide employment to 1 million women. The machine is not patented, so he encourages everyone to duplicate his model and contribute to full global coverage!

Akvo RSR makes it possible for organisations in the field to tell the stories of their projects as they take place. Every project has it's own page which sets the scene: the who, what, why, how and where of the project. Updates continue the narrative, sharing the work quickly and easily to colleagues, donors and anyone else who’s interested.

We decided to feature three of our favourite sets of project updates posted in December 2012 in this blog and reward the updaters with our brand new Akvo RSR training kit. Amongst lots of exciting stuff, the kit contains the newest Akvo RSR training manual which doubles up as a rather lovely (we think) poster, a 4 Gb USB stick with useful documents and some very nice postcards. We’re hoping the lucky recipients will mail us one back of course! We will hang it in our brand new office in Amsterdam.

Above: Training kits ready to send to our three lucky updaters. Photo credit Laura Roverts.

Water and sanitation financing project – Ghana

The first project we would like to highlight is focused on latrine sanitation and the reuse of waste water in Tamale, Ghana. Ibrahim Abdul-Ganiyu, working for Dutch WASH Alliance partner WUZDA, posted six updates during December describing the improvements made to sanitation facilities and the promotion of safe water.

Agricultural ICT project – Ethiopia

The second is a Connect4Change Consortium project in Ethiopia. Misrak Aklilu, working for one of the Consortium’s field partners called FC (Facilitator for Change), added two videos and some nice photos to inform others about the increasing integration of technology in agricultural activities. Using computers gives farmers access to product and market information that helps them sell their products for a good price at the right moment in the right place. They can also more easily share information and knowledge, create new partnerships and make good business decisions.

Water and latrine schools project – Uganda

Finally, we will send a training kit to William Mulindwak, working for MACERUDET in Uganda. Thanks to his updates (the project is outlined in Dutch), we learned that in the course of this water and sanitation project, school children have been trained to make baskets that can be sold to fund new watertanks and latrines for schools. This is especially beneficial for girls since they no longer need to walk for hours every day to collect water and are therefore are able to go to school.

Thank you once again for keeping us updated about the progress of your projects. We hope other people will also learn from your experiences and share their knowledge too.

Laura Roverts is Project Manager for Akvo

On his fifth year service as a water supply and sanitation expert, Cherinet has supervised and participated in the construction and rehabilitation of various water points. Chirenet says the past five years have witnessed remarkable increase in the provision of water supply facilities to the community he is serving. But he admits that because of priorities and scarcity of resources the issue of assuring quality of water has always been a challenge.

Recently, I met Cherinet at a refreshment training on water quality management organized by RiPPLE and water board for water quality surveillance experts drawn from relevant offices of Dire Dawa administrative region, Harari Regional State, and East Hararghe zone as well as Hararghe Catholic Secretariat (HCS) in Dire Dawa town. Major packages of the training included basic concepts of micro-biological quality of water, water quality surveillance, physico chemical properties of water, sanitary inspection and disinfection of water supply system as well as interpretation of bacteriological examination of water.

Cherinet and colleagues in class

During the course of the two-day training Cherinet was one of the active trainees always keen to learn from others and master each component of the lessons.

To Cherinet the issue of water is close to his heart. ‘I grew up in a rural village around Kulubi just 50 kilometers from here, where getting enough water is considered a luxury. During my childhood days fetching water from distant places for the household has been a daily routine for me and my brother’ he recounts. During those days he says ‘beyond getting the water itself nobody cared about quality’.

Unlike those days Cherinet now tries to give due attention to the quality of water as much as its availability. According to Cherinet though his office believes in the importance of water quality testing; limited resources and trained human power are hampering its implementation across all water facilities. Trainings such as this one are crucial in filling these gaps.

Beside the theoretical lessons, the trainees were taken to operational water facilities allowing them to do the tests by themselves. One of these facilities happened to be Jelo-Belina Spring which was built by Cherinet's supervision a year ago. ‘I am happy that they endorsed my recommendation to come here and do the exercise on the facility I was involved very much’, he indicated.

Cherinet at water point

The findings of the group however proved the existence of Coliform bacteria at Jelo-Belina Spring – the water point where Cherinet had a hand in its construction. Following the report Cherinet responded that the finding inspires him to do more tests on other facilities as well. Reflecting on the possible sources of contamination, Cherinet noted the existence of public toilet close to the facility as well as people doing laundry on the facility itself.

What moved Cherinet more was what happened at the closing of the training. The joint project of RiPPLE and Water Board named “From Single Use to Multiple Use of Rainwater Harvesting Schemes in Eastern Ethiopia' provided water quality test kits to his office and three other institutions represented in the training.

The portable kits are essential in microbiological water monitoring through detection of indicator organisms for e coli, cholera, salmonella and other faecal water borne pathogens. Their contribution is significant in remote locations to provide information about the safety of water supplies where laboratory facilities do not exist.

Cherinet with package

Carrying the pack housing the kits, Cherinet reiterated ‘From now on I will stop speculating and use the kit for precise results’.

Solomon Kebede is Media and Communications Officer at RiPPLE

Hygiene promotion session with adolescent girls group of BASA

We are proud of linking our large microcredit program with innovative social action programs i.e., WASH, waste management, climate change resilience programs etc. We are also proud because what we are doing through DWA assisted project is contributing towards the scale up of lifestyle of the most vulnerable people who live in the climate change challenged coastal areas. Through BASA's project, available safe drinking water sources and proper sanitation facilities are being created in the slums, which reduces health risks of the slum dwellers and the pollution of the surrounding environment.

Our work can be very challenging due to:

• Climate change effects, like unusual cyclones, storm surges, flooding, drought, intrusion of saline water, heavy rainfall, less rainfall etc.
• Rapid urbanization in the small towns of Bangladesh
• Densely populated areas
• Lack of resources of Local Government Institutes
• Lack of public awareness about safe drinking water and proper sanitation
• Inadequate water and sanitation facilities in the educational institutes and health centers

Our ongoing projects are mostly focused on reducing peoples vulnerability from the effect of climate change, WASH, promotion of environment friendly technologies such as biogas, solar power, improvement of cook stove, ecological sanitation, waste management and the reduction of livelihood vulnerability of mothers and orphans.

I have started working with BASA from 2006. I have been working with BASA for the scale up of livelihoods of the poor peoples of the project intervention areas. I look for the following areas:

• Proper implementation BASA-BWA Project
• Promote environment friendly technologies in the community level through different ongoing projects
• Liaise with different Government Agencies, UN Agencies, Donors, INGO's, NGO's etc.
• Project Development, Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation

I hope in the future everybody will have access to safe drinking water and proper sanitation. This will help developing the poor’s livelihoods. Also pollution free environment and vulnerability reduction due to climate change effects are future wishes.

A.K.M.Rafiqul Islam works as a project coordinator at Bangladesh Association for Social Advancement (BASA)

According to Deres Abdulkadir, executive director of RiPPLE and member of the delegation, the visit was mainly meant to share experiences in Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS). On top of that the team has been to model sites in school WASH and able to see some MUS (Multiple Use Services) experiences.

Though Ethiopia has a good track record in the implementation of CLTS, mainly spearheaded by Plan International Ethiopia (PIE), Deres noted that the team has gained important lessons as the experience in Kajiado is being implemented in a different set of context and communities with their unique challenges when it comes to behavioral changes.

He also cited Olgos Village as a case in point describing how it became an Open Defecation Free (ODF) Village bearing signboards of recognition and started influencing neighboring villages on proper use of latrines, better home management and WASH related attitudes.

Olgos village defaecation free

During their visit to a School WASH activity at Lele Village, the Ethiopia WASH Alliance delegation has witnessed how the intervention has enabled the students to become models in personal hygiene and how the school management is working with the community on changing attitudes toward sanitation and hygiene.

Students about WASH

Over all the Ethiopia WASH Alliance team obtained valuable lessons related to community mobilization, importance of giving recognition to best performers and on how pro-poor and marginalized communities' interventions turn in to success.

The Ethiopia WASH Alliance, which was launched in July 2012, has 7 member organizations that include AMREF, RiPPLE, WaterAid, HCS, HOAREC, MetaMeta and AFD. The Dutch WASH Alliance plays the coordination role while RiPPLE is serving as current chair of the Steering Committee.

It was learnt that the Ethiopia WaSH Alliance has invited its Kenyan counterpart for similar visit to Rain Water Harvesting and Multiple Use Services areas scheduled for mid-January 2013.

Here you can read a related blog by Tamene Chaka, Country Coordinator of the Ethiopia WASH Alliance.

Solomon Kebede is Media and Communications Officer at RiPPLE

It was a pleasant surprise for our team to meet Tobias in the airport, since we were expecting someone with our names or ‘EWA’ written on a piece of paper to say welcome and take us to the place we are staying.

The visit started with a short morning discussion in the AMREF office at Nairobi, the host for the KWA, where we met Jorje and Daniel (the two senior WASH persons in AMREF Kenya). In the afternoon, the team traveled to Kajiado to meet all alliance members of the KWA and attend brief presentations of their organizational profile and the activities they are doing in relation to KWA program.

The actual field visit started at the second day. We visited a village in CLTS and had a brief discussion with IWRM trainees. The next days the team continued to see different relevant sites at the community level and in the schools. The team had also made discussions with different households that built latrines after CLTS was triggered and the benefits they have got. The same holds true for schools, which the visiting team inspired by the tasks the school WASH clubs are doing in their school to convey the lesson to other students and in the surrounding communities working as the change agent.

The team learned a lot of lessons and we shared our own experiences too, which was very encouraging. In the future we will continue sharing lessons and experiences that support program implementation. Finally, as you go to the community in Kenya, it reminds me saying ‘Ham Jampo', which means how you are.

For more information about the joint activities of the Ethiopia WASH Alliance, have a look at the project page.

Please also read this related blog written by Solomon Kebede, Media and Communications Officer at RiPPLE.

Tamene Chaka, Country Coordinator of the Ethiopia WASH Alliance

Project Manager

for Sanitation Programmes & Projects

with affinity for Private Sector Development

Responsibilities:
- Management of (large) projects (initially the ongoing WASH programme)
-Contribute in the development of new programme and project plans
- Contribute to improving the quality of project planning and project management skills within the organisation
- Initiate and develop activities and project-components for ‘Private sector development in sanitation'

The Project Manager will initially be involved most of his-her time in the ongoing programme of the Dutch WASH Alliance Program. Specific details about tasks and responsibilities can be obtained via Niels Lenderink.

Requirements
- Professional qualifications at Masters or comparable level in project management and preferably business developmen
- Extensive professional experience of at least five years in project management
- Self starter, capable of working unsupervised, yet able to creatively interact in a professional organization and being a source of inspiration to colleagues
- Affinity with business and private sector development
- Affinity with urban sanitation (and solid waste) management is an advantage, but is not a requirement
- Professional level speaking, reading and writing skills in English and preferably French. Speaking and reading ability in Dutch is an advantage.
- Available for limited travel (some weeks per year) to project countries (mainly Africa and Asia)
- EU work permit

Offer:
- Challenging projects in sanitation
- A fair financial compensation in accordance with relevant experience
- A full time working week (38 hours)
- Good secondary labour conditions

Applications:
For more information you can contact smaessen@waste.nl or nlenderink@)waste.nl. Applications including your CV can be mailed to Mireille Portier (Office Manager) at mportier(at)waste.nl and should reach us before 14 December 2012. More detailed information on our organisation can be found on our website (www.waste.nl).

One of the activities of the Akvo partner team is training local field partners on how they can use the Akvo RSR tools. Last week it was my first Akvo RSR workshop in the field. Together with Ousseni Zongo of IICD, I went to Mali to give two workshops: one for local partners of the Connect4Change consortium and one for local partners of the Dutch WASH Alliance. My partner in crime, Romain Tohouri, helped me with giving the Akvo RSR workshop in French. I'd like to thank Romain for his hard work during this week and the great interactive presentations he held during both workshops, in name of Akvo.

Above: Participants receive the new Akvo RSR user manual. Photo credit: Lissy van Noort.

Akvo RSR workshops are meant to train partners in using the Akvo RSR platform to bring their projects online. Once these projects are visible online, project partners should be able to update their projects with nice and informative updates. We try to make the Akvo RSR workshops interactive and very practical. The participants spend most of the time learning by doing -practicing Really Simple Video, editing their projects and making updates to their projects.

The first workshop we did was on 30 & 31 October 2012, for partners of the Connect4Change consortium. During these two days, we briefly presented what Akvo is about and our role in the Connect4Change consortium. The rest of the time, the participants spent interviewing each other by using a flipcam and practicing how to edit and update their online projects. You can view the video interviews they made here.

The second day ended with a short presentation about Akvo FLOW and bringing this knowledge into practice. We also conducted an evaluation of our new workshop style on a smartphone, using Akvo FLOW. Thanks to the two great facilitators of the workshop, Ousseni Zongo of IICD and Fousseyni Sanogo of Mali-ntic.org, the two days were very fruitful, looking back on all the project updates that came in afterwards.

Practicing Akvo FLOW. Photo credit: Lissy van Noort.

Before the workshop for the Dutch WASH Alliance started on the 1st of November, the participants chose a so called ‚ÄúChef du Village,‚Äù who took care of the rules they had set up together in order to let the workshop run smoothly. For example, if somebody’s phone rang, this person had to offer all other participants a box of chocolate. Unfortunately everybody took this rule to heart, so there was no chocolate for us! Besides this small disappointment, the workshop went really well and I appreciated the enthusiasm of all of the participants in order to understand Akvo RSR.

With special thanks to Bourama Traore, country coordinator Mali WASH Alliance, we were able to hold the workshop in the office of Helvetas where they provided us with a very fast internet connection. This made it possible for the participants to immediately edit and update their projects. Find the video interviews they made here.

This was the second time we gave these Akvo RSR workshops using our new style, following the first one Laura did in Nepal. Although the mother tongue of all of the participants was French, they were all very pleased with receiving the new (English) Akvo RSR manual and the training kit, including a USB key. It turned out that all of the participants were really eager to receive their self-made video interviews on their USB sticks, to train themselves. Great to see!

With many thanks to Romain, Ousseni, Bourama and Fousseyni, we managed to make the participants enthusiastic about the Akvo RSR tools and I can’t wait to see their project updates coming in.

You can find more photos of the workshops on my flickr.

Lissy van Noort is a project officer at Akvo.

In 2011, both organisations organised an assessment and national workshop for WASH alliance on productive re-use of waste in Nepal. The regional workshop in Surkhet is the next step in this collaborative effort. The workshop brought together relevant and interested regional institutions. Some of them also participate in the government platforms on WASH at Regional, District and Municipal levels (RWASHCC, DWASHCC and MWASHCC, the latter being facilitated by ENPHO in Birendranagar, Regional center of Surkhet district). The Director for the Regional Monitoring and Supervision Office for Water and Sanitation opened the workshop, and after an introduction by RUAF and ENPHO on the topic and aim of the meeting, the District Agricultural Development Officers of Surkhet and Dailekh districts and several INGO/NGOs operating in these districts, like SNV, Helvetas, RVWRMP (Rural Village Water Resource Management Project funded by Finnida), NEWAH, Practical Action, and ENPHO and BSP shared their experiences and discussed a common agenda for Surkhet.

While mainly presenting rural MUWS (Multiple Use of Water Services) experiences, interesting new technologies and potential linkages came up to experiment or seek to come to scale with re-use of wastewater, urine separation and re-use (with different types of toilets), composted solid waste, biogas, and in developing organic fertilisers, using human and animal manure.

Important issues discussed were: the pros and cons of subsidies for sanitation (as part of the ODF 2017 campaign) and for chemical fertilisers; the need to involve communities and cooperatives in addition to private enterprise development; the existing prejudices against using human faeces and urine and how to deal with this; actively using the existing multi-stakeholder WASH platforms at Regional, District and Municipal level; and the multiple values of waste.

WASH members visit the vocational training centre in Surkhet to discuss their work with Ecosan, photo by René van Veenhuizen

Continues innovative work on MUWS and on productive sanitation is agreed in a draft work plan of the participants for Surkhet and Dailekh districts. This will be further elaborated by ENPHO and BSP and agreed in the next WASH platform meetings.

Noteworthy is that ENPHO and BSP (with RAIN Foundation, WASTE and RUAF Foundation), will collaborate in Surkhet on integration of Rainwater harvesting, Biogas, EcoSanitation and Productive use in rural and urban areas, amongst which with the Surkhet Junior Technical Agricultural School. This provides interesting opportunities for further outreach, awareness, and training of future extension its and NGO staff.

RUAF and ENPHO agreed on a work plan for 2012 and 2013. In this work they will closely work with other WASH partners and other stakeholders in Surkhet through the WASH Platforms, and with the municipality scenario's and monitoring will be developed to assure that sanitation systems fit within sustainable development of the city and its surrounding in Surkhet.

Households put in own labour and resources in building their toilet, photo by René van Veenhuizen

The work on sanitation in 2011 (partly funded by WASTE) has been focused on ODF target 2017 of the Nepali government. There is a strong promotion for any kind of sanitation and full coverage, which challenges the discussion on future sustainability (especially in a rapid changing environment as the municipality of Birendranagar). Although households on average provide 50% of total costs (mainly digging and building the super structure of the toilet), the municipality (20 %) and ENPHO (30%) still subsidise the construction considerably. This is inevitable for the poorer sections of Surkhet, and in the light of the enormous impact lack of hygiene can have on food security and economic development. But it also poses challenges to the development of businesses and local financing. This needs strategic discussion on how to combine finance streams to sanitation: from government, local banks and own contributions.

Suman Shakya, ENPHO
René van Veenhuizen, RUAF

The week started in Driebergen with a focus on the Multi-Stakeholder Approach (MSA). This approach was introduced in last years' workshop week. The Country Coordinators started with sharing successes and challenges of both the Country Alliances and using a MSA. Many Country Alliances were officially launched in their countries over the last year by organizing events where the work of the alliance was presented. Next to that, a lot of joint activities have been organized to strategize and harmonize the work of the alliance partners. Still there are some challenges identified. In many countries it is troublesome to work with the many alliance partners due to time restrains and trust issues. Others indicated it was difficult to work with all stakeholders involved in the WASH sector, like the government or the private sector.

Prosper Sapathy, Straton Habyalimana and Hanny Maas

During the week these -and other- challenges were addressed by sharing best practices of other Country Coordinators, but also by discussions with the Country Leads, Thematic Partners and the WASH Secretariat. For instance Valentin Post of WASTE came by to share his experiences with the FINISH project, a Public-Private Partnership.

On Thursday the whole group moved to The Hague where PME was discussed. During lunch the Directors of the Dutch Alliance members were invited, so the Country Coordinators could have a conversation with them while enjoying a sandwich ‚Äòkroket'. In the evening there was room for drinks, a walking dinner and Dutch traditional games. Especially ‘koek happen’ and the ‚Äòsjoelbak' were very popular and instigated the competitiveness of the Country Coordinators.

‘Koekhappen’, an old Dutch game

The week ended in Haarlem where the communication strategy was presented, the question box was emptied and discussed and the plans on linking and learning were introduced.

It was a very informative week, where everyone had the chance to ask questions, share stories, get inspired, have fun, build trust and enjoy each other’s company.

Photos from the team week can be viewed here.

Margo Bakker, Intern Dutch WASH Alliance

Monitoring happens at all stage of a project development, and helps to identify improvements for the future as well as things that are going on at present. This mainly happens through interviews, questionnaires, and by observation. Effective monitoring is complex and all of these processes of monitoring are primarily paper-based. It is evident that paper-based surveys are time consuming, error-prone and requires maximum time to derive results and deliver it to concerned stakeholders.

Taking a big leap from following the orthodox trend of paper-based monitoring, Biogas Sector Partnership-Nepal (BSP-Nepal) is now using a remote technology system for robust monitoring which provides real time data of the projects- Akvo FLOW; with organizational support from Akvo and RAIN Foundation, the Netherlands.

FLOW, which stands for Field Level Operation Watch, is a software tool that collects information on an android based smart phone and transmits the information to a central database. This smart phone application is a major improvement from paper data handling. When used online, it immediately centralizes data collected from multiple locations and generates reports.

Piloting of the application was done by BSP-Nepal to monitor technical and socio-economic impact of rainwater harvesting project completed in 2009 at Pachkhal VDC of Kavrepalchowk district. From the piloting, it could be concluded that the data collection with FLOW is more efficient and effective than previous paper-based surveys with high error rates. It is far easier and reliable than paper reports as it automatically identifies the next apposite question based on previous inputs. It also increases the speed and convenience of collection, survey management, data sharing and analysis, as well as increasing transparency in the data flow. As the conducted surveys are geo referenced and embedded with pictures the collected data can be verified online as well.

After the success of piloting Akvo FLOW, BSP-Nepal is currently using this application to monitor rainwater harvesting projects under the Nepal WASH Alliance programme in Dailekh, Palpa and Salyan districts. In the future the application is set to be used for numerous other programmes because of the application being very versatile and easy.

Sushrina Manandhar works for Biogas Sector Partnership – Nepal

This blog and other interesting information about Nepal can also be found at the RCNN website.

In his opening remarks the minister Alemayehu Tegenu said the Ethiopian government has performed well in the strategic use of water over the past 21 years. He added the country is endowed with over 122 billion cubic meter of surface water potential and over 40 billion cubic meters of ground water resources. According to the minister it was in a bid to utilize these resources that Ethiopia embarked on the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) water sector being the major component.

Minister Alemayehu Tegenu during a plenary discussion

The three day long high-level annual sector review workshop on the water sector organized by the Ministry of Water and Energy took time to have a hearing on performance reports of the Ministry, its plan for the current fiscal year followed by discussion by participants.

Issues and challenges on WASH as well as on irrigation development at national level have been discussed upon by participants that were presided over by minister Alemayehu Tegenu.

The national workshop has also allotted enough time for all regional governments to present their performances and plans in the water sector and respond to questions forwarded by participants.

Participants during discussions

The closing day of the national review meeting was to come with big surprise for all actors in the WaSH sector.

The minister of Water and Energy announced that they plan to officially avail the National WASH Inventory data in few months time. He declared that the project which is being run by his ministry is in its final phase. Officials from the ministry and the consultants working on the National WASH inventory made presentations that stirred lively deliberations on the results of the National WASH Inventory. Participants have also congratulated the ministry for conducting and finalizing the long awaited study which will be useful for development planning and engagement in the country.

The workshop was concluded by adopting a seven point resolution on further strengthening developments in the water sector in line with the country's overall development strategy.

As a key actor and resource center and knowledge management unit for WASH and related sectors in Ethiopia, RiPPLE has taken the responsibility of documenting, publishing and disseminating the proceedings of this national workshop.

Solomon Kebede is Media and Communications Officer at RiPPLE

Meeting participants

The project, named “Integrating WASH РMultiple use services and community based utrition for improved food security and reproductive and sexual health”, will run for the coming three and half years, implemented by RiPPLE, SNV, IDE and Plan International-Ethiopia.

Welcoming the participating WASH specialist with UNICEF, Muhammad Irfan Alrai said the meeting will be helpful in creating common understanding on the expected outcomes and results of the project, identifying supports needed from partners as well as creating a strategic road map for coordination and collaboration. He added two of the partners, RiPPLE and SNV, who already signed the agreement with UNICEF, while the other two will be sign over the next weeks.

Opening of the session by Muhammad Irfan of UNICEF

RiPPLE's presentation during the workshop focused on knowledge management and monitoring and evaluation aspects of the project with a detailed description of the plan for the coming six months. RiPPLE's comments and concerns about the support required from partners as well as the expected challenges ahead triggered valuable comments and questions from participants that paved the way for further heated discussions for common understanding of the issues. Accordingly the points raised by RiPPLE were eventually shared by others, including the issue of budget transfers to the government for review meetings, trainings and its implications, the high geographical spread of project woredas, staff turnover on both government and partner sides as well as the 70/30 charities and societies regulation.

SNV's presentation revolved around the woreda capacity building component while IDE shared its role in appropriate technology development and promotion for self supply and sanitation marketing. A presentation by Plan International Ethiopia also focused on scaling up of community led total sanitation and hygiene component of the project cooperation agreement.

A total of 1.4 million people will benefit from sanitation services while 630.000 people benefit from sustainable water supplies, including school children. The project will be implemented in four regions of the country, namely Amhara, Oromia, South Nations and Nationalities and Tigray Regional states of the nation.

According to the project document total cost of the project is over 33.9 million USD of which about 23.3 million USD is a contribution from the Dutch Government, 4.3 million from CIDA while the balance is covered by UNICEF.

Solomon Kebede is Media and Communications Officer at RiPPLE

Having recently developed new Akvo Really Simple Reporting (RSR) workshop materials, it was time to debut our new style in an actual training workshop. On the morning of Thursday, 6^th September we all gathered at the Greenwich Hotel in Kathmandu, Nepal. In total, six field partners from the Nepal WASH Alliance participated in the workshop. You can view the photos of the 20 participants here.

Unfortunately there was a strike and it wasn’t possible to run the workshop in this venue. Therefore a bus pick-up was arranged and, like kids going on a school-trip, we went to Godavari Village Resort on the other side of the city. Surrounded by mountains (the participants were laughing at me, since they believed we actually were surrounded by hills instead of mountains. But I can tell you, for somebody from the Netherlands, these gigantic hills seemed like mountains to us!), it was just the perfect place to kick off the workshop.

Above: View of the scenery from the Godavari Village Resort. Photo credit: Laura Roverts

After an introduction and warm welcome from Kalawati Pokhrel, the country coordinator of the Nepal WASH Alliance, we washed our hands (a very important lesson), had breakfast together and then everybody was ready for the training.

We started by introducing Akvo to the partners and made them familiar with the tools we develop and use, like Akvo RSR and Akvo FLOW. In April, the first Akvo FLOW pilot for the Dutch WASH Alliance started with BSP Nepal and RAIN Foundation. Sushrina Manandhar, who participated in that pilot on behalf of BSP Nepal, presented her experiences to the participants of our 6th September workshop. She prepared a nice PowerPoint presentation in which she explained how Akvo FLOW works and gave more insight into the survey that BSP Nepal is currently running.

As the first Akvo RSR training to feature our new style, it went really well. Some of my colleagues worked really hard on the development of new training materials, including a poster, a training kit and a presentation. It was great to explain it to the participants, since they responded so enthusiastically and they could not wait to add their first update.

Below: Reviewing the first round of video interviews. Photo credit: Laura Roverts

In addition to being enthusiastic, the participants were very creative. For example, when talking about doing video interviews, someone questioned what to do with people from the villages who don't speak English, but only Nepali instead. I told them we prefer not to edit any video, because it can be very time consuming. Then they came up with a video interview with somebody speaking Nepali and somebody standing behind the camera translating it to English simultaneously, like a voice-over. This was a new solution to solve the language problem, so in this way the participants inspired me as well with a new way of coping with language barriers.

Our aim was that every participant would have his or her first update online by the end of the workshop. This could either be a photo or a video update. And we reached our goal – by the end of the workshop, all projects were updated and participants will continue sharing the progress of all projects.

Finally, we thought our new workshop style should also have a new style of workshop evaluation. So instead of filling out a paper version of the questionnaire, Amitangshu created a survey on Akvo FLOW for participants to complete. This way, all of the participants got a sense of how Akvo FLOW works as well.

Above: Filling out the workshop evaluation with the help of Akvo FLOW. Photo credit: Laura Roverts

It was really great to meet our partners in person and run the workshop, this time working with Amitangshu. Our participants responded so enthusiastically, that it gave me a lot of energy to keep doing this kind of work.

Photos of the workshop can be viewed at my Picasa. All photos were taken with Amitangshu's camera.

Laura Roverts works as project officer at Akvo.

We Are Open
We believe partnering with businesses and funds is necessary to reach our ambitious goal: to create an enabling environment for sustainable WASH solutions for marginalized people. We want to open up, invite partners to work with us and support them with their WASH challenges. We are a one-stop-shop for sustainable and innovative WASH solutions for marginalized people.

WASH Store
In a small stand that we shared with Akvo, we therefore presented a few of our joint products and services such as the Really Simple Reporting tool and our 3-day workshop Local Finance, and of course our sustainability model called FIETS. In this WASH Store, the audience could immediately see our added value:

1. our local networks and knowledge of the local communities
2. our expertise over the entire scope of water, sanitation and hygiene – financial, institutional, environmental, technical and social
3. the way we create demand for sanitation and hygiene products
4. our products and services that lead to better local governance and community organization
5. our activities that stimulate behavioral change with regard to WASH

The Stockholm World Water Week 2012 was a success for the Dutch WASH Alliance. Besides meeting many alliance partners from all around the world, in our WASH Store we met several interesting potential partners: from a social investment agency to social entrepreneurs applauded for their (technical) WASH innovations and from a potential media partner looking for WASH expertise to large Food & Beverage corporates struggling with water, sanitation and hygiene in their production locations.

Want to know where these potential partnerships will lead us? Stay tuned.

Dieuwertje Damen, communication officer Dutch WASH Alliance

As an implementing partner for Nepal WASH Alliance (NWA), BSP-Nepal is contributing its expertise towards mitigating the issues surrounding water poverty, health and hygiene in rural areas of Nepal. The programme of promotion of Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) aims at addressing problem of inadequate access to safe water and sanitation service, couple with poor hygienic practices in rural communities of Nepal. The aim is to improve quantity and quality of water supply though rainwater and sanitation infrastructures, improving personal hygiene behaviors and domestic environmental sanitation situation particularly focusing on children, women, poor and marginalized people in the community in remote areas. Currently BSP-Nepal is promoting RWH technology in household and institution in Salyan, Dailekh and Kanchanpur districts, mid and far western region of the country.

BSP-Nepal believes that the programme cannot be provided with subsidy all the time. Once the programme stops to provide the subsidy the sector may not continue, unless there is provision of loan to install RWH system. So for sustainability purpose, the credit plays vital role in one side, on the other hand without the provision of credit even if there is provision of subsidy we cannot make RWH accessible to poor people. Therefore, BSP-Nepal/RHCC has initiated micro financing for RWH with support from Nepal Federation of Saving and Credit Union of Nepal (NEFSCUN).

Overall, this alliance has provided an opportunity for national NGOs to come under the same umbrella and work for the common goal to achieve universal access to safe water and sanitation. Adopting the FIETS strategy has helped to ensure to look at the implemented project from all dimensions and deliver successful results.

Prakash Lamichhane, BSP Nepal

For the past seven months, much work has gone into reorganising and expanding the Water Studio (a.k.a. Water Portal) of Akvopedia, Akvo’s online encyclopedia for WASH resources. In addition to the roughly 70 articles that were already in the Water Studio, we have added at least 90 brand new technology pages, more than doubling the original content.

It all began when we received a request from CARE Nederlands to add material from their 2010 desk study about Resilient WASH systems in drought-prone areas into Akvopedia. The study outlined a lot of detail about tough drought conditions and how to use water technologies like fog collection and infiltration ponds in the most efficient ways possible to access and conserve water. This seemed like the perfect time to reorganise and upgrade Akvopedia to allow room for more content, as well as provide a clear, intuitive structure that could be expanded upon by anyone.

Children standing around a Hydraulic ram pump. Photo: AID Foundation, Phillippines.

Easier navigation

The home page of the Water Studio holds the same clear grid-like format with icon drawings that represent the various water technologies. The category columns were changed into five sections: Sources & Recharge, Water Lifting Devices, Treatment & Testing, Storage & distribution, and Productive Use (i.e. irrigation). Because of the expanding number of technologies, we have restructured the content using a two-level navigation — the new home page now takes you to submenus.

Example – Aquifer recharge

Top row of the Aquifer Recharge submenu in the Water Studio of Akvopedia.

For instance, the Aquifer recharge – general page (level 2) is accessed from the Sources & Recharge column in the home pageof the new Water Studio. Clicking on the icon takes you to a page where 12 water technologies related to aquifer recharge are listed in a table. In addition, the general page holds a short introduction defining aquifer recharge (with advice about climate change effects) at the top of the page, and useful links at the bottom.

If you click on any of the aquifer recharge technologies in the table (by clicking either on the icon, the image, or the text), you will arrive at the actual article. Each technology article follows a similar format that includes an Introduction; Suitable conditions; Construction, operations and maintenance; Costs; Field experiences; Reference manuals, videos, and links; with Acknowledgements at the very end.

Lots of new additions

The Akvopedia Water Studio now contains more than double the content. Ninety brand new technology pages were added, such as those on gabions (a fence-wrapped bundle of rocks used to slow down water in a river), and new irrigation methods like drum systems, bucket kits and farm kits (water in a small tank or from a hose, nearby, irrigates a field).

We also separated community pumps from household pumps, as well as centralised water treatment (CT) systems from household water treatment (HWT) systems.

One new article added: a household water treatment method – Arsenic filter:oxidation method. Photo: Philippine Center for Water and Sanitation

And there you have it. A simplified, better organised, greatly expanded Akvopedia for all sorts of water resource technologies. We will keep adding more and more content, so check back often and spread the word. And if you have anything at all to add – a technology you don’t see on there, or an expansion of something already on there, do let us know. As it is a wiki, we rely on you to improve the content here. Contact Mark T. Westra, m.t.westra@akvo.org.

Winona Azure is an Akvopedia Editor

Country coordinator Kalawati together with my colleague Lilliana made all the arrangements, to my and more important the participants' satisfaction.

In the F-training, we had engaged the services of Anup, a local well-connected banker. He prepared a quick scan of the financial sector in Nepal and ensured that the banks joined the programme on the third day. He was also requested to follow up after the workshop together with the participants.

The workshop differed from earlier ones in Uganda and Kenya as the afternoon of the second day, budget tracking was included. Budget tracking is not our forte or perhaps I have to see mine. Thus for budget tracking we invited DORP, a WASH partner from Bangladesh, who has been involved in budget tracking in Bangladesh for the past 10 years. Zobair and Mohammed Azher Ali presented their experiences (see also picture), including their learnings, successes but also failures.

Time keeping was very good, and all participants were on time. The third day being father's day in Nepal, all dads (and moms) would like to go home early and we tried with limited success to shorten the programme.

The expectations of participants were hovering on three subjects. To learn more about: WASH financing (65%), micro finance in WASH (20%) and budget tracking (15%).

Zobair (DORP of Bangladesh) presenting their budget tracking experience

A mixture of presentations, group discussions, group work and films all centered on the central topics: demand generation, business opportunities, sustainable finance, FIETS and particularly the F, Product Market Combinations was used to meet these expectations.

In the first group work, five groups worked on addressing the question how to finance WASH if no donor money is available? They came up with some innovative suggestions such as promotion of the Cooperative Model (Cooperative shops, co-banks, co banks linkage with commercial banks), promotion of the value chain module and many others.

In Day 2, the knowledge gained was tested in a role-play: how does one make a business plan that is interesting enough for bank to become a financial partner. This was tested before one banker (Anup) and one fake banker (me). We tested the strength of the entrepreneurs and their plans by asking all sorts of questions, which bankers typically ask.

From the original ten or so business ideas that the participants came up with, they voted for the following in rank order: (1) public toilet in urban or high traffic areas with gas sale; (2) re-use: selling urine and compost, making urine and compost; (3) sanitary hardware and technical assistance; (4) toilet financing; and (5) training/ capacity development for a charge. Not enough participants voted for water vending: sprouts and bottles; commercial organic farming; waste for art; demand generation for a charge; demand generation for a charge linked to a house.

But Рand this was part of the game – as “bankers” were also mean and rude, so we could test how they react to pressure, distractions and the like. It also made it much easier to face the real bankers as they would invariably be more friendly. Though it was a serious affair, it became hilarious when one of the presenters told his ideas to the shock of his own group members and the “bankers” fell out of their roles. The general idea however was clear: one has to clear, persuasive, believe in the idea (in short be entrepreneurial), have a track record, hold an account with the same bank, think about loan size, convince the bank that the loan can be repaid and offer sufficient and acceptable security.

On the third day the role-play became real exercise, when eight banks or financial institutions presented their institutions and products, Bank of Kathmandu, NMB, Prime Bank, CEDB, Nefscon, ManasLu Bikas Bank (Gorkha), Diddhartha Bank, SKBB2 and Sunrise Bank. Seperately BSP and Lumanti presented their cases.

Presentation by NMB

The participants presented eventually five business cases. Two were different from the day before: rainwater harvesting and biogas. The banks gave valuable and very positive feedback.

In relation to the workshop, all participants were very satisfied (nearly all) whilst some were 80 –85% satisfied. It gave all participants useful insights and tips to take it home.

As to what their next steps would be, participants stated various actions. Below are just a few. “I want to visit the banks in my area and discuss about loans for rainwater harvesting and toilets.” “I want to identify the potential local financial institutions to provide loan to invest in deprived sector lending including sanitation improvement”. “I want to share all things we have discussed in the training with our implementing partners and right stakeholders as well as bankers working in the district”. “It is to accelerate the programme in real life situation”. I want to prepare a WASH business plan linked with microfinance institution”. “I like the concept of making money from sanitation business”. “I would like to incorporate the entrepreneurs in the WASH programs and our organisation with cooperatives, banks in the WASH sector.”

Participants also provided other reflections important to mention. “ The approach of the workshop was lively, inclusive and talking to members of the alliance seems to have prompted self reflection on the financial and ultimately social sustainability for their organisations”, “Some briefing documents of banks about their strategy or experience on deprived sector landing would be helpful to enhance our/staff/community awareness”

Based on the above and the response of the bank, we anticipate a minimum of two business plans with the bank before the end of 2012. The financial consultant Anup will assist the entrepreneurs/partners in these endeavors. A saving cooperative represented by one of its members, supported by Lumanti may perhaps get its toilet activities financed too. I want to thank all participants, the banks, our partners, Kalawati and NWA partners for the organizing, Anup for his dedication, useful comments, translation skill, good contacts and above all my colleague and friend Lilliana for her outstanding facilitation.

Valentin Post works as Controller / Senior Adviser at WASTE

After numerous delays and a forced landing in Mumbai, it took me two days to reach Nairobi from Delhi instead of seven hours. But I was quickly stirred into action by Luuk Diphoorn’s intensive work schedule. My stay in Kenya was divided into two phases. The first was to work on the logistics of the Akvo FLOW training for WASH Alliance partners and support Luuk’s Akvo RSR training. The second was to conduct the Akvo FLOW training.

Above: Luuk’s HUAWEI 3G modem & router. Photo credit: Luuk Diphoorn.

This training was hosted in Kajiado, in Rift Valley Province in Kenya. In a way it was an appropriate site. The name “Kajiado” is derived from the Maasai word “Orkejuado.” which means “The Long River.” It seemed like an auspicious place to bring technology to water, which the Akvo FLOW training was attempting to do.

However, it was also perhaps not the best site. First of all, the training hall had only two working power outlets, and we needed to run 20 laptops on power throughout the training (including the LCD projector). A complicated set of extension chords was brought into play, but a fear of sparks flying kept us on tenterhooks.

Secondly, there was no provision of wireless internet in the training hall. This was the biggest challenge of all. Without Wi Fi, we would be unable to check for the Wi Fi MAC addresses of the smartphones the trainees had with them. The Wi Fi MAC address is a unique identifier (i.e. a signature) of each phone, from which they can be tracked on the Akvo FLOW dashboard. Without them we wouldn't be able to remotely install the WASH Alliance surveys on the phones.

Thankfully, Luuk had carried with him a clever device from Amsterdam — a HUAWEI 3G modem & router. By using a 3G Safaricom SIM, we had our own Wi Fi system running.

We’ve started trying to take nice quality photos, outdoors, of everyone involved in training sessions, which we then upload and caption accurately in Flickr. It’s a really useful way to remember who is who and forge a long term connection. The pictures become very searchable, too.

In total, we had 16 trainees from various organisations. We were also joined by Francis Warui from Upande. Francis is using Akvo FLOW to collect data on water points in various districts in Kenya and his presence was helpful. Francis not only shared practical tips, but also took a session on how he was using Akvo FLOW to collect and analyse data.

The training went on for two days (indoors), and one day of data collection in the field. Some of the challenges of day one were:

• Phone diversity: The range was astounding, from a very basic HUAWEI IDEOS phones to the latest Samsung SIII. One of the participants had a LG P350 – a good phone, but without a folder structure, making it impossible to upload survey or download data from it offline. The SIII was much more advanced than the gingerbread 2.3 O.S we generally are used to in smart phones, so it took us time and effort to figure out its settings.
• Computer diversity: From operating software (Windows XP, Windows Vista to Windows 7) to different browsers (Mozilla, Chrome, Internet Explorer) and different versions (for example some had IE 7, some had 8), to processors (some 32 bit and some 64 bit). As a result, we needed the latest version of Java to run reports and other functions on the dashboard. But given different specifications of systems, we had to run around fixing issues that kept cropping up.
• Unreliable internet: This Akvo FLOW training took place entirely on 3G mobile networks. All participants had individual 3G USB modems, and most of them were on Safaricom. But for some reason, all mobile service providers, namely Airtel, Orange and Safaricom were very unreliable. This meant frequent loss of internet access, which slowed us down.
• Lack of availability of smart phones: Though some organisations were supposed to purchase their smart phones before the training, there was a last minute dash, which meant three new phones arrived only by lunchtime on day one. Setting up those phones and letting users warm up to them took some time as well.
• Creating Gmail Accounts: This also took considerable time, especially given slow or no internet.

We have the following to take away from this as a pre-training checklist:

• Cheap smartphones work beautifully as far as Akvo FLOW is concerned, and their increasing penetration is a great opportunity by default.
• Make sure all phones are in place before the training, familiarise people on locating Wi FI MAC addresses using instructional videos.
• Before training starts, get specs of peoples laptops, including OS, processor and browser version, if possible make sure all of them have upgraded their systems to the latest Java.
• Make sure dashboard users have their gmail accounts online and ready.
• Make sure Akvo FLOW training takes place in a venue where there is a reliable broadband Wi Fi and some electricity back up.

In the previous Akvo FLOW training of BSP- Nepal, we managed to do most of this, largely because the training was for one organisation only. Since this training was of consortium partners, it was difficult to get all this in place before the training.

As the training on managing dashboards came to an end, trainee's created their own questions on the dashboard and uploaded it to their phones. However, some phones did not get the surveys installed. Francis suggested that we try the “reload all surveys” method, which forces the phone to talk to the dashboard, and it worked like magic.

At the end of day two, as we were finalising the survey for field data collection the next day, a new problem emerged. The questionnaire that was to be used was largely for partners and needed substantial tweaking to convert it into a WASH group related survey. Some midnight oil had to be burned and we got the approved survey edited and ready for installation.

Day three was perhaps the best. The data collection went off smoothly and we captured Joseph from NOSIM sharing his experience with us, along with a few other trainees in the act of collecting data using Akvo FLOW. After field-testing, we returned and took a look at the data. As always, that's where the “automagical” aspect of Akvo FLOW comes to light, and all the sweat, frustration and exhaustion was justified when trainees saw how their data, submitted just an hour earlier, was available to them analysed on Excel sheets.

As we concluded the training, the support and interest of the participants was inspiring, to say the least. Later, Luuk and I sat down on the porch of our guesthouse with a Tusker Malt in our hands, watching a lilac sunset unfolding across the savannahs. We had done Akvo FLOW training at the frontier of what’s practical. And we had survived.

Cheers to that.

Amitangshu Acharya is a consultant, Asian programmes, for Akvo

Related: Akvo FLOW in Kajiado, Kenya (Luuk’s viewpoint)

Two weeks ago Amitangshu Acharya, who's leading Akvo's operations into South Asia and is based in New Delhi, arrived here in Nairobi for two packed weeks of activity. Since I just started Akvo's operations here in East Africa four months ago, we felt this would be a good opportunity to have our first exchange visit. Which makes sense, as we're both the only ones at the moment representing Akvo in areas of the world where the actual work of our partners is taking place. Another important reason for this exchange is that Amitangshu can be seen as an expert in the use of Akvo FLOW, while I on the other hand have extensive experience in the use of Akvo RSR.

Above: Data collection using Akvo FLOW in Kajiado, Kenya.

In the first week, Amitangshu got a chance to work alongside me at the Nailab, and join me for various meetings with partners here. The very first was with Tobias Omufwoko, who coordinates the Kenya WASH Alliance, and other staff members from AMREF Kenya. We've been planning for some time now to organise a pilot using Akvo FLOW with the Kenya WASH Alliance partners here. A lot of things however were still not so clear, which included for instance: which partners would join, could they purchase the smartphones on time, finalising the survey for use, logistics to the field, etc. It was a good kick-off meeting that really set the tone for the coming days. Amit writes more here on how the actual Akvo FLOW training workshop went.

Luuk Diphoorn is based in Nairobi and is leading its East Africa Strategy.

The project is implementing at six wards (1, 2, 3, 7, 11 and 12) of Birendranagar Municipality Surkhet. The overall objective of the project is improving WASH facilities in underprivileged community through integrated approaches. Total 3931 household people are directly benefited through this project. The project is executing as guided by National Sanitation Master Plan 2011 and contributes to national target -the universal sanitation coverage by 2017 AD.

Community sensitization program

In total 3931 households of the intervention area will have got knowledge on household level drinking water treatment system, use safe drinking water, improved sanitation facilities and practice good hygiene behavior. Dalit and marginalized family with no access to sanitation facilities (701 households) and households with temporary sanitation facilities (501 households) will have received improved permanent sanitation facilities. Three school communities will have rich access to safe and sustainable WASH facilities considering, child friendly, gender sensitive and disable friendly infrastructures.

Community orientation program

At least two communities will be declared as SWASTHA community. Strong and healthy networking will have been made with government and other WASH stakeholders and networks (R-WASHCC, D-WASHCC, MWASHCC etc.) for WASH sustainability, advocacy and lobby. The project has been started with M-WASHCC formation followed by WASH trainings for MWASHCC member and TLOS/Mother groups and community mobilization from November 2011. So far, two wards (ward no 12 with household's no. 374 and ward no. 3 with households no 504) has declared as Open Defection Free (ODF) zone in July 15 2012.

Newly built toilet

Dr. Suman K. Shakya is executive director of ENPHO

To allow the WASH Alliance to measure and improve the extent to which they contribute to more sustainable WASH service delivery in their projects, the WASH Alliance is developing a framework to monitor these key sustainability aspects in a consistent manner. Important for the WASH Alliance is also to support the WASH sector in the partner countries in improving the monitoring on WASH sustainability. The IRC is contracted to develop this sustainability framework and the first phase of the development has started.

Community members erect a fence around their water source, Kabarole District, Uganda. This is one of the ways in which community members participate in the operation and maintenance of sources.
Photo credit: Martin Watsisi/Triple-S Uganda

During the assessment phase two assessments are being implemented: (i) Interests of the DWA partners in Uganda and Ghana, (ii) national/local monitoring system: what is happening already and to what extend is the sector interested in (DWA) in sustainable monitoring. In Uganda the focus will be more on sector monitoring while in Ghana the focus will be more on project monitoring.

At the end of July most different DWA partners organizations in Uganda were interviewed and also interviews with the government and sanitation monitoring working group took place. These interviews are all part of the first assessment in which the DWA partners assess the desire and capacity to develop a sustainability framework in which they can assess how sustainable the results will be of the DWA related work. The interviews proved successful for more than just a data collection process, it started a reflection on what sustainability within WASH means.

A man fetches water from one of the tap stand on the Mugusu Gravity Flow Scheme in Kabarole District, Uganda
Photo credit: Lydia Mirembe/Triple-S Uganda

In Ghana, IRC is trying to catch-up to the strides of progress made in Uganda and the set-up in Ghana should be on par by the end of the month of August. In Ghana, the discussion on sustainability is also well received. It is key to have the DWA local partners involved as early as possible in the development if the monitoring framework. Partners need to really understand and own the framework it as they are the ones who will be using it.

The report with the main insights from phase 1 will be ready in September.

Annemieke Beekmans is working as senior consultant for RAIN Foundation.
For more information please contact Annemieke via beekmans@aidenvironment.org

John Bosco Komakech Aludi, Director of Caritas Gulu Archdioces

Promotion of Sanitation and Hygiene using Performance Improvement and Learning in Sanitation and Hygiene (PILS)

Caritas Gulu Archdiocese mixes both software and hardware provision in its package of support to communities that are targeted. The most popular software project was the PILS project, which, though with an Action Research component, dwelt on helping stakeholders improve coordination and harmonized approaches to sanitation and hygiene services. PILS was funded by Austrian Development Agency through IRC and implemented by Caritas and NETWAS. I am very proud that PILS project helped to bring to life a Multi-Stakeholder Platform to share experiences on Sanitation and Hygiene in a bid to improve Coordination and Harmonize approaches. The common PILS Stakeholders in the three districts include DWO, DHI, DEO, S/C Chiefs, CDOs from six sub-counties of PILS operation, Secretary Work, Health Assistants, L.CIII, Media houses, teachers and NGOs under WASH in the different district. In 2011, 6 District Learning Platforms, 7 Sub County level platforms and 1 Inter-district Capacity Building event were organized to share experiences and appreciate individual contribution to sanitation and hygiene. As an impact of this intervention, the Regional Learning Platform is now created with support from UWASNET and NETWAS this is a big credit to us.

PILS has helped revive commitment towards the rejuvenation of Sub County level structures, especially the Sub County Water and Sanitation Coordination Committees (SWSCC), with the hope that it will lead the inclusion of lower levels, and primary needs onto the district agenda. This is also vital in promotion of specific planning for sanitation and hygiene needs, which have often been overlooked at Sub County and Parish units. As strength PILS was instrumental in facilitating CLTS and ECOSAN technologies of Fossa-alterna and Arbor-loo toilets. At the end of the project in March 2012, 6 Sub Counties had these technologies demonstrated at household and school levels, as well as CLTS in several villages.

Striving together to achieve good state of sanitation and hygiene in households with Caritas in the lead.

My biggest challenge has been in the area of promotion of software component. People do not seem to appreciate the outcome of hygiene promotion, unstable fuel prices with fixed donor budget, bad roads, land conflicts, epidemic disease, and different approaches by NGOs to community on technology adoption strategy.

The bulk of my future plan/dream now is to restore hope by setting former IDPs to the path of normal livelihoods and self reliance with emphasis on technological transfer and the area of agriculture and marketing. However, in the past, experience has shown that issues of conflict and governance have been critical in determining the trend of development work. It is therefore imperative to consider mainstreaming issues of promotion of PILS, conflict sensitivity and good governance into our development work. I thank you all for your time reading my work.

John Bosco Komakech Aludi is the director of Caritas Gulu Archdiocese

L’équipe de l’AED

Nous sommes très fiers de ces trois choses: D’abord le changement de comportement des bénéficières du Programme dans les zones d’intervention dans le secteur de l’eau, hygiène et l’assainissement. L’introduction d’un assainissement écologique à travers la construction des toilettes écosan public. L’animation  grand public et dans les ménages sur l’hygiène, et l’assainissement. Le renforcement de capacités en  Information Education et Communication (IEC) des acteurs clés de la société (les animateurs radio, les directeurs d’école, les enseignants et les responsables des structures non étatique) sur l’Adduction d’Eau Potable Hygiène et Assainissement (AEPHA). Deuxièmement accès aux toilettes sans infiltration et enfin l’application correct de l’hygiène et assainissement par la population.

Nos défis sont multiples et variés; Salubrité, accès de toute population aux toilettes modernes, hygiène du milieu, amélioration de la production à travers L’H.A (production d’engrais) et responsabilisation des communautés vis-à vis de leurs environnements.

6 cabines ECOSAN

Qu’est-ce que vous n’avez pas encore AED? L’autonomisation de 90 groupements villageois féminins capables de maîtriser:
- Des activités génératrices de revenus telles que maraîchage, teinture, savonnerie, petit commerce, transformation, et la conservation
- Des activités de renforcement de la sécurité alimentaire, telles que le jardin, les champs collectifs féminins, les banques de céréales
- Des activités d’organisation et de formation
- Des activités de santé, telles  que la prévention et la sensibilisation sur les IST et VIH-SIDA, contraception, hygiène et assainissement
- Des activités transversales telles que l’alphabétisation et la micro-finance (mobilisation de l’épargne endogène)
- Des activités de décentralisation
- Les groupements partenaires de l’AED sont des organisations villageoises féminines rassemblant l’ensemble des femmes volontaires pour une démarche d’auto promotion de la structure et des individus. Ces groupements sont organisés autour d’un bureau central fonctionnel composé d’une présidente, d’une secrétaire alphabétisée, d’une trésorière et de leurs adjointes. Au sein du groupement chaque activité choisie par les membres est pilotée par un comité restreint avec à sa tête une responsable.

Mme Faye Korotimi Thiam travaille comme Secrétaire permanente à l’AED

RiPPLE and HCS are local partners of the Ethiopia WASH Alliance. A few months ago they started with the production of a video. This project is part of DWA 2011 achievements that have been implemented by Harerge Catholic Secretariat (HCS) in Chinaksen district in Dawe Kora peasant association (Kebele), Eastern Ethiopia. The technology types are sand dam and subsurface dam with an annual storage capacity from 3,000-5,000 m3. The role of RiPPLE is providing technical support, training, monitoring and evaluation.

Below you can view the video:

Eskinder: ‘I am technical person in rainwater harvesting, working in the WASH sector since 11 years. I have been working with RAIN Foundation for the last four years as the focal person for RAIN's interventions (such as implementation of rainwater harvesting (RWH), capacity building on Rain Water Harvesting (RWH), promotion of RWH, policy engagement practices and research & development on RWH) in Ethiopia and now I am a Senior Officer of Rainwater Harvesting Capacity Center (RHCC) at RiPPLE.’

Eskinder Feleke works as Senior Officer at RiPPLE Ethiopia

In this second post on the EMAS centre in Bolivia, Akvopedia editor Mark Westra profiles the work of two well-drilling entrepreneurs.

Meet Samuel Ito Cartajena, aged 39, and his wife Hermelinda Yapanqui de Ito. They live in Juliaca, a city in the Puno region in southern Peru. They have a 16 year-old daughter. Samuel is one of our teachers at the EMAS school, and Hermelinda cooks for the participants.

Samuel and Hermelinda, at the EMAS training site in Puerto Pérez, in Bolivia.

Together, they form a small manual drilling enterprise. As Samuel explains, “We drill boreholes, make solar water heating systems, and install other water systems. In the city in which we live, usually water comes out of the tap only 2 hours per day. So people really like to have a well of their own. When we install a well somewhere, and friends or family of the owner of the well see it, they often also want one. This is how we get more business.”

“We drill boreholes by hand in the city, up to 28 meters deep. A well costs about 250 US$. We usually work with 4 to 5 people, and we rotate between lifting the drill stem and pumping the mud. We install large diameter boreholes, because people want to use electrical pumps. Personally, I have drilled some 2000 wells, both in Peru and Bolivia.”

“Usually, we work in the city, but sometimes we have projects in the campo (rural areas) as well. When Alberto Fujimori was president of Peru, he initiated a large project to improve the water situation in rural villages. I participated in that project by assembling and training five drilling teams, and in total all five teams drilled 1500 wells in three years' time.”

“Many people in water organizations and politicians believe that manual drilling is not a good technology. In Peru, this was mainly caused by the fact that some drilling groups were in it only for the money, and they made bad quality boreholes. This gave the technology a bad name. But we know that a properly drilled borehole lasts decades, gives water of high quality, and is a lot cheaper than machine-drilled wells.”

“I started working in the drilling business in 1992, when I worked with the Peruvian organization ADRA-OFASA. We drilled wells with large machines there. In 1997, while doing a project for the Bolivian organization OPS, I met a Dutch engineer called Pieter, who new Wolfgang Buchner who was working with the EMAS drilling system. Pieter arranged an invitation for me for a one-month course at EMAS, in well drilling, water tanks, and solar home heating. Shortly after that course, I started my own drilling enterprise, together with my wife, Hermelinda.”

Hermelinda: “We have worked together since the beginning, and we also followed the EMAS training course together. The EMAS technology is very flexible, and it allows us to drill in small spaces such as people's kitchens and bathrooms. But because we don't use a drilling tower, we cannot go deeper than 28 meters. And the work is quite heavy, we have to move the drill stem and pump the drilling mud ourselves.”

“In other cities where we would like to work, the water level can be as deep as 60 meters, and for that you need a machine. In the future, we would like to expand our drilling enterprise to also work with machines, to be able to drill more wells, but also to avoid some of the heavy work. But even a small drilling machine can cost up to 80.000 US$, and this is very expensive for us. A complete drilling set for EMAS costs about 800$. But there is a lot of demand for wells, so we are positive about the future.”

“In Peru, drilling is a man's job, and many people think it is strange that I drill wells. But I am happy with my job and I don't care what people say, because Samuel and I provide others with clean water. We believe everybody should have clean water — que tengan agua pura.”

Mark Tiele Westra is the editor of Akvopedia

The Bolivia Really Simple Reporting workshop in December last year was the first of a series of workshops that Akvo facilitated. These workshops help explain what Akvo does, focus on getting RSR-users into the habit of posting online updates regularly, and offer an opportunity to play and practice with photo and video updating.

Since the first workshop in Bolivia, several more have been facilitated for the Connect4Change and WASH alliances in Zambia, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Bangladesh and, recently, in Ethiopia. Seven months have passed since the first workshop and it seems like a good time to evaluate the effectiveness of these workshops. In the past few weeks, I have interviewed, Skyped, and emailed with 11 workshop participants and six Akvo trainers who all shared their experiences and feedback.

The overall response from participants is very positive, ranging from “It was very good, all participants enjoyed the workshop,” to feedback such as “Trainers were very energetic.” Of course there is always room for improvement. Here are the top 10 suggestions from participants and trainers:

1. Prior preparation. Trainers need to find a way to have all participants register themselves and bring a project online prior the workshop. This is important to prevent start-up problems.
2. User accounts and rights. Trainers need to explain the differences between user accounts and related rights as these are not always clear among users.
3. Update text. Although use of language is not a main concern for updates in RSR, users would like to receive more explanation on written text for updates and editing options.
4. Video updates. Video updates pose challenges. Participants and trainers point out that more time is required to practice with video. Re-sizing, uploading and embedding videos are particularly challenging.
5. Internet issues. Hinder smooth workshop progress. Solutions for this would be for trainers to bring portable wifi, and/or to create an offline website environment which can be used as an alternative.
6. Workshop set-up. Could be more interactive, with more hands-on activities to practice. All participants agree that including a field visit in the workshop programme would be very useful to present and practice with the challenges of a real situation. The majority of the workshops are scheduled to cover a day and a half. Many participants would like to see this programme extended.
7. Trainers. Can try to inspire participants more. Maybe include a ‘fun-element' in the workshop.
8. Training material. Should be standardised, with a stronger connection between the various training materials.
9. Follow-up. Participants agree that a follow-up workshop would be useful. Some participants point out this can be done via Skype.
10. Customer support. For participants it is not always clear who to contact with RSR related questions.

Based on the feedback, the existing workshop set-up and training material is getting a make-over. A new version of the RSR workshop presentation is ready and will be further improved, a new design for the training manual is in the making, and the RSR support website help.akvo.org is currently being reviewed and will be up-to-date by mid-August – all will be ready for the next workshop in Nepal!

Since Akvo started facilitating workshops, the number of project updates in the RSR system have increased considerably. The Connect4Change consortium has 261 updates in total, of which 213 updates were posted after the first workshop in December 2011. The WASH Alliance had no updates prior to the first workshop in April this year – now there are 64. This is great progress – keep it going!

Charlotte Soedjak is working as intern for Akvo

On the shore of the Titicaca lake, about an hour’s drive from the capital of Bolivia, La Paz, lies Puerto Pérez, a small village. At this far-flung place, German engineer Wolfgang Eloy Buchner has created a unique Technology Demonstration Centre called EMAS, a Spanish acronym for Mobile School for Water and Sanitation. The ‘mobile’ refers mostly to Wolfgang himself, who is extremely energetic and trains people all over the world.

“We pump our own water, shower under solar-heated water, and use hand-dug latrines.”

11 hours per day of super-intensive training

The EMAS concept consists of a complete set of low-cost water and sanitation technologies, such as manual well drilling, water pumps, windmills, irrigation, solar water heating, latrines, and ferrocement tanks. From the 1st to the 31st of October, Wolfgang organises super-intensive (think 11 hours a day), hands-on training courses, during which a group of 20 people learn how to apply these technologies themselves. He gives these courses twice a year. Most participants are from Bolivia and Peru, ranging from farmers to professional well drillers.

At the demonstration center in Puerto Pérez, all the technologies are used by the participants during their stay – we pump our own water, shower under solar-heated water, and use hand-dug latrines. Interestingly, it takes a while to realise the EMAS center does not have a connection to a municipal water supply. Nor does it have a connection to centralised sewerage. And yet a group of 25 people can stay there with a very high level of comfort. Water is obtained from catching rainwater, and from home made wells. Sewage is treated in a natural way using a constructed wetland. Windmills pump water for irrigation fields of onions and carrots.

And the most amazing thing is that all the technologies here were made with the simplest, locally available materials, such as steel pipes and sheets, PVC pipes, and plastic hose. Nothing else. That means that what Wolfgang has done here can be replicated all over the world.

Wolfgang has a great habit of documenting all the technologies that he works with using movies, many of which are already available on the EMAS blip tv channel. And there is more to come!

You can check out these Akvopedia articles on EMAS, on EMAS well drilling, and this article on EMAS pumps. Or have a look at this movie, showing the EMAS drilling method.

Mark Westra is the editor of Akvopedia.

It is also here that the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) is being implemented under the MFS II WASH project where the community has come to the realization that improper disposal of inkik leads to water contamination and an increase in sanitation related diseases such as diarrhoea.

In the knowledge that the power to change that situation and improve their health lays squarely and inherently in their hands, the Maasai communities in Kajiado district are now on their own volition constructing toilets out of mud and some in the shape of traditional manyattas as a first step towards addressing hygiene and sanitation within the homestead and curbing the spread of diarrhoeal diseases. Some of these toilets have grass thatched roofs which are subsequently replaced with iron sheets to shield them from the elements particularly during the rainy season.

“This project has led to a great reduction of diarrhoeal diseases in the community and mothers have enough time to look after their families as they no longer frequent hospitals.” Explains Josephine, the Community Natural Leader in Sanitation (CNLS) as she leads a team from the Kenya WASH Alliance on a tour across the village.

In Kajiado, toilet access and utilisation of toilets is at a meagre 20% compared to the national average of 52%. So far, the project has led community education on sanitation in 60 out of the 309 villages in Kajiado district, where construction and use of toilets and hand washing facilities is greatly evident.

“Slowly but surely, we shall have covered the entire district.” says Wycliffe Manyulu, the Project Officer, Kajiado MFS II WASH Project.

Blog by AMREF

The day started with a welcome speech of video presentation of Hanny Mass, Program Manager of DWA and Mr Deres Abdulkadir (Director of RiPPLE) followed by a song from youth group. The opening speech was made by the guest of honor, Mr Gerrit Noordam the first secretary of EKN.

After the presentation of the program overview of EWA by Tamene Chaka, Country Coordinator, participants raised clarification questions and provided comments that are useful to the program implementation. The market place presentation was spice of the event that enabled EWA to present themselves to different audiences. In this session partners shared different documents to the participants of the event.

The official closing was made by Dr Kassahun Negash on behalf the Country Director for AMREF and Mr Abiti Getaneh, Director in the Ministry of Water and Energy. Mr Abiti Getaneh said that the EWA program expected to contribute to the country's Growth & Transformation Plan (GTP) and we will provide all the necessary support during the course of the implementation of the program.

Finally, the event in addition to show the existence of the Ethiopia WASH Alliance program, creating condition to get support from the different stakeholders in the WASH sector, it also created good opportunity among the wider EWA partner's staffs & DWA partners to interact each other.

Tamene Chaka is Country Coordinator of the Ethiopia WASH Alliance

Today the Ethiopia WASH Alliance was formally launched, at the Harmony Hotel in Addis Ababa. The group has been at work since last year, but as is the way with these things, a moment was needed for an official kick-off. Last week a similar launch took place in Kenya.

All of the projects being implemented in Ethiopia are going live online, using Akvo RSR – you can see them coming on stream here.

Just as the central Dutch WASH Alliance is a consortium of Dutch NGOs working jointly on water and sanitation related issues, such a consortium also exists in Ethiopia. The partners that are now members of the Ethiopia WASH Alliance are: AMREF Ethiopia, RiPPLE, WaterAid Ethiopia, HoAREC, HCS, AFD, and MetaMeta. Representatives from each organisation were present, plus some special guests, including the Ministry of Water, the Dutch Embassy, and the Finnish Embassy.

Funded by Dutch international development aid budgets, the programme is geographically active within two regions in Ethiopia, namely Oromiya and Afar. Changes over the past few years in how aid spend was structured have created quite a disruption in the established structures and processes – indeed Akvo is a part of that change – but the Alliance is now really taking off in Ethiopia and new partnerships are starting to make a real difference in providing water and sanitation in new innovative ways locally. I took some pictures today, which you can see on Flickr here.

I also got a chance to talk with Tamene Chaka, the coordinator of the Ethiopia WASH Alliance, who organised the launch. Below Tamene gives his perspective on what the launch was all about.

I'm also here in Ethiopia to provide an Akvo RSR training workshop to all the members of the alliance. Some partners of our Connect4Change Alliance in Ethiopia will also be present.

Luuk Diphoorn is based in Nairobi and is leading Akvo’s East Africa Strategy.

The Kenya WASH Alliance is a membership of NGOs and institutions comprised of AMREF, NETWAS, ICRAF, NIA, NOSIM, Practical Action, SASOL KEWASNET, Moi and Nairobi Universities. The Alliance is a five year programme funded by the Dutch government to jointly implement WASH interventions in Kajiado County. The Alliance was borne in 2009 out of realization that the WASH sector requires greater synergy and coordination, in order to achieve truly sustainable interventions within the WASH sector and beyond through strengthening linkages and learning, building networks and using innovative web based ICT tools. The vision of the Kenya WASH Alliance is that all people are able to assert and realize their right to sustainable access to safe drinking water in sufficient quantities, adequate sanitation and hygienic living conditions in order to improve their health, nutritional status and economic living standard.

Speaking during the launch, Ms Hany Maas, the Program Manager of the Dutch Wash Alliance, emphasized the value of a multi-stake holder (government, stakeholders, communities and NGOs) involvement in achieving success in WASH in line with Millenium Develoment Goal 7 on environmental sustainability. She also thanked all the WASH partners in Kenya and Mr Tobias Omufuoko, the Kenya WASH Alliance Country Coordinator.

The first district officer for Kajiado Mr Jumwa representing the Kajiado County commissioner (provincial administration) pledged support and goodwill and security to the Alliance as well as and speeding up of policy implementation.

Inga Kimary works as a Communications Officer for AMREF Kenya

Kajiado is about 1 hour (fast car and no traffic) to 20 hours (on foot) from Nairobi. It comprises one main street Рcertainly not called like that – and a few side streets. It is in Masai country, in other words pastoralists land. These days they are also settling. Water seems to be the most pressing issue, though sanitation is gaining importance in the growing urban and rural centers.

Now coming to the F-training, we had engaged services of Maggie, a local well-connected financial consultant. She was to ensure that banks would join the programme, advice of local financials, to help in the preparation and to follow up after the workshop together with the participants.

The entire workshop went more or less per schedule, though we had to improvise a little as on day one, we had an interesting presentation by Elly Aguko of K-REP Bank that was programmed for day 3. Time keeping was reasonably good, though we had to shorten our last day by half. It being a Saturday and people wanting to go home, this did not come as much of a surprise. Thus the follow up plans were formulated at the end of day 2.

During the workshop innovative ideas were floated, such as a merry go around for schools and bio-centres to capitalize on the calorific value of human waste.

Akin to the F-trainings in Uganda, the expectations of participants were high. A mixture of presentations, discussions, films all related to demand generation, business opportunities, sustainable finance and FIETS cumulated in addressing these above questions. The knowledge was tested in a role-play: how does one make a business plan that is interesting enough for bank to become a financial partner. This was tested before one ex-banker (Maggie) and one banking actor (me), who are asking all sorts of bankers' questions. But, and this was part of the game, we were also mean and rude, so we could test how they react to pressure, distractions and the like.

On the third day the role-play became real exercise, when Co-op Bank, Equity Bank and K-REP commented on the business plans. In one of the 3 cases, they started outbidding one another to get the business and yes much more things than realized are negotiable. The banks wanted some concrete actions after this and this made Practical Action jumping into the fray and promising 5 bankable plans by the end of 2012.

In Nairobi extensive discussions were held with two premier Micro Finance Institutions, Kenyan Women Finance Trust and K-REP to explore a.o. sanitation loan product development. A public private partnership was also discussed together with WASH partner AMREF and we hope to tell you more soon.

Valentin Post works as Controller / Senior Adviser at WASTE

In the field of water supply, there is hardly a subject on which opinions very so widely, and on which temperaments flare so easily, as on the subject of hand pumps. Basically, you can divide proponents of different types of hand pumps into two camps, which I will call ‘no-repairs-needed', and ‘repairable'. I am firmly in the ‘repairable' camp.

For people in the no-repairs-needed camp, the goal is to make a hand pump that is of such a good quality, that it does not need any maintenance, and will never break down. To the ‘repairable' camp, on the other hand, I count people that believe that all technology breaks down eventually, and that it is important what happens when it does. Therefore, they like pumps that have been designed with repairability in mind. Of course, most people occupy the middle ground between these extremes, but you get the point.

Photo above: Learning how to create pumps out of PVC at the EMAS course in Bolivia. See who’s who here.

The no-repairs-needed camp has a lofty and commendable goal, which of course can never be reached because everything that moves breaks down eventually. In practice, therefore, the goal becomes to make a pump that fails only after a very long time, say 10-15 years, and when it does, there should be a supply chain of spare parts. Because of the high quality standard, the pumps are produced in countries that have the ability to do so, and shipped overseas to their destination. The most common pumps in Africa, the India Mark II and the Afridev, have been designed with this goal in mind, and, indeed, they break down after some 10 years. Across Africa, about 30% of these pumps are today broken – in some countries it’s 70%. And they’re not being repaired. What happened?

Tragedy of the Commons
Experience shows that one of the main shortcomings of the no-repairs-needed approach is actually the long time span that passes before maintenance or repair is necessary. No-repairs-needed pumps are heavy, sturdy, of high quality, and because of that, they are expensive. That means that the pumps are communal, because no government, let alone villagers themselves, can pay for a no-repairs-needed pump for each family. And here the Tragedy of the Commons raises its ugly head.

Say, you live in a village, which has a communal water pump. It was installed by some organisation, the name of which you don't quite remember, about ten years ago, and it has worked fine ever since. At the time, you seem to recall, a water committee was formed which was supposed to collect money each month to cover the cost of maintenance and repairs, but after three years of good operation of the pump, this committee stopped its activities and the money was used for other purposes. Unfortunately, today the pump is broken, and needs a repair. It will cost 35.000 dollars to repair (this may seem excessive, but if you earn one dollar a day, then this is about the right comparison for a 300 dollar repair). Who is going to pay? The problem is that high-quality pumps often just don't fit the technology management capacity of a village.

A pedal-powered EMAS pump in action.

Repairable pumps
Let's go over to the other camp, and see what they have to offer. According to the ‘repairable' camp, the technology management capacity of people comes first. They argue that it is not a problem if a pump needs regular maintenance and repairs (within bounds of course, say, at most each 6 months), as long as maintenance and repairs are cheap, and can be carried out by the users themselves. In fact, if regular maintenance and repairs are required, people will remember how to do it. Pumps that fall into this category are the rope pump and the EMAS hand pump. Both use only standard materials and can be made locally, and no special spare parts are needed. Nothing needs to cross a border. Because the pumps are repairable, it also means that need to be light-weight, of simple construction, and therefore cheap. Therefore, they become affordable for families, and then it is very clear who is going to pay when a repair comes along, and who should take good care of the pump to prevent damage. Fortunately, the repair will be affordable, because it was designed that way. Studies in Nicaragua show that 95% of rope pumps stay in use after 5 years, because they are maintained by the users.

PVC is Very Useful Stuff
Interestingly, both the EMAS hand pump and the rope pump use PVC as a main ingredient. This is not a coincidence, as PVC is by far the most versatile and flexible material that is widely available in developing countries. When heated, it becomes moldable like gum. A joint between two pipes can simply be made by heating the end of one of the pipes and pushing it into the other one. You can ‘weld' two pieces together by heating both pieces until they get sticky, and push them firmly together. T-joints, elbows, connections between steel pipes and PVC pipes, pieces of different diameter Рthey can all be made from PVC pipe alone, if you have a fire, a hacksaw, a knife, car-tire rubber and the right skills, as shown in this EMAS movie.

No-repairs needed vs. repairable

A model of the EMAS standard handpump.

The EMAS hand pump (or this variant with valves made from pipes)is a prime example. When finished, it looks like a commercial product, with lots of different shaped parts made of PVC. In reality, only three sizes of PVC tubes were used, and two glass marbles. And some old car tyre. It takes about 30 individual actions to make the pump from the pipes, but all steps only require cutting, heating, and manipulating the pipes. A complete pump, including pipes for a 20m deep well and installation by a professional, sells for about 23 Euro in Bolivia. That is reachable for many families.

When designing things that are going to need repairing, you need a material which is flexible and is easy to work with, both in the workshop and in the field. That material is PVC. PVC against poverty!

Mark Westra is editor of the Akvopedia. He’s fresh back from a month at the EMAS school near La Paz, Bolivia.

Enter the Tippy Tap. A plastic container with a small hole near the lid is suspended on a stick through the handle, which can be tipped by a piece of wire or string attached to the lid. The string is attached to a piece of wood on the ground, which tips the can if you stand on it. When tipped, the can dispenses a small amount of water, about 70ml, just enough for a clean hand wash. Compare that with the 500 ml of water for an average hand wash. When you remove your foot, the can swings back to its original position. A piece of soap is suspended by a string next to the can.

A Tippy Tap used in Uganda.

It is so hygienic that it would even qualify for surgeons — a foot-operated water dispenser in which you only touch the soap! A gravel bed is used to soak away the water and prevent mosquitos. When the container is empty, the cap is unscrewed and the container is removed from the stick. The container is then filled again at a water pump, and reassembled.

Construction of a Tippy Tap.

A first version of the Tippy Tap was designed by Dr. Jim Watt of the Salvation Army in Chiweshe, Zimbabwe, and was called the Mukombe. The Mukombe is a type of gourd or calabash, which can be used as the can. But many vessels can be used in the same way, such as those used for cooking oil or milk. Tippy taps are promoted by UNICEF and WaterAid in Uganda, and are used in India, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and other countries.

Construction will set you back about 0$ when second-hand materials or used, or perhaps 2-4$ if materials are purchased. Happy hand washing!

Links:

• Other blogs in this series
• Akvopedia article on the Tippy Tap
• Movie on how to make a Tippy Tap
• Article on IRC on the Tippy Tap
• Manual ‚ÄúHow to make a Tippy Tap‚Äù

Laura Roverts has asked me how I’d respond to Niels Lenderink‘s recent article where he asked “What is a blog?”

To me a blog is a candid voice, either the voice of an individual or a group of people, about an interest, a specialism or a project. Blogs, because they contain time-specific entries that are associated with individual authors, manage to document a process – or rather a process as a journey – much better than static websites. And because you know who-wrote-what-when, they bring an honesty and fallibility to the process of documenting that journey.

Photo above: In the 1970s and 80s my dad used this Eumig Mk 502D Super 8 projector to show us movies he took when we were kids. It now takes pride of place here in my office in Bermondsey, sitting beside the broadband router. London, 18 June 2012.

Blogs are usually better when they’re short but the ability to embed hyperlinks to other content means they can actually have tremendous depth. They usually perform very well in search engines, too, so become a really powerful source of content when looking for things. I navigate a huge portion of my work over the past six years via the Akvo and Movement Design Bureau blogs – it has saved me hundreds of hours of trying to explain stuff from the past. Indeed pointing someone to something you wrote four years ago shows them what you were doing and thinking about then. The quality of analysis and references and the ability of the writing to stand the test of time tells you a lot about the character of the writer themselves.

In life you can’t ever be sure which days are going to be really important and which days will be ordinary. And blogs are like that too – when you write them you don’t really know which ones will stand out as your most important work. And that’s part of the fun. Writing blogs can have a big impact on the individuals involved, because when you publish online, feedback loops become much more direct. Indeed, writing about people has an impact on them, too, and changes the dynamic in relationships. But more than anything else, seeing your own ideas there in public makes you self-aware and self-critical in a very positive way. People are able to define and assert their unique identity and talents – their creativity and imagination, their intuition, fallibility and sense of purpose.

Blogs only work if you write what you believe, or things that are really happening. We’ll all be able to tell if you’re just spouting what your boss told you to spin or promote. Later you may change your mind about what you said, and that’s fine too. In fact, that’s a cue to write the next blog, linking to the previous one.

Which brings me to the most important thing about blogs. They are unique snapshots in time, which have their own unique hyperlink. They are meant to live on, and shouldn’t be shut down or broken. They’re part of the story. So get blogging. Because one day you’ll be able to link back, and enjoy showing people the journey you’ve taken.

(I know that great minds have written on this topic – so please suggest good stuff to read on it, via the comments box below)

Mark Charmer is a co-founder and communications director at Akvo.

The guesthouse in Addis Abeba where I stayed the first days did not give me a clue. All people (mainly Scandinavians and Germans) staying there (except for me) seemed to just have adopted Ethiopian babies, and were (understandably so), too busy to help me out.

All the Ethiopian WASH Alliance members in Addis Abeba, to whom I paid a visit to introduce myself as the new country lead for Ethiopia seemed to be too busy as well, either with getting contracts for the year that started long ago, with doing assessments on youth groups busy growing papayas and tomatoes using waste water, or some constructing water taps for settling pastoralists (herdsmen).

In Afar, where I visited the AMREF programme and the local authorities, my question on blogs was blown away with the dusty sand storms or tramped by the camel herds, in 45 degrees. The pastoralists themselves were too busy settling around the newly constructed water supply schemes, and did not understand my beginners Amharigna as they appeared to speak Afarigna.

Gathering water at the hand dug well

When I arrived in Dire Dawa (the town where WASTE supports the WASH programme), the people involved in one way or the other with wash, seemed not always to agree on each others mandates, or not being aware what the other did. RIPPLE mapped the entire sanitation and waste chains in Dire Dawa. The landfill on the picture below is an example of where sanitation (sludge) and waste come together. Happily so, our partner RIPPLE now unites the various stakeholders in a Learning and Practice Alliance in order to improve the functioning of the chains.

Dire Dawa landfill fresh sludge

The country coordinator was (like me) too struck by the message that the former country lead was now even leaving AMREF, to help me further.

So my question remains, what is a blog?

Niels Lenderink (WASTE), WASH Country Lead for Ethiopia

We, being Jacqueline and Valentin of WASTE, started of on Monday the 4th of June to Kampala, Uganda with the objective of facilitating a training course on the F of the mysterious (for our Southern partners that is) FIETS. The day of travel was uneventful. UWASNET, our WASH Simavi partner, had made many of the local arrangements.

Tuesday morning we had a meeting in Kampala with Cecily of UWASNET, who for understandable domestic reasons had no chance to accompany us to Gulu in the North of Uganda, a journey of some 4- 6 hours (depending on traffic and the time of the day). She also told us that the last day of the 3-day training should be half a day only. We met our financial consultant John, who was to be a key asset in the next days. We had requested John to join us because of his knowledge of the financial sector, but, yo and behold, he turned out to be a superb workshop facilitator.

Anyway, as it was a little complex to sort out the finances, we left rather late in the day for Gulu and as a consequence we arrived well after dark.

The next morning we waited, waited and waited for participants to arrive. We felt sorry for those three, who had come on time, but we needed some sort of quorum of minimum 10 participants. Some 2 ¬Ω hours after the scheduled starting time we could commence on the financial training of FIETS. Participants had been briefed by a well written summary of the programme written by Cecily of UWASNET, yet that was all the information they had.

Nevertheless their expectations were high (and I would say rightly so). At the end of the workshop participants expected to know:
- How to engage finance institutions in water & sanitation;
- What kind of products financial institution can develop.
- How the gospel of WASH can be spread around;
- How customers of the bank are going to pay back.
- What is this FIETS thing,
- What is sustainable financing;
- What and how financial institutions can add value to WASH, what is their relevance, if they have ever done this before.

A mixture of presentations, discussions, films all related to demand generation, business opportunities, sustainable finance and FIETS cumulated in addressing these above questions. The knowledge was tested in a role-play: how does one make a business plan that is interesting enough for bank to become a financial partner. This was tested before two ex-bankers who are asking all sort of bankers' questions.

This is short was the content of the first two days and had to meet the participant's expectations. That in short was my expectation.

This role-play or mock exercise became a real exercise when on the last day the most widely acknowledged business plans were presented to financial institutions (special thanks to Beatrice of Caritas and John for getting them). Their positive reaction surprised initially the participants, yet they quickly realized the mileage they can get out of it. At the end we asked our participants whether their expectations were met: a summary of their answers is below.

The product market combinations were really interesting, business opportunities galore (this is my interpretation of their replies), yet we need to identify and deal with the final disposal. There are many financial aspects to sanitation and corresponding financial resources and opportunities that can be tapped and there is a clear interest of banks.

All identified their next steps from mobilising local entrepreneurs in sanitation, training of more entrepreneurs, and presenting business plans to the bank. The Photo below shows the prospective entrepreneurs with people from the bank.

We also asked what our next steps should be according to the participants; not only do we have to document successes, we would also be encouraged to launch a platform (akvo seems the obvious source) where the participants, municipality, entrepreneurs, financial institutions, NGO and CBOs representing the community can come together. Participants requested that we should check their progress 3 months from now, and help them technically. William of DFCU (commercial Bank) summarized it quite well: now walk the talks! Participants and we, I must add, readily agreed.

Our own expectations were also met despite some minor hiccups, late starting of the sessions (we were getting better day-by-day, on the third day we could start nearly on time) and the shortened duration of the training, yet as any training it drains on the one had the energy of the facilitators and also replenishes energy (I realise this is a contradiction, yet who says that reality cannot contradict itself), and yes it can be further improved (already some of the time keeping elements were communicated to Fort Portal were the next training takes place

I will not join the Fort Portal training purely for WASTE internal reasons and my successor as facilitator Fera was properly briefed by John, Jacqueline and me (in Kampala). It were rewarding days thanks to Ann and Bernon of USWANET, all participants and last but not least a good interaction between Jacqueline, the entrepreneurs, John and (I am not very modest here) and Valentin. In banking terms our partners will be supported to pluck the low hanging fruit, but the fruit higher up the tree are also being ready for plucking if not in 2013 then in later years.

Valentin Post works as Controller / Senior Adviser at WASTE

Framework development in Ghana and Uganda
IRC will support the development of a framework to monitor sustainability aspects of WASH systems & services and projects. This framework will be piloted in Ghana and Uganda. The framework will be linked to the existing country-specific, government-owned and generally applied WASH Sector Monitoring Framework. In Ghana, a national and district monitoring system is being developed – we will try to influence this development by addressing the need to focus on sustainability indicators. In Uganda, improvement of the yet existing sector monitoring system is sought by expanding this system with indicators that address sustainability.

Process of the project
The project consists of three phases: an assessment, a development and an embedding phase. At the start of the project, current monitoring frameworks are analysed and the possible involvement of local partners as well as local and national governments is identified. A workshop will be organised to discuss findings and to establish a Task Force. In the second phase actual sustainability indicators and tools will be developed and tested. Pilot data will be collected and analysed. The feasibility and the potential for scaling up these indicators to the national WASH Sector Sustainability Monitoring Framework will be evaluated and discussed both at local and national level in the third phase. It will then be assessed which indicators should be incorporated in the national WASH Sector Monitoring Framework. A lobby plan will be developed to this end.

Learning on sustainability monitoring
The pilot will enhance learning of the WASH Alliance, both at programme and sector level. The pilot will support the WASH Alliance to formulate a possible rolling-out plan of sustainability monitoring to other Alliance programme countries.

Annemieke Beekmans works for Rain Foundation. If you have any additional questions you can send her an email at beekmans@aidenvironment.org

Being in the very essence of working in the Multi-Stakeholders Approach, it was during the harmonisation meeting at the beginning of March 2012 that the Ethiopia WASH Alliance (EWA) partners agreed on having a learning visit on identified thematic areas.

It was Monday (7 March) we have left Addis early in the morning to escape the traffic jam and reach early the 525 km drive to Dire Dawa, where the hosts for this exchange visit (RiPPLE and HCS) were waiting for us to share what they have to other alliance members. The interesting part of the drive from Addis to Dire Dawa is the crossing of different agro-ecologies; the great rift valley and chain of mountains where sometime you make snake kind of drives.

RiPPLE was represented by Eskinder, dedicated to share the lessons to the team, and Zelalem. HCS was represented by Tewodros who was implementing the projects as site engineer.

On the next day, after a brief explanation about the sites to be visited, we went to the site where the municipality of Dire Dawa disposes the city waste and processes it for usable form for urban agriculture. And later during the day the different youth groups in the town using liquid waste and other waste for productive purposes i.e. growing fruits and vegetables in the city and making some money out of it.

The other day we have visited different sand and sub-surface dams where these rain water harvesting structures are used for multiple purposes (water supply for drinking, agriculture as irrigation, drinking for animals).

It was inspiring to the visiting team having made different rain water harvesting structures, urban waste management and urban agriculture related activities being implemented by the RiPPLE & HCS. The key lessons learned includes but not limited to increasing understanding the importance of the technologies in areas where water is scarce and the multiple uses of these structure that increase the value of money invested on the structures and related capacity building activities to beneficiaries/users.

Moreover, the team has learned how waste can be changed in to resources and can be a means for generating income and create jobs in the cities and suburb around the cities. In the areas the team has visited stakeholders coordination is fundamental for the success of suck kinds of projects which are cross cutting in terms of involving different sectors. One group which was exciting was a women group – Goreba Social and Environmental Protection Civil Association Group Members- composed of 54 women members out of its 60 members. They are growing fruits & vegetables, started preparing compost to which they have a strong vision and an interesting part is that they have made afforestation on the hill behind them.

Goreba Social and Environmental Protection Civil Association Group Members

As the objective of the visit was to share experience and lessons EWA partners has and building the alliance further; it was very helpful to the activities that EWA are implementing in their projects. It is well coordinated and the hosts (RiPPLE and HCS) did their level best to share the experience and knowledge they have. The visit also created a better opportunity in getting to know each other more that contributes a lot in alliance building process of EWA.

Tamene Chaka is Country Coordinator of the Ethiopia WASH Alliance

We were all geared up for the field-testing of Akvo FLOW in Sindupalchowk district the next day, however the ongoing fuel crises in Nepal almost derailed our plans. We didn’t have access to fuel, hence traveling to Sinduplachowk was out of the question.

Thankfully, Prakash Lamichhane offered his own vehicle and our group headed out to the neighboring district of Kavre. This was also my first opportunity to step outside the confines of the training hall and Kathmandu city.

The paddy-sculpted landscape did not disappoint.

Min collects data with Akvo FLOW. Photo credit: Amitangshu Acharya

On reaching Kavre we conducted data collection for 10 households. The questionnaire was rather long and, though things went smoothly, the main issue with some phones was that it took a long time to get a GPS fix.

In other cases, the screen size being small, questions were missed out. Daylight legibility of the phones also mattered. Interestingly, Min's phone had his mobile Internet on, so he unknowingly submitted his data to the server (dashboard) by default. I figured this out when I was trying to understand why his phone was running out of juice so fast. Also, long questionnaires meant that the GPS was on throughout the one-hour marathon data collection session. This obviously drained out the battery in most of the phones.

Post data collection, we spent the night at Nagarkot, a hill station. That evening, the team got together and we had a great party where I discovered my favourite drink, thongba, (which is known as thee in Sikkim, India) a locally prepared millet beer. Needless to say, it helped me to get up and shake a leg to the tune of Min's favourite Nepali song.

The last day of the training the trainees were asked to present Akvo FLOW, and its application to BSP Nepal's work, to their colleagues. Without any assistance from my end, Sushrina had excavated FLOW related data from the Internet and, adding it to learnings she picked up at the training, she made a splendid presentation. Prakash, Charu, Roma, and Min all pitched in and I was perhaps the happiest person in the room that day. The presentation made quite an impression on the BSP Nepal team who immediately demanded the current team of five trainees train the rest of the staff on Akvo FLOW!

Post presentation, further training took place on uploading survey and data offline. It ended with a group exercise where the team created a feedback questionnaire on the Akvo FLOW dashboard, installed it on their phones and fed their responses and uploaded the same. I am sharing analysis of one such response in analyzed form made available through FLOW.

There is a lot left to do on Akvo FLOW for BSP Nepal. But it was a bright beginning and, if we keep the momentum, BSP Nepal has the potential to emerge as a pioneering user of Akvo FLOW in South Asia.

Amitangshu Acharya is a consultant, Asian programmes, for Akvo

One options is to wait for the rain. It is a stressful option, because the rain might come too late, it might not come at all, or it might come all at once, all of which are bad. The other options is to take control over the water you need. That means getting a pump. What kind of pump? One that is affordable, available, and repairable. Ergonomic, and easy to operate.

The treadle pump fulfills all these demands with flying colors. It is a foot-powered water pump widely used in Asia and spreading in Africa. It consists of two metal cylinders with pistons that are operated by a natural walking motion on two treadles. It is ideally suited for use on small farms which draw irrigation water from 1-7 m deep. Because it is a suction pump, the depth is limited to about 8m.

History

The treadle pump was designed by the Norwegian engineer, Gunnar Barnes in the 1970's. It was first developed and used for irrigation in Bangladesh in the late 70's. In the 1980s, International Development Enterprise (IDE), led by the inspiring Paul Polak, initiated a campaign to market the pumps to smallholder farmers. Over the course of 12 years, 1.5 million treadle pumps were purchased by farmers, increasing the farmers income by $150 million annually. In 2006, the IDE treadle pump programme in India won an Ashden Award.

The treadle pump is also being promoted in Africa, by organizations such as Kickstart, under the name MoneyMaker, and Enterprise Works. The pumps are now widely used for small-scale “spray” irrigation.

Going strong
The treadle pump is very, very affordable. In Bangladesh a treadle pump costs US$ 20, and on average farmers make an additional US$100 per year in extra income. Currently, over 2 million treadle pumps have been installed worldwide, produced in 300 local workshops and used by more than one million poor rural families that otherwise could not have afforded an irrigation pump. Not bad for a humble pump, don't you think?

Additional links:

• Other blogs in this series
• Akvopedia article on the Treadle pump
• Treadle Pump programme, IDE-India
• Treadle pumps in Uttar Pradesh, India, introduced by IDE-India

To begin with, let's start with what advantages newly formed collaborative relationships provide to both parties. How do they both benefit from such a relationship? ‘Unhidden knowledge' is one of these benefits. Trends and upcoming themes are best known to those who are in the midst of the field of interest. NGOs and businesses are both best in signaling the latest developments, products and services within their area of specialty yet both are weak in finding (and doing something!) with developments in sectors which lay outside their own. On this aspect, NGOs and business have something to offer to each other, something they would otherwise not know and likely not have access to. Moreover, both sectors also have unique networks, NGOs in the realm of (international and local) governments, EU, community based organizations and large philanthropic foundations. Businesses have their network in the realm of (international and local) cooperation's, suppliers and influential players. Combining these networks can create possibilities to relationships which otherwise would be difficult to link.

An advantage which these NGO-business relationships also have from partnering is the possibility to innovate on uncharted terrain. Since many NGOs are used to working project-based and consequently hardly have unrestricted funds to invest, partnering with a company can give access to capital which enables the roll-out of successful outcomes on a large-scale. Let's take a company focused on water filtering and recycling wanting to expand its services to a developing country in the light of innovation and penetrating new markets as a example. This company can innovate itself by piloting with a NGO which has access to local governments, local target groups and knowledge on the local context of water use, recycling and existing services. The NGO could in this case benefit from this partnership by increasing the access to water for those who need it most at large scale. In this kind of partnership the company will not need to invest a large amount in order to reinvent the wheel but instead will innovate from partnering with a NGO. Both the NGO and the company in this example have created a win-win situation by collaborating.

Nonetheless, many seem skeptical even hesitant to listen and understand the added value of NGOs. Nevertheless they are vital in positioning businesses in unknown terrains. NGOs can take businesses to markets which could otherwise be difficult to reach and they can advice on lessons learnt and best practices in local contexts and needs which are unknown to multinational cooperation's. With their years of experience, NGOs are strong in capacity building; making local institutions, organizations and actors strong in effectively implementing policy and programmes. Besides capacity building they know who to identify as a local partner due to a long-lasting networks. NGOs can embed ideas and create demand for products, through education, social marketing, awareness raising and their contacts with the governments. They are the ones that can enable businesses to bring a product to the target group it wants to reach, for example consumers at the base of the pyramid. They can add potential to the business case of interest. At the same time NGOs are able to create leverage by advocating with the governmental ‘top'. Over the last decade NGOs have also had an increasing influence in governmental decisions and societal opinion and will likely persist as an important and influential organizational form within the broader civil society the coming years. Businesses could use this authoritive role of NGOs to their advantage and in this way influence the markets they, together with the NGO, are wanting to target.

Therefore, the question that should be asked instead, why not seek the partnership with NGOs if the added value is so extensive?

Amber Lingmont is Portfolio Manager at AMREF

Recently, I visited Kathmandu, Nepal to train the staff of NGO Bio Gas Sector Partnership (BSP) Nepal on how to use Akvo FLOW, a trip that was the culmination of a process that kick started in February 2012.

As part of Akvo's engagement with the Dutch WASH Alliance, we wanted to introduce to our DWA partners to new technologies. While most were well versed with Akvo Really Simple Reporting (RSR), we also wanted to bring on board Akvo FLOW. This would not only provide greater means for efficient monitoring for DWA partners but would also provide us with ideas on how to improve FLOW's capability and utility.

Things happen when pioneers get together.

In this case, Basja Jantowski, Programme Officer, RAIN Foundation (RF), Netherlands knew about Akvo FLOW (Field Level Operations Watch) and wanted to experiment with it. She discussed the possibility of using FLOW for monitoring and baseline data collection with Indira Shakya, (Advisor to BSP-Nepal) for a rainwater-harvesting project, which was being financially supported by RF and implemented by BSP. It clicked instantly. Indira too wanted to see Akvo FLOW in action.

My colleague, Mark Westra, and I worked with both Basja and Indira to get the basic framework of our collaboration in place. We discussed in detail the speed, scope and scale of how Akvo FLOW will be used by BSP. It was decided that BSP would select its staff for Akvo FLOW training and I would travel to Nepal and conduct it. Post training, the BSP staff would take forward both training of enumerators and also managing the dashboard.

When I reached Kathmandu on a sunny Sunday afternoon on the 21st of May 2012, it was a welcome relief from the brazen 40°C heat of New Delhi. I was put up at Summit Hotel in Lalitpur which, coincidentally, is run by two Dutch gentlemen.

Lalitpur, for those who do not know, is the NGO and international aid hub of Nepal. As I made my way to the BSP Nepal office in Bagdol early morning, on both sides of serpentine lanes I-NGO offices popped up endlessly.

The quaint orange brick building of BSP Nepal hosted both its Bio Gas Unit as well as its Rain Water Harvesting Unit. Five staff members had been selected for the full training. They were to be trained in both smart phone-based data entry as well as managing the dashboard.

Before training began, we had already made substantial progress. The phones had been purchased and Charushree Nakarni, had already followed the instructions from a YouTube video I had prepared and installed the Akvo FLOW app on all five new smart phones. She had also located the Wi-Fi Mac address of these phones using another video link I had prepared and emailed them to me. As a result, I was able to locate all the new Wi-Fi Mac addresses on my Akvo FLOW dashboard before I reached Kathmandu.

We began with an introductory session, and briefly discussed smart phones and their various applications that have utility in our daily lives.

An app for measuring heartbeat rate in particular became popular to the point of distraction. During the training, I could see from the corner of my eye, trainees measuring their heartbeats!

The trainees progressed to creating and managing surveys in FLOW. On the second day, they created a detailed baseline questionnaire on the dashboard and, using Wi-Fi, installed the survey onto their phones.

Next, we went out and engaged in demo data collection. During this, we realized specific errors we had made while creating the survey. In some cases, we had forgotten to allow decimal points. In other cases the questions that were automatically supposed to appear on pressing yes in the previous question (i.e. dependent questions on FLOW) appeared later. The latter was a bit anomalous, and will need a proper investigation later.

After submitting the data via Wi-Fi, its “automagical” (as Thomas Bjelkeman-Petersson often puts it) presentation on the dashboard in analysed form drew gasps of surprise.

It was an epiphany, perhaps.

I had a feeling that, up to that point, trainees had labored their way through the dashboard wondering why they were doing all this in the first place. The appearance of the data within 5 minutes of submission in the form of pie charts was their answer.

We were ready to take FLOW into the field.

In Part II of Akvo FLOW in Nepal, we head to Kavre for field-testing.

Amitangshu Acharya is a consultant, Asian programmes, for Akvo

After a year of Skype meetings, emails and text messages, we (Laura and Frodo) finally visited Bangladesh last week. Akvo is closely involved with the Sujol social enterprise – ‘Sujol’ means good water in Bengali.

On the morning of Monday 14 May, we arrived in Dhaka and were picked up from the airport by Md Irfan from Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM). Although it was only 8km from the airport to the DAM office, it took us almost two hours to get there, since the traffic in Dhaka is crazy! However, finally we reached the office and we had a warm welcome.

Our Sujol members (Dhaka Ashania Mission, Micro Water Facility and ProPortion) already visited the project in Satkhira and officially opened the first water purification plant of the Sujol project. This plant produces 220 litres of water each hour. The water quality is within Bangladeshi standards. The plant reduces salinity by up to 97 per cent and Arsenic from 370 ppm (dangerous) to 30 ppm (safe). Sujol water tastes nearly as good as mineral water and beats the taste of water treated by comparable alternatives easily.

Collecting Sujol water. Kalaroa, Bangladesh. May 12, 2012.

Akvo's activities were focused on workshops in Dhaka related to project updates via photo, video and text. So what makes a good photo, interesting interview and important elements of a text message? As usual we start with a short presentation, and directly afterwards we launch into the first interviews. This is really fun, and impressive to directly see it happen – in action!

People in the water and sanitation (“WASH”) sector are so passionate about the theme, and mostly dive straight into the content ‚Äì although in each person there is a flavour of a real reporter and a passion to share her/his work. The great thing is you really see the difference after the second or third interview.

Amongst some interesting meetings we were fortunate to meet the president of DAM. Mr. Kazi Rafiqul Alam is a very strategic and charismatic visionary and provided us with his full support and inspiration on new directions related to energy and food.

The flexibility of the team has been enormous. Besides the continuous power-cuts (imagine someone constantly switching on and off your computer) and heat; the anti-climax hit on Wednesday afternoon. Following the jailing of key opposition leaders, there was a huge national strike. It was decided to postpone the scheduled stakeholder meeting on Thursday. Everybody worked so hard to make this a successful event. Important guests would have been present, the keynote speech was ready, workshops about community involvement, entrepreneurship/finance and technology were fully prepared.

As a group we decided, despite the national strike, to meet at DAM’s office to make sure all tools would be available for a new date. It was a strange feeling to go to the office while the streets were completely empty – our most smooth Rickshaw ride ever in the Capital City of Traffic Jams.

You can see detailed information about the project and all the latest updates at www.sujol.com.

Rikshaws in the streets of Dhaka. Bangladesh, 15 May 2012. (Frodo van Oostveen)

Dutch WASH Alliance training on Akvo RSR

The second aim of our visit to Bangladesh was to introduce Akvo Really Simple Reporting (Akvo RSR) to the local partners of the Bangladesh WASH Alliance. On Saturday the 19th of May we were lucky that participants of nine different Bangladesh WASH Alliance partners would spend their free day at a workshop. Alok Majumder, the country coordinator, was so friendly to pick us up from our hotel and brought us to ASA tower, where most participants were already waiting for us. ASA tower is located in the north-west of Dhaka, where various NGOs and the university have their office. One of the field partners, Hope for the Poorest also has their office in this building. Miss Fauzia Alam organised all the facilities we needed for a successful workshop, like a comfortable air-conditioned room with WiFi, a beamer for our presentations and a very tasteful lunch (the food in Bangladesh is absolutely one of our favorites!).

Frodo started with an introduction of the work we are doing at Akvo, since most participants had never heard about our organisation and were not aware yet that they could find their projects online. After that, Laura explained Akvo RSR to them and we practiced doing video interviews, uploaded them on YouTube and subsequently taught them how to use them for an update on their project on the Akvo RSR platform. Here you can find a playlist of some of the videos that were made by the participants during the workshop.

Practicing video interviews

It was absolutely fantastic to spend a week in Bangladesh, working on Sujol and the Bangladesh WASH Alliance. We found out that the people in Bangladesh are very curious, hospitable and helpful towards foreigners. We also noticed that people work as a team. If a colleague did not understand something or if anybody needed help, there were always colleagues ready to assist this person. Both of us enjoyed our stay and we are already looking forward to reunite with these wonderful people.

Laura’s put some pictures online at Picasa and Frodo at Flickr, both from the Sujol project and Bangaldesh WASH Alliance.

Frodo van Oostveen and Laura Roverts work on the partnership team at Akvo, based in Amsterdam.

In the USA, chlorine began to be widely used as a disinfectant in the early 1900s, and it is credited with playing a key role in increasing American life expectancy from 45 in the early 1900s to about 76 years at present, an increase of 50%. No more cholera, typhoid fever, and dysentery. Today, 98% of all drinking water purification in the USA uses chlorine. Very useful stuff to have around. So what about its use in developing countries?

The problem is that in many developing countries, chlorine is imported, rather than produced locally. This leads to a much higher price, as transportation and storage add to the costs. In remote areas, the delivery chain can easily fall apart, preventing this life-saving substance from reaching the people who need it most.

Health Education agents from the Mama Uzima programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo produce, promote and sell chlorine. Photo courtesy of Antenna Technologies.

A $40 chlorine factory
The good news: chlorine is really, really easy to produce. One device (there are more) that accomplishes this is the WATAsol, developed by the Swiss organization Antenna Technologies. A container with two electrodes is filled with brine, an electrical current is run through the brine for a certain amount of time, and voilà. (For the technically inclined, the current turns sodium chloride into sodium hypocloride). One litre of the resulting solution is enough to disinfect 4,000 litres of drinking water. The solution is bottled and sold by local entrepreneurs, usually women.

Chlorine also comes with its own safety system: if your nose tells you there is too much chlorine in the water, there probably is. The smell should be barely noticeable; the laboratory in our nose is very sensitive. The strong smell from water with too much chlorine will probably put you off drinking it long before the concentration actually becomes dangerous.

Although other methods of disinfection such as using ozone and UV-light treatment might win out in the end, chlorine will play a very important role in treating drinking water for a long time to come. In developing countries, it holds great promise for saving lives.

Additional links:

• Other blogs in this series
• WATAsol homepage of Antenna Technologies
• Akvopedia article on WATAsol
• Articles on Chlorine solutions and Chlorine tablets

Modern City Hotel

Last week, Kathelyne and I gave a workshop on Akvo Really Simple Reporting (RSR) for the Dutch WASH Alliance (DWA) partners in Tamale, Ghana. This is part of the Dutch government's MFS II international development funding programme for 2011-2016. In addition to WASH Alliance partners from eight organisations working on water, sanitation and hygiene projects around Tamale, we also hosted six participants from organisations representing Connect4Change.

This was my first field visit for Akvo. Before we went to Ghana, many things needed to be arranged. I’d like to thank Prosper Sapathy, country lead for ICCO, and especially Eric Chimsi, country coordinator, for helping with the arrangements. The Modern City Hotel “where life is beautiful” was chosen by Eric and proved ideal – we had all the facilities needed for the workshop, such as internet connectivity, a projector and sound system, and it was a serene environment where we could focus on making great progress.

At the workshop, participants learned how to edit and update the projects they are working on via the Akvo RSR platform. I also introduced them to Akvopedia, where they can find relevant information about water and hygiene and where they can share their knowledge with others. Kathelyne shared tips and tricks about creating video interviews, as another way of sharing updates. Everyone practiced interviewing each other with Flip Video cameras or their own digital cameras.

Here’s a playlist of the videos shot, on the WASH Alliance YouTube page, include some practice sessions. Why not click “Play all” and sit back with a coffee?

On day two, we held a short recap of what we had learned the day before and continued practicing making videos.

After lunch we went to visit the community in Yong Dakpeme, south from Tamale. They have been working with Intagrad (supported by ICCO) for more than a year, building a rain water harvesting tank, which you can see in the picture below, handwashing facilities and community toilets. The community members are very grateful for the support they receive.

In this video, I talk with the headmaster.

We got to meet the chief, at the Chief’s Palace. He didn't know we were coming (otherwise I was told they would have slaughtered a goat or a chicken for us!). A group of women, the heads of the households, were gathered together and danced for us, which was really great to see.

At the end of day two we all had dinner together at the Rooftop Restaurant in Tamale. Norbert Apentibadek from ACDEP, one of the Connect4Change partners, gave a wonderful speech. He highlighted how much the participants learned during those two days and the workshop has proven that partners of both Consortia could work perfectly together and learn from each other, sharing their knowledge and best practice.

For me, and Kathelyne, it was a great experience. We look forward to seeing how the projects related to the Ghana WASH Alliance and Connect4Change develop from here.

Here you can find some photos from Kathelyne (via Flickr) and myself (via Picasa).

Laura Roverts is a project officer at Akvo, based in Amsterdam.

The groundwater level may be too deep, groundwater may be contaminated with minerals and chemicals such as arsenic or salt, surface water may be contaminated with faeces or chemicals. Rainwater falls on your own roof, and is almost always of excellent quality. It enables people to manage their own water supply and provides the luxury of “water without walking”, relieving the burden of water carrying, particularly for women and children. This convenience is available at every house on which rain falls, whether on a mountain top or an island in a salt sea. It is a truly great idea.

A women using her water storage tank in Guinnee-Bissau. Photo: Paul Akkerman

Storage tanks
Once you catch the water from the roof (or other hard surfaces), you have to store it somewhere. Ferro-cement tanks, made with a layer of cement with steel-wire reinforcement, are usually the best and cheapest option, and can be made locally. When a tank is below ground, it is called a cistern. No idea why, really.

Roof rainwater is usually of good quality and does not require treatment before consumption. The most important thing to ensure water quality is a good lid, keeping out light and insects, and a filter, keeping out all kinds of dirt.

The cheapest tank of all is to use the ground beneath your feet. This is called groundwater recharge, and is simply accomplished by letting rainwater infiltrate in the ground, instead of letting it escape and flow away. When you need it, you pump it up.

As small or large as you want
A rainwater harvesting system might be a 500 cubic meter underground storage tank, serving a whole community. Or it might be just a bucket, standing underneath a roof without a gutter. Each 20 litre container of clean water might save a kilometers long walk to the nearest source of clean water, and as fetching water on cold, wet and slippery days is particularly unpleasant, even this small yield is highly valued. In Uganda and Sri Lanka, rainwater is traditionally collected from trees, using banana leaves or stems as temporary gutters.

It is a technology which is extremely flexible and adaptable to a wide variety of settings, it is used in the richest and poorest societies on the planet, and in the wettest and driest regions of the world. Let's build more gutters!

Links:

• Other blogs in this series
• Indian movie by CSE (www.cseindia.org) promoting use of rainwater harvesting
• Akvopedia article on rainwater harvesting
• Wikipedia article on rainwater harvesting
• Download the book “Roofwater Harvesting: A Handbook for Practitioners” from the IRC website
• Rainwaterharvesting.org, Indian website on rainwater harvesting

The term ‚Äòferrocement' refers to cement reinforced with some sort of steel, be it thin wire, wire mesh or thicker reinforcement bars. Cement is great in withstanding pressure, but not very good in withstanding tension forces. For steel wire it’s exactly the reverse. A combination of the two yields an excellent construction material, which does not rust, rot or blow down in storms. Ferrocement is different from ordinary reinforced cement in that a lot more steel is used, along with a strong cement mixture. This leads to lightweight structures which can have almost any shape.

A shelter at an orphanage in Rwanda, made with ferrocement and bamboo. Photoferrocement.com.

Boats, houses, statues
The ferrocement technique dates back to the times of Greek fresco making and the sculptural wire-and-plaster techniques of the times of Leonardo da Vinci, adapted to modern materials. Boats have been built with ferrocement, tanks (the military type), houses, statues, etc. With ferrocement, it is easy to construct earthquake resistant houses cheaply. Seeing the devastation in Haiti, it is a sad fact that this fireproof and earthquake-safe technique is so seldom used in modern construction.

Water tanks
Back to water tanks. Say, you need a 2 m² ferrocement water tank for your rainwater harvesting system. The classical technique is to start with building a cage of steel reinforcement bars, covered with chicken wire mesh. An alternative is to start with an inner form of metal sheets, which is later removed. Or, for smaller tanks, a sack filled with sand is used. Once this structure is established, a cement mixture is applied. As ferrocement is much stronger than masonry, the thickness of the walls is in the range of 10-30mm. During curing (at least 10 days, although 30 is better) the cement is kept wet and wrapped in plastic sheet. Fill'r up, and enjoy.

A ferrocement tank under construction in Guinea-Bissau, at the Projecto Agua Limpo Tombali project by De Gevulde Waterkruik. Photo: Paul Akkerman.

Your tank will be a lot cheaper than a plastic tank, have a lifetime of at least 25 years, and is easy to repair in case of cracks. The technology is extremely simple to implement, and semi-skilled construction workers can learn it with ease. Such tanks have been used on a wide scale in Asia and in some African countries, and there is huge scope for increased use for rainwater harvesting systems.

Tanks take time
Are there any disadvantages? Well, they take quite some time to build, so they are too expensive for commercial application in the western world. But this is a great advantage for small-scale enterprises in developing countries, who can employ low-cost labour. Highly motivated ferrocement entrepreneurs around the world create aqueducts, water and septic tanks, drainage systems, large flower pots for hotels and parks, shade roofs, and small houses. The more the better, I say.

Mark Westra is editor of Akvopedia.

Links:

• Other blogs in this series
• EMAS movies on (1) classical ferrocement tanks, (2) inner-form tanks , and (3) small tanks
• Wikipedia article on Ferrocement
• Making a large ferrocement tank
• Ferrocement boats
• Ferrocement.com: a bit rough, but a wealth of information
• Flying Concrete – lightweight concrete structures

A rope pump mounted on a well in Zambia. Using the rope pump allows the well to be covered, which vastly improves the water quality. Photo Henk Holtslag

In the water sector, as elsewhere, good ideas can be surprisingly old. One such old idea is the rope pump, which is over 2000 years old and was used in ancient China. A rope pump consists of a pipe that reaches down to the water, a rope or chain through the tube, washers attached to the rope that fit snugly inside the tube, and a wheel on top to draw the rope with washers through the pipe. The water is held between the washers in the pipe, and is pulled to the surface.

In its many ancient incarnations, the rope pump has been named the ball-and-chain pump, Chinese liberation pump, Noria pump, paternoster pump, chain pump, and many others. Its original design used tubes made of wood (hollowed-out tree trunks, for example), and big balls of leather or wooden plates. These earlier variations of the rope pump were used extensively for irrigation in agriculture and in the large and leaky wooden-canvas-hemp ships of the day, to pump out any unwanted water and prevent sinking.

Modern times
In the 70s, R. Van Tijen of the Dutch Demotech organisation reintroduced the pump, and started using modern materials such as PVC pipes and rubber car tires. It was introduced in Africa as “rope and washer pump” as a low lift pump for irrigation and family wells in the 70s. It never really took off, probably for reasons as its low lift capacity, its “Stone Age” image, and the lack of involvement of the local private sector.

Success in Nicaragua
This completely changed in Nicaragua, where the rope pump was introduced in 1986. The Dutch organisation SNV worked on technical improvements and first dissemination, after which the local company Bombas de mecate SA made it a commercial success through sales to the private sector, and later on to NGOs and government. Now the rope pump provides over 35% of the rural water supply in Nicaragua and is produced by some 20 local workshops. A host of models has been produced, including rope pumps powered by bicycle, windmills, animal traction, and small engines.

Left: a rope pump used by a single household in Nicaragua. Right: a rope pump mounted on a borehole in Mozambique, supplying water for 30 families. Photos Henk Holtslag.

Nowadays, an estimated 100.000 rope pumps are used by 4 million people, of which around 70.000 in Nicaragua, 15.000 in neighbouring countries, 2.500 in Cambodia and India, and 15.000 in various countries in Africa. Particularly successful is the “Elephant pump”, which consists of a rope pump surrounded by a concrete structure. The Live Earth partner Pump Aid has placed 5.000 Elephant pumps in Zimbabwe and Malawi, with about 80 added each month. NGOs such as Water Aid, Care and Unicef are using rope pumps in their programmes.

A recent innovation: the rope pump used for rice paddy irrigation in Vietnam. Photo Graham Gripps, SNV Vietnam.

Suitable conditions and limitations
There are different opinions on the question if rope pumps are fit for communal water supply, as the pump is semi-open, of lightweight construction, and requires frequent maintenance. On the one hand, in many countries the rope pump is used for communal water supply, and in Nicaragua the rope pump is the national standard for hand pumps used by organisations such as UNICEF, CARE, etc. There, the recommended maximum number of families for one rope pump is about 20. On the other hand, in many countries governments are reluctant to use the rope pump because of perceived problems.

To help the successful introduction of the rope pump in a new area or country it is strongly advised to start with promoting the rope pump as a family pump or as a pump for irrigation used by larger groups of farmers. If it works well, usage can be expanded to communal pumps, in cooperation with local or national governments. In all cases it is strongly recommended to use updated manuals combined with training by professional organisations. After all, simple is not easy.

Mark Westra is editor of Akvopedia.

Links:

• Other blogs in this series
• Akvopedia article on Rope pumps
• Frequently Asked Questions on Rope pumps
• Rope pump information by Practica Foundation. Practica has made a professional manual detailing the construction of rope pumps.
• Ropepumps.org website
• Information on Rope pumps on the Rural Water Supply Network
• YouTube movies on (1) Rope pumps around the world, (2) small scale irrigation using a rope pump in Zambia, (3) making a hand-drilled borehole and ropepump in Tanzania

Around the world, most boreholes are drilled with big, heavy equipment which arrives by truck, makes a lot of noise, and gets the job done in a short time, at a cost of about $5,000 to $20,000 per borehole. But there is a growing interest in doing it in a different way — drilling by hand. It takes longer, it is heavy work, but it also gets the job done. Why are people getting interested? A hand-drilled borehole costs about $500 or less.

Photo above: Wolfgang Buchner (right) operating the drill stem. On the left, Juan Chambilla holding the rope, pulling the drill stem up and down.

This large difference in cost is leading more and more organisations to consider manual drilling as a viable option. An example is UNICEF, which is now running a large scale manual drilling effort in Chad, and will be starting manual drilling in the Democratic Republic of Congo as well.

Of course, manual drilling does not work everywhere. Clay, sand, and compacted sand are ok, but rock or large stones are not ok. But it just happens to be the case that hundreds of millions of people live in areas which have just the right soil types. One such country with the right soil type is Bolivia. It is home to two different manual drilling technologies, the EMAS method and the Baptist method (which I discussed here).

The Master Driller — Wolfgang Buchner
On the shore of the Titicaca lake, about an hour's drive from the capital of Bolivia, La Paz, lies Puerto Pérez, a small village. At this far-flung place, German engineer Wolfgang Eloy Buchner has created a unique Technology Demonstration Centre called EMAS, a Spanish acronym for Mobile School for Water and Sanitation. The ‚Äòmobile' refers mostly to Wolfgang himself, who is extremely energetic and trains people all over the world.

The EMAS concept that he has developed consists of a complete set of low-cost water and sanitation technologies, such as manual well drilling, water pumps, windmills, irrigation, solar water heating, latrines, and ferrocement tanks. Movies describing all the technologies are available in this EMAS Vimeo channel.

Movie showing the standard EMAS well drilling method.

The EMAS method
In the course of 25 years, Wolfgang has perfected a manual drilling method which can be adapted to a range of conditions, and has trained some 400 local people in the art of well drilling. To get an impression of the drilling technique have a look at the movie. The EMAS method is mainly used in Bolivia, Panama, Ecuador, Paraguay, Brazil, Peru, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Eritrea and Sri Lanka.

A complete drilling rig, suitable for boreholes up to 40 metres deep, can be built in Bolivia for about $800. This includes the tower, mud pump and all essential tools to operate and maintain it. The low price means that it is very cheap for someone to start up his or her own small drilling enterprise, and this is exactly what has happened on a large scale in Bolivia, where borehole drilling services are now widely available from the local private sector.

The price for a borehole including pump is $6 per metre, which means $120 for a 20m deep well, cheap enough for many families to afford. Although such a well will not penetrate rock, it is certainly a rock-bottom price.

Author: Mark Tiele Westra, Editor Akvopedia.

Links:

• Other blogs in this series
• For more low-cost water and sanitation solutions, visit Akvopedia, part of akvo.org
• Akvopedia article on EMAS well drilling
• EMAS well drilling method
• Materials needed for EMAS well drilling
• Alternative methods: EMAS well drilling by suction , and EMAS well drilling by sludging
• Information on UNICEF website on manual drilling (see technical note series)

Ever seen water flow uphill? Without help of petrol or electricity? Meet the hydraulic ram, a robust and simple water-powered water pump. The ram pumps uses the power of water with a height difference flowing in the spring, stream or river to lift a fraction of the water up to 200 metres vertically, and sometimes pump it over a kilometre or two to where it is needed. No fuel or electricity required. The ram pump holds great potential for rural drinking water and irrigation water supply in hilly and mountainous areas, such as Afghanistan, Colombia, Nepal, and the Philippines.

Photo above: Children surrounding a hydraulic ram produced by AIDFI on the island Negros, the Philippines.

Hydraulic rams in the Philippines

Many people living in hillside villages in the Philippines do not have easy access to fresh water, and have to make a difficult journey down steep slopes to collect what they require for their basic needs from springs, valley streams or rivers. The water is then carried back in jerry cans on a shoulder yoke. This is dangerous and time-consuming, and means that water is often used only for essential purposes like drinking and cooking, with little spare for hygiene, sanitation or agriculture.

Carrying water uphill, using a yoke, is heavy work.

The local NGO Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation Inc. (AIDFI), led by Dutch-born engineer Auke Idzenga, has developed an innovative hydraulic ram pump which can be made locally. It has just two sets of spare parts, both of which are simple and available locally – door hinges and check valves made from used car tires. After some training, the pump can be maintained at community level. In the last ten years, AIDFI has installed 195 of these ram pumps in 128 communities, providing over 38,400 people with access to clean water as well as irrigating large areas of land.

The success didn’t go unnoticed. In 2007, the AIDFI hydraulic ram pump won the prestigious Ashden Award (presented by Al Gore and Prince Charles), and in 2008 the pump was chosen as one of three nominees out of 800 projects for the European Energy Globe Award.

Having ample water in the village means that washing can be done close to the home, saving a lot of time.

Benefits to users

Access to water changes lives. Communities in the Philippines go from hardly enough water to drink and cook, to an ample supply of water ‚Äî 200 to 1000 liters /day, per household. As one villager put it: “We used to be so dirty at the end of the day… now we’re all clean.” Women save significant amounts of time not only by avoiding the trip to collect water, but also because clothes can now be washed in the village, instead of down at the stream. Time saved is now being used to care for children and livestock, and tend vegetable gardens.

Sufficient water for irrigation means that vegetable crops can be grown in the dry season and people can keep pigs and poultry and even fish ponds. Willy Granada, chairman of the Tara Small Farmers Co-op comments: “Look at all my tomatoes! They’d never be here without the pump. And some people have poultry now and they have pigs too. There are so many things you can do if you have water.”

Central to the success of AIDFI’s project has been the involvement of the community in the whole process from installation to on-going maintenance of the ram pumps. This has helped avoid the pitfalls that other ram pump projects encountered which meant that ultimately they were not sustainable.

Spreading the word

There is a tremendous need for this kind of technology in many parts of the world. Both AIDFI’s approach and the pump design itself, with durable permanent parts and low-cost, easily obtained replacement parts, is ideal for replication, and AIDFI has taken care to document information well, so that other people can understand. AIDFI actively looks for organisations who want to learn how to make the technology, and now provides trainings to people from several countries. AIDFI has already transferred the technology to Afghanistan. Impressive, methinks.

Author: Mark Tiele Westra, Editor Akvopedia.

Links:

• Other blogs in this series
• For more low-cost water and sanitation solutions, visit Akvopedia, part of akvo.org
• Website of the Ashden Award, with information on the AIDFI Hydraulic Ram.
• Website of AIDFI
• Akvopedia article on the Ram pump
• Wikipedia article on the Ram pump
• Movie on AIDFI Hydraulic Ram, produced by Ashden Award
• Movie on installation of Hydraulic Ram pumps in Afghanistan by AIDFI
• Information on hydraulic ram pumps by Practical Action
• Information on ram pumps by the Development Technology Unit, University of Warwick

1. Tell the project’s story – what’s happening now?

2. Include a picture and/or a video – an update with an image is so much nicer than one without!

3. Be specific – include some details. Introduce us to the people involved.

4. Be brief - a picture and a caption are usually enough. Keep videos short: less than three minutes. You can read more on how to make simple, effective videos here, or watch this Spanish language video (click on the transcript button to see subtitles in English.)

5. Use natural language ‚Äì don’t worry if it’s not perfect, but avoid jargon and acronyms.

6. Keep it going! Post an update at least every two weeks.

Here’s an example of a nice video update from Ghana. This project in Bangladesh has had lots of regular updates recounting the highs and lows of trialling a new water technology in a village setting.

Jo Pratt is communications manager at Akvo

While attending the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN) forum in Kampala, Uganda, last week, I was fortunate to spend some time with Laban Kaduma, working as a manual driller in Tanzania. I wrote down his story below.

Top: Laban Kaduma

“I was born in 1979, near Njombe, Tanzania. We soon moved to Iringa, where I spent my youth. By the time I was 26, I was working as a plumber with a construction company. At that time, I wanted to start my own business as a plumber, but buying the necessary equipment is expensive, and it was hard to get started.

“At a certain moment, some friends pointed me to a poster hanging at the technical school in Iringa. The poster had been put up by the Shipo organisation, an NGO working in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, in Njombe. They asked for people that wanted to be trained to manually drill boreholes.

“I was interested in this, and wrote an application letter. Because the deadline was already near, I decided to travel to Njombe myself, and deliver the letter by hand. Two friends, who had also applied, and myself, were accepted for the training after we had an interview.

“The training started on 25 April 2005, with six teams. The manual drilling technique we were learning, the rota-sludge method, had been introduced to Tanzania by a Dutch Engineer, Aris van Herwijnen. The people he trained now trained us. After a few days, my two friends left again, saying they found the drilling was too difficult. I stayed.

“After a month, I thought that I already had learned enough. But then in May two other Dutch engineers came, Henk Holtslag of Connect International, and Arjen van der Wal of the Practica Foundation. The taught us a lot more about properly working with PVC pipes, using soil profiles to know where the water layer is, how to make a filter screen, and lots more.

“At the same time as I was improving my drilling skills, I needed to improved my English. The presentations and the courses were in English, and I wanted to understand as much as possible. I used children’s books, a dictionary, an English bible, and the English drilling manual that I had received.

“After their training, I was confident that my skills were now at the same level as my trainers. I also learned how to make and install rope pumps, so that I would have all the skills needed to make my own company. My plan now was to get the equipment needed, and start a company drilling wells and making rope pumps.

“First, I started to work with Shipo as a trainer myself. In 2008, Shipo encouraged us to set up our own companies, and they asked me to choose two of my fellow drillers as my partners. Some of the drillers used to spend money they earned right away on clothes or drink, instead of on tools or other investments. So I chose two people I liked, and we set up a business. It is called the Uvinjo group, which is short for “Uchimbaji wa visima vya maji na ufungaji wa pampu Njombe”, which is Swahili for “Borehole drilling and pump installation in Njombe”.

“At first, it was hard to get an office and get started. But we managed, and two months later, we could already hire three more people. We worked for Shipo, and for the government we installed five boreholes plus rope pump at five schools. We even installed a pump in the garden of the District Executive Officer. He paid for the pump, and we explained exactly what the money was used for ‚Äî wages, tools, materials, etc. Many people want their own pump, because the water supply is often unreliable. Now, after a few years, we are doing well, and have a lot of work. The company is now owned by four people, and we hire 16 people. We have drilled over 400 wells.

Laban Kaduma installing a demonstration rope pump during the Rural Water Supply Network conference in Kampala, Uganda, held in November 2011.

“We have also had serious challenges. Two of the six people we started with were not honest, and started to work secretly for themselves, and delivering bad quality. They were only interested in the money. They installed a bad pump at the sister mission, and that was a bad situation, because they have a lot of influence. Shipo even started getting complaints about our company, about the work these two were doing. When we found out, they left the company even before we confronted them about their behaviour.

“Now, I am a trainer myself. I have given trainings in many locations in Tanzania, such as Ngorogoro, Dar es Salaam, Ifekar, Mefinga, Songea, Same, and Mwanza. I have also given four trainings in Malawi, two together with Henk Holtslag, and two by myself. In Malawi, this has led to a new company, that recently was awarded a contract to make 200 boreholes. They have already been able to buy a pick-up truck for their business.

“For next year, things are going well. We just were awarded a contract with Winrock, to fit 50 existing wells with rope pumps, drill 50 new boreholes and install pumps on them, and do drip irrigation and recharge. It is a one-year project, it will start in January, and we are very proud that they chose us to do such a large project.

“For the future, I have many plans. First of all, I want to introduce new technologies, I want to innovate. We teach others how to drill, so we create our own competition. This is ok, as long as we keep introducing new things. So we improve pump designs, sell spare parts, and look for new technologies to introduce. At the moment, we are planning to set up a workshop, the Uvinjo workshop, as part of the Uvinjo group. The workshop will make the pumps and maintains the drilling equipment, but also makes other products.

“Finally, we need to invest in a car. At the moment, we still have to hire cars, and this is expensive and inconvenient. It will be a US$1500 investment, and we are looking at how to finance that.

“In short, we want to be a solid drilling company, that focusses on low-cost, high-quality pumps and boreholes. And I think we are well on the way to getting there.”

Mark Tiele Westra is Akvopedia editor and programme manager at Akvo

At Akvo they’re not professional video people. But they think video is really important to their work and that of their partners. They use it to bring to life the people they meet and the interactions they have. They think it makes everything they do feel more real. Akvo has been doing video for about three years and they’ve taken a distinct approach, which emphasises simplicity.

Through Akvo.tv and WaterCube.tv they’ve now brought online over 600 interviews. Here are some tips.

Don’t produce professional-quality video

If this video has to be perfect, you’re the wrong person to be doing it. But actually most things aren’t that critical – if it goes wrong, will anyone die? My bet is no. If you want to produce really professional video, hire professionals. If, on the other hand, you are a professional person who happens to carry a video camera, read on.

Output is the goal

Your goal is to publish lots of short clips that document interesting people and meaningful interaction. Anything that gets in the way of producing rapid-fire video is getting in the way, full stop. You don’t have time for complexity – video is a sideline for you. It’s not your real job.

Editing is the enemy

If you want to find a way to eat your time, get into editing video – how the hours will fly by! If you are spending more than 15 minutes editing a 3 minute video, you need to do it more simply.

At Akvo, we don’t really edit video. We crop them…. we start at an “in” point and end at an “out” point. We insert a logo “bumper” in front of that, and a Creative Commons logo at the end.

Don’t get hung up on which video platform

If you shoot video in a consistent way, you can upload it to multiple video platforms and just embed clips and players wherever you want them. At Akvo and WaterCube.tv we mainly use Blip.tv, which with an $8.99 Pro subscription is pretty good. But Vimeo is good, too, and YouTube is fine as well. Blip let’s us upload once and then cross-post to YouTube as well, saving time.

Caption well

When uploading in YouTube, Blip, Vimeo, whatever, you MUST caption your video with accurate details. Don’t try to summarise everything that was discussed, but ensure you get the name of the person right and explain where they work. Always add your name as interviewer, too, and say where and when it was filmed. This will make the video more useful later, and easier to find when people do a Google search.

Don’t get fixated with the kit

You can shoot video on lots of different devices. Just give it a go. We tend to use Flip cameras, iPhones or Sanyo Xactis. Pick a camera and stick to it. You’ll get to know its limitations.

Shoot at a consistent size/resolution

If you have a bunch of people shooting video, make sure everyone is filming at the same resolution. Otherwise you’ll need lots of different-sized bumper captions, and everything will be a different size and shape. This shouldn’t be an exercise in “my camera is higher res than yours”. It’s an exercise in everyone working together, consistently.

Shoot 640×480

What’s the point of shooting HD video if you’re putting it online? For most of our content, HD really isn’t important. At Akvo we stick to VGA resolution, so 640×480 pixels. This is absolutely fine for what we do – head and shoulders interviews, on the fly.

Add brief front and back ident bumpers

Add a front and back bumper to your videos, to make them smarter and give them a clear brand identity. A 5-second logo is all you need. We create ours once as an Apple Keynote presentation, which we export as a movie clip. Then we just paste the bumper in whenever needed, quick as a flash. Recently we’ve started videos by filming a caption card, placed on the table and then moving up to the person themselves. This works great, and is especially useful if you want to shoot straight from smartphones such as an iPhone.

Don’t film most things

Focus on interviews. Don’t record plenary sessions, workshops, or whatever. They will look totally boring. Just do short 3 minute interviews. If someone asks you to film a workshop, say no. Offer instead to do a quick 3 minute interview at the end, asking a few of the people to summarise what happened.

Choose your moment

You have to get good at knowing when to step in and say “Can I do a quick video interview with you?”. You’ll find this easier the more you do it.

Get it online right away

We always try to put videos online the same day. Anything else is stale. If you haven’t got time to edit the video today, why do you think you’ll have the time to do it tomorrow?

If you film it, you edit and publish it

Don’t think it’s ok to walk around filming clips and then hand the camera to someone else to make sense of it. At Akvo, if you film something, you know it best. You can edit it and put it online much more quickly than anyone else can. Giving it to someone else to edit adds lots of time to the process (they need to watch it all, for starters).

Be part of the interview

A credible interview is about two people – the interviewer and interviewee. As interviewer, don’t hide away – make your voice stand out and be part of the clip… If we don’t trust the interviewer, we won’t trust the content. On the other hand, be careful not to dominate the interview.

Who are you?

Always ask people to introduce themselves – “Who are you and what do you do?”

If people aren’t good, that’s their problem not yours

If someone doesn’t do a great job of explaining themselves, that’s their hard luck. Wrap the interview up and move on. But put it online anyway.

Be sensitive

Think about lighting and looks. You’ll assess very quickly who is and isn’t comfortable with how they look, so don’t force people to be interviewed who hate the idea. And always try to make people look nice.

Prioritise audio

Marginal visuals are fine, but marginal audio is a no-no. The interview must be easy to listen to. Some background noise is ok, but it shouldn’t be tiring. You must be able to hear what is being said. Find somewhere quieter to shoot in. Also beware of wind – it can really bugger things up, so avoid filming in the wind.

Don’t reshoot

Don’t reshoot – just chop the bad bit. If someone says something really dumb, ask them to clarify in the video and let them correct themselves.

Avoid catching people out

If someone says something really dumb, recognise that they don’t do this stuff often. You’re not an investigative reporter trying to wrong foot a politician, so don’t turn into one just because you have a video camera. Say, “is that really what you mean?”

Film the name badge

Whenever possible – and at events this is usually possible – always ask people to hold up their name badge so you can film it. That way, the interviewees name (and the correct spelling) is burned into the movie, so you’ll know who it is you’re editing. I can’t stress how much time this will save you. Make it a feature of your movies – it’s fine.

3 minute rule

Never film a clip that lasts more than 4 minutes, EVER. Ideally all your interviews should be 3 minutes or under. Basically make them about the same length as a pop music track – there’s a reason music tracks are the length they are… people like that length of content.

Don’t add text captions in your videos

Forget embedding text captions in your videos – it takes time and isn’t necessary. Really trust me on this. Don’t do it.

Don’t get fancy

We’ve already said that you should keep video editing really simple. But just in case you’re thinking of ignoring us, don’t. Even with great software, a video that contains transitions and effects, done by an amateur, will come out looking like a really bad wedding video. Videos full of transitions are like office documents filled with clip art. Save us all the embarrassment, please.

Make clear that everything goes online

Only film people who know the interview is going online. Never be murky about this. Nowadays it’s pretty accepted that if something is videoed, it could appear on the internet, but be really clear about this to everyone.

Don’t agree to edit stuff that’s already online

If someone says they don’t like what they said, and want you to change it, stand firm. They said it, so what’s the problem? Only in exceptional circumstances should you edit a video – and usually I think it’s that the person will lose their job if it stays online in that form.

Don’t delete a video once it’s up

Once a video is online, avoid removing it. This will make people nervous – if they go to one of your interviews and it says “this content has been removed” people will wonder what’s going on. Did you break copyright, do these people know what they’re doing? You get the picture.

Here’s an example of a video I shot last week. It gives a good sense of how Akvo does things.

Mark Charmer is co-founder and communications director at Akvo.org. For examples of their videos, go to www.akvo.tv or www.watercube.tv.

RiPPLE stands for Research-inspired Policy and Practice Learning in Ethiopia and the Nile Region. Zemede briefly explains what RiPPLE does and what their role is in the WASH Alliance Ethiopia. He also describes what was discussed during a programme workshop held that day in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 20th September 2011.

For the second time this year we’ve had the chance to join our MFSII Alliance partners in visiting the countries where they will be active over the coming five years. This time we travelled to Ethiopia, a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It's one of the few countries in Africa that has never actually been colonised. Just as our previous visit to Uganda and Kenya in May this year, we participated in activities linked to both the WASHand Connect4Change Alliances.

Photo: UN vehicles gathering at the parking lot of our hotel in Awash, Afar Region, Ethiopia. Photo by Kathelyne van den Berg.

In May the Alliance activities were still in the very early stages, with the focus on partner selection and discussing initial steps that were to be undertaken. Now, beginning October the selection of partners is as good as finalised, with most contracts between Northern and Southern partners in place. The development of programme plans for 2011 and beginning 2012 is in its final stages.

WASH Alliance Ethiopia Workshop

There was a 3-day workshop with the members of the WASH Alliance Ethiopia taking place in Addis Ababa. We joined for a day on Tuesday, 20 September. There were eleven organisations in the room:

The WASH Alliance members in Ethiopia: HCS-Ripple, Meta Meta, Hoarec, WaterAID, AMREF Ethiopia, GTF, and AFD.

The Dutch WASH Alliance members: AMREF, RAIN, ICCO, Akvo

The Dutch WASH Alliance has developed somewhat of a unique approach. In the Netherlands partners are tasked with joining forces to tackle water and sanitation, and it is expected of local partners in the countries where activities take place to do the same. Just as this process of ‘Alliance building' was complex and time-consuming in the Netherlands, the same is the case here in Ethiopia. It became apparent that not all the contracts were in place yet between the Northern and Southern partners, although discussions had been taking place all year. Some parties were therefore reluctant to start planning for activities while these issues were still not sorted out. While on paper working together with various organisations seems straightforward, in reality it is very challenging.

During the coffee break in the morning Luuk shot a short video interview with Zemede Abede, which he then showed to the group during the afternoon presentation. This proved to be an excellent example of how one can do Really Simple Reporting (RSR) right there in front of everyone. We also got the chance to welcome Tamene Chaka as the new Country Coordinator for the WASH Alliance in Ethiopia.

Visiting Awash

After the workshop we joined in a field visit to Awash, one of the two areas in Ethiopia where the WASH Alliance will be active in the coming years. The trip was organised by AMREF Ethiopia. In the video below you can see Joris van Oppenraaij, from AMREF Netherlands and country coordinator for Ethiopia talks about his views on the week. There was a lot of wind, so the audio isn’t great, so do be forgiving (it’s better on speakers than headphones).

Kathelyne van den Berg is programme manager for Connect4Change at Akvo.

I spent last week in Ethiopia meeting with project partners involved with two Dutch MFSII consortia, the Dutch WASH Alliance and Connect4Change. Akvo is a partner in both groups and I want to share my observations about the current communication situation, and what we did to help improve things.

Videoing team members and then playing back these interviews on the big screen had a real impact. Here we play back a video of Zemede Abede, a WASH Alliance Ethiopia member being interviewed the same morning.

What was immediately apparent is that the new alliance structures back in the Netherlands are not well understood amongst local field partners. Some of the local organisations aren’t sure who to communicate with and how – and the communication process takes too long. At a practical level it meant that several of the projects we visited had barely started. Crucial local planning – such as workshops to agree indicators, baseline surveys pegged to these indicators and training workshops – has in some cases been delayed. As each step is delayed, everything falls back.

MFSII has led to the formation of new consortia at the support partner level – and for field teams locally there’s little awareness of who is leading what and how they should interact. This is the downside of such reform, of course, and something it’s my job to help fix.

We saw places where the urgent need to get things fixed was apparent. This non-functioning water trench, intended for cattle, is located at one such spot – an AMREF borehole rehabilitation project in Awash in Ethiopia’s Afar region.

Good communication between everyone can solve this. Some of the trouble is connected to email, and a culture where a week’s delay in replying back and forth in each direction slows everything down. Of course internet speeds in Ethiopia are still pretty poor and we’re not going to change the style and methods of communication overnight.

Anyway it’s my job to be part of the solution to this problem. Akvo is designed to make it easy to get the programmes online, so the partners in the North and South, together, can show what is planned, show where each project is on a map and add updates via PC or mobile phone, including photo and video updates. I’m hoping it can make a difference.

Here’s what we did during the visit to bring this into focus:

1. We established direct contact and briefed local partners on what Akvo is designed to do. I hope this will kick-start the process of taking activity online (the proof will be in the follow-on behaviour, of course).

2. We brought several programmes online. I entered this data as a draft into Akvo.org in the Netherlands and then tweaked it online with the people involved in Ethiopia, where we switched them to “live” so the partners can start doing Akvo RSR updates. They’re a first cut and the descriptions will evolve and be refined, but we had to start somewhere.

3. We filmed numerous short (3 minute) videos, profiling individuals involved. People loved being filmed – the attention! We showed people the result immediately. People seeing themselves on video made a difference – they became more aware that people would be watching from outside and it was exciting for them to see… it’s not something they’d experienced before. I think videos make projects feel more real, and build trust with the people involved. It’s much closer to being there and makes it easier for everyone to begin to understand who is who. One other interesting thing – although people could see the video clip play from my laptop hard drive, they wanted to see me play it on YouTube (even if it took forever to download…). The “I’m on the internet!” factor was definitely at play here.

4. We got local partners registered as Akvo RSR users and showed them how to add updates. Where relevant we added the videos as Akvo RSR project updates.

Of course, the issue is how to deal with such problems at scale. Do we need to visit every programme team in order to get projects online? That would be expensive and add further delays. The challenge for every partner in such consortia is how to kickstart a more dynamic process of communication, structured around project pages online. Also, this isn’t just about communication from the South. I think we should do video interviews with people in the steering groups back in the Netherlands, so field partners can begin to understand who is who and how they connect.

All of us need to commit to improving communication flow in this kind of network. Because if we do this well we can provide well-focused development aid that leads to real results. Business as usual – or business as before – won’t do. We must do better.

Luuk Diphoorn is project officer at Akvo, based in Amsterdam and Nairobi.

Akvo volunteer Winona Azure explores some great sources of water information

Top: fragment of a map in the Africa Water Atlas (page 6).

Water is not just a solitary resource like iron ore or wood – to make use of it, you must understand that it is interconnected. Not only does all of life depend on it, but water’s in a constant cycle of movement and change – and the rights to it are often in dispute. As water resource professionals, it’s our job to see this bigger picture in order to make the best, practical, economic decisions to ensure this resource is properly and fairly utilised. If water extractions are not done intelligently, there’s great risk of depleting a region or people’s freshwater, contributing to economic and military conflict, or creating food insecurity through mismanaged agricultural irrigation.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), has compiled three extensively researched atlases that target water resource issues in Africa, Latin American & the Caribbean, and South and South East Asia. With freshwater on the decline, as populations worldwide increase, we could all use such a goldmine of information.

Africa Water Atlas (2010)

The awesome Africa Water Atlas (2010). 326 pages. (you can download it at no cost here (PDF))

The most massive of the three Atlases is the Africa Water Atlas. With 326 pages, containing 224 maps, 104 satellite images, and 500 graphics and photos, this atlas is not messing around. Not only is there a representation of the quality, quantity, and distribution/access of water resources (basins, aquifers, rivers, lakes, wetlands, estuaries), it covers complex issues (irrigation, pollution, drought, competing interests, climate change, water-borne disease) complete with case histories to help it all make sense. It was produced at the request of the African Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW) and made in cooperation with the African Union, European Union, US Department of State, United States Geological Survey and other collaborators.

Six sections of Africa (Northern, Eastern, Central, Western, Southern, and Western Indian Ocean Island) get a thorough examination in addition to each and every African country. Included are water politics i.e. how private investments can help fund badly needed infrastructure, such as electricity, irrigation, industry and tourism. (page 9)

Wisely, the atlas realises the interconnectedness of water resources in examining water-affected topics like water and poverty, water and population, water and gender, water and irrigation, as well as water and transport. It also takes a look at historical water levels/conditions to explain current water events to suggest future solutions. The progress towards the Millennium Development Goals is discussed, and the 4-pages of fine print references at the end of the atlas are enough to make any water resource professional salivate.

“In urban areas, water is not only scarce for the poor, but costs up to five times more compared to affluent neighbourhoods.”- H.E. Jean Ping, Chairperson of the African Union Commission

The Latin America and the Caribbean Atlas of our Changing Environment (2010)

Latin America and the Caribbean: Atlas of our Changing Environment

Representing the most biologically diverse regions on the planet, this atlas is nearly as beefy (313 pages) as the Africa atlas and is divided into three parts: the geographic overview of natural resources, the main environmental issues, and changes that have occurred both directly and indirectly from human activity. The Latin American/Caribbean regions are unique in that rainforest destruction has been frequent and at neck-breaking speed due to economic development models.

While this atlas is not solely focused on water resources, the extreme environmental changes are important to understand how water resources are affected. The satellite images alone, showing the before and after conditions, can give resource managers an idea of how quickly their own project area may be affected one day. Some of the topics covered are: impacts of mining, deforestation, melting of glaciers, land degradation, coastal and marine pressures, glacial melting, water pollution, water availability, loss of vegetative cover, soil degradation, and over-fishing.

FreshWater under Threat: South Asia/South East Asia (2009)

Left: Freshwater Under Threat: South Asia (2009), 44 pages. Right: Freshwater under Threat: South East Asia (2009) 44 pages.

The South Asian countries covered in the South Asia report include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Home to half a billion of the world’s poor with 95% of freshwater use going to agriculture (higher than the world average of 70%).

The South East atlas primarily covers the Mekong River Basin, which drains a total catchment area of 795,000 km² within China (Yunnan Province), Myanmar, Lao PDR, Thailand, Cambodia and Viet Nam. This huge basin is not affected by water shortages or open conflict, but rather it is threatened by development pressures and transboundary issues. The nice thing about the Asia atlases is the focus on management and policy. They compare methods and use a smart and sophisticated Vulnerability Index (VI) (page 37 of the South Asia atlas) to quantify where the weaknesses lie in a water system based on four factors: resource stress, development pressures, ecological insecurity, and management challenges.

“Maldives has achieved remarkable success in rainwater harvesting. It has been estimated that 25 per cent of its population currently depends on groundwater for drinking, while the rest of the population uses rainwater and desalinated water for this purpose, and groundwater for other purposes.” Page XI, South Asia report.

Vulnerability index

The Vulnerability Index method is expanded upon in UNEP’s short 28 page document created in 2009: Methodologies Guidelines: Vulnerability Assessment of Freshwater Resources to Environmental Change. It offers a model to quantify where a region’s water resource vulnerabilities lie, based on “1) exposure of a water resources system to stressors at the river basin scale; and 2) capacity of the ecosystem and society to cope with the threats to the healthy functionality of a water system.” (page 11 of the pdf). The guide takes you step-by-step with colourful graphs/charts in analysing your project area, including an analysis of management methods and case studies. The usage of the guide is already increasing in West Asia, East Europe, and Latin America & the Caribbean.

Finally, an additional sympathetic perk shared by all of the UNEP atlases and guidelines:“This publication may be reproduced in whole or in part and in any form for educational or non-profit purposes without special permission from the copyright holder, provided acknowledgement of the source is made. UNEP and the authors would appreciate receiving a copy of any publication that uses this report as a source.” Now that’s what I call sharing the wealth. Thanks UNEP.

Winona Azure is a research volunteer with Akvo.

Sjoerd van der Linde of Commonsites has been making regular, short and punchy photo & caption updates – see them all here – on the Heritage Teachers Handbook project he's working on in Palestine, showing progress directly from the field in a complex situation.

Joris van Oppenraai took a different approach with his detailed and descriptive status report on the AMREF Kibera integrated schools health project including a professionally produced video and some beautiful photographs.

Akvo volunteer Winona Azure explores new developments in using Geographic Information Systems for water, and has links to some of the best stuff on the web

Top: Water poverty index, by country, in 2002. Courtesy UNEP/GRID-Arendal

Every water project starts with the question: where is the water? It could be deep in the ground, still in the sky, floating downstream with other competing interests wrestling to get rights to it, or it could be in a lake that might have eutrophication or pollution problems. In some cases, such as when the water is in the ground, it can take a lot of capital to research where the water is located. Is there one good resource to go to, a “Water Everything Encyclopedia” of sorts, to get accurate local water-related data? In the old days, if you wanted to access water data, you had to contact a specific water organisation, for example a local research institute or government agency, which recorded its data in paper notebooks, filed away somewhere, with limited accessibility. But today, there are free satellite data, thousands of websites sharing maps and on-the-ground demographics, hydrogeological and water-related statistics, and exciting new technologies — GPS-enabled smart phones enabling real-time updates, for example. Good maps with geographical water data are particularly important. Maps can tell you at a glance how much rainfall a region gets annually, where the stream, rivers, and dams are located near a project location, what watershed region a project belongs to (which tells you the direction of water flow), how much groundwater is available in your area (including historical data on withdrawals and recharges), if there is a risk of fluoride or arsenic in the groundwater, and where the soil conditions are suitable for well drilling.

Probability of high fluoride content in groundwater, courtesy of IGRAC

GIS — Geographic Information Systems A big problem, however, with making Geographic Information System maps in the recent past was affordability and layman's ease-of-use of the available software. Conventional GIS software which can take data, analyze it and display it on map has cost anywhere from $500 to $15,000 (page 2), and generally has a steep learning curve. It's complicated stuff, primarily because it can do so much. You can not only map geographical data, accurate to the longitudinal/latitudinal minute, but you can map any statistical data that exists and combine them in layers with your geographical data. And if that's not impressive enough, you can also create models to forecast future water events and behavior based on past data. It's pretty cool. New tools — Google Fusion tables and Google Refine The arrival of new tools, such as Google Fusion tables and Google Refine, are starting to make some of the GIS capabilities available for free. If you have data in a spreadsheet, you can then clean it up (so get messy data more consistent and organised) with Google Refine, import it into Google Fusion Tables, and then create up to 5 layers on an interactive map that you can easily embed into your website (they provide you with the code). Interactive means you can click on objects on the map and see concise information, like statistical data. Both tools have a public database of datasets, including some on water. Check out this example gallery of Fusion Tables.

Example of an interactive Google Fusion Tables map of Total Annual Renewable Freshwater Supply, courtesy Pacific Institute. Click on the image to go to see the interactive map.

Of course, Google's new software duo is fairly recent and free, so support is mostly through forums (Google does help you a bit through email), and the tutorials are challenging and time consuming. However, the fact that this software even exists is rather amazing. Hopefully, these tools will help people make at-a-glance maps of water and sanitation data, improving the quality of projects. And hopefully, in a few years’ time you can type “water” in a search field and pull up thousands of spreadsheets of everything you wanted to know about water. FLOW and Water Point Mapper Another exciting use of GIS software is displaying and analysing locations of things, such as water points. Examples are the Field Level Operation (FLOW) tool developed by Water for People, and Water Point Mapper, developed by WaterAid, with support from Google and UN Habitat. FLOW enables the collection of waterpoint data in the field using surveys run on smart phones, and can analyse and display the results. Water Point Mapper allows the use of spreadsheet data to be uploaded and displayed in a Google map. Both applications have more functionality than Fusion Tables, and offer greater refinement specifically in the water and sanitation field.

Left: Field Level Operations Watch (FLOW), courtesy Water for People, right: Water Point Mapper, courtesy of WaterAid

Maps and digital atlases Many organisations are starting to open up their datasets, by making them available as maps or digital atlases, such as the wonderful UNEP Africa Water Atlas (click here to download the PDF). Usually, these hidden treasures reside on the websites of the organisations, in their Data/Download section. I'd like to thank the spirit of Open Source technologies for spreading this sharing fever amongst us all. It is one of the goals for Akvopedia to make these resources discoverable, and in the near future we will dedicate a new “Geographical Resources” on Akvopedia to this, to keep you updated on the developments in this exciting space.

Part of a map showing the annual water balance in Africa, from the UNEP Africa Water Atlas (click here to download the PDF). You can also buy the atlas in hardcopy.

Winona Azure is an Akvo volunteer, at the moment based in South Korea Additional links

• Water and sanitation data mapping tools, Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation, UNICEF/WHO
• GWSP Digital Water Atlas
• Maps on groundwater, arsenic, and fluorat IGRAC.
• FAO climate database for determining irrigation water needs
• Geonetwork, an open source application to manage spatially referenced resources
• Freshwater maps and graphics by UNEP / GRID Arendal
• Aquastat databaseby FAO
• Best practices of GIS in Africa, A study by ESRI with nice examples of the use of GIS.
• Water Point Mapping (Wikipedia entry).

Everybody needs access to clean drinking water and decent sanitation facilities. But how to pay for it all? Akvo volunteer Winona Azure reports from a conference call with April Rinne, director of the WaterCredit initiative at Water.org.

Director of WaterCredit, April Rinne. Photo courtesy of Microdinero.com

The numbers are known – there are about 0.9 billion people without access to clean drinking water, and 2.6 billion people without access to adequate sanitation (Joint Monitoring Report, WHO & UNICEF). Although great strides are being taken towards improving this situation, a lot of investments go to large-scale water and sanitation infrastructure, which mainly benefits people in the middle and upper classes. To reach the poor is much harder, and what is worse, poor people pay up to 10 times more for their water as middle class people pay, as a percentage of income. Basically, buying water per bucket from a water vendor is more expensive per litre than having a house connection.

So who is going to pay for water and sanitation services for the poor? In the sector, there is great interest in finding smart ways of giving poor people access to the necessary capital to fund water and sanitation projects. A really interesting development program is WaterCredit.

WaterCredit.org

The WaterCredit initiative, started by the people at Water.org, is putting microfinance tools and partnerships with micro-finance institutions (MFIs) to use in helping people get safe water and a toilet. The goal is to assist micro-finance institutions to develop micro-loan products and services that meet the needs of the water and sanitation sector.

WaterCredit does not provide loans directly – their main role is to link financial institutions with one another, to encourage exchange of ideas and experiences. WaterCredit educates the institutions on the water and sanitation sector, and on ways to decrease risk in their lending portfolio.

Smart money

To ensure sustainability, WaterCredit does not subsidize interest rates or provide loan capital. Instead, it may provide no-loss guarantees or letters of credit (a document in which a financial institution promises to pay a sum according to a set of circumstances). In effect, by decreasing the risk of MFIs, by covering part of their risk, local money is unlocked, which can be put to use in water and sanitation projects.

Providing no-loss guarantees is especially important for items which are seen as risky. For example: a rainwater catchment tank provides obvious collateral, which can be reclaimed if there is a default on a loan. But in the case of a water connection, collection is more difficult: a water connection to a house does not exactly have a lot of second-hand value. Without someone covering the risk, the MFI would not provide the loan, and the connection would simply not get built.

Guaranteeing risk has a wonderful leveraging effect. Say you guarantee the risk of 50 loans, of which one defaults. Then for the price of one loan, 50 people get the opportunity to get the systems they need. Over time, when MFIs get more experience with water and sanitation, the MFI will see that this is good business as well, and take over the risk themselves.

What it buys

The stuff paid for by the loans is very varied: water and sewage connections, toilets, pit-latrines, pumps, wells, rainwater harvesting tanks, and drip-irrigation. Many of these are clearly income-generating, such as drip irrigation. Others, such as water and sewage connections, are seen as income-enhancing, i.e. they can free up time for the client (time that would normally be spent collecting water) so that they can be more productive.

WaterCredit currently works within India, Bangladesh, Kenya, and Uganda. More than 90% of their clients are women, and the average global repayment rate since 2007 is 97%.

Winona Azure is an Akvo volunteer, at the moment based in South Korea.

Links

• WaterCredit website and their partnership list
• The SEEP Network ‚Äî a network of micro-finance organisations around the world
• The Mix Market ‚Äî the source for financial and social performance data of MFI’s world wide

It is just great to be here at the Open for Change Development Camp (follow it on twitter at #oddc) in Amsterdam, and discuss open data with such a wide range of interesting people. One of our contributions to the event was showcasing the mid-term results of a transparency pilot we are doing with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in which we are bringing part of their water portfolio of projects online. At the moment, we are at 24 projects, for a total of 525 million Euro.

Top: A Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sanitation project featured on the Akvo website

The Dutch government is firmly committed to opening up their aid data following the IATI standard, and they are aiming to publish their raw data before the end of this year. As a parallel track, they wanted to explore the possibilities of opening up some of the data in a more communicative way in a pilot, adding rich project information which they have available in internal documents, but not in an easily exportable format. At Akvo, we’ve been busy getting this done.

The process started with retooling our own database to make it IATI compliant, which entailed pouring over all the field definitions in the IATI standard, comparing them to our own project format, and deciding on a IATI compliant ‘Akvo’ project format. It is a first cut, and I am sure it will be adapted as we go along. Secondly, we took the output of the internal system of the Ministry, and combined it with extra info such as a summary of the project, objectives and outcomes, websites, locations, etc, which we got from the actual project documents the Ministry has.

What proved to be hardest is getting photos. We’ve had to fudge that for the moment – we simply took representative photos from the same region the projects take place in from Flickr. Of course, we only used Creative Commons licensed pics, and attributed the source. Over time, we will work with the Ministry to get real project pics in place.

On the map below, you find a sample of the water and sanitation programs funded by the Dutch Government we’ve managed to put in so far. Click on one of the markers, and you will get a link that takes you to the project page. These are preliminary results on a test server, so go easy on them eh? In addition to rich project information such as goals, web links, outcomes and sustainability, projects also feature a “IATI-compliant XML of this project” link in the ‘related to this project’ section. This will give you a first cut of the IATI compliant XML of the project. Firefox will display the XML in a nicely formatted way, Chrome only if you open it in a new tab. More in July!

For more on this process, and IATI itself, see this short video interview with myself and Mark Brough of Publish What You Fund.

Mark Westra is programme manager at Akvo.

Field visit Kajiado Sanitation facilities at the Borehole by Kathelyne van den Berg

The week started on Sunday the 8th of May in the Kibera slums in Nairobi. Here Camilla from PeePoople took us on a tour through the slums, to show what they've been doing so far there. The PeePoople concept is an innovative solution to tackle sanitation issues in this environment, specifically the problem of ‘flying toilets'. We literally walked through the shit there! Biodegradable PeePoo bags provide a much better alternative that can then be used as compost. In Kibera you have a group of salespeople who sell the bags and a group of collectors. Luuk shot a video with Ann, a saleswoman of PeePoople, who is nicknamed ‘Mamma Poo' by the slum dwellers.

On Tuesday the 10th we joined our partners in the Kenyan WASH Alliance for a joint mission to Kajiado, a 2 hour drive South from Nairobi. During the mission we got the chance to also visit project sites. Two of these projects, supported by AMREF, are already online on Akvo: project 62 and project 171. We managed to also do some extra testing of our new SMS and video update features on site. Here you can see the video update with Philip Mukuru, who is Director of the AMREF Kajiado office, which we did on site.

The field day was a long day which involved a terrible traffic jam into Nairobi but as Rachel Kyozira from the Regional ICCO office in Kampala keeps reminding us, “You might have the Watch, We have the Time.” I guess this is true, well at least this day.

It was really great to get a chance to also meet local partners that are new to us. One of those is the SASOL Foundation. They are a partner of the RAIN Foundation, and have lots of experience with the construction of sand dams. Here’s a video interview with Mutinda Munguti. He is C.E.O. of SASOL, and here he explains in more detail what sand dams are.

The other local partners of the Kenyan Wash Alliance that have been participating in the workshops and the field mission are: KEWASNET, NETWAS, Practical Action, ICRAF, and AMREF Kenya. The organisations representing the Dutch WASH Alliance here this week are: ICCO (who is also representing WASTE), AMREF Netherlands, RAIN Foundation, SIMAVI, and Akvo. This day is used to identify the gaps and overlaps from each organisation which is important if you want to work together in the most efficient way. Today the Kenyan Wash partners took a big step in further developing the Kenyan Wash Alliance programme.

Luuk Diphoorn and Kathelyne van den Berg are project officers at Akvo.

Through the invaluable support of the Akvo intern Niharika Joshi, the Akvopedia Sanitation Platform is now also available in Spanish. After the French version was already included last year, this is another step on the road to create a true multi-language platform. We hope it will be useful to Spanish-speaking people around the world.

Above: Niharika Joshi. The Hague, Netherlands, 3 March 2011.

The new Spanish portal contains 54 detailed articles on a wide range of sanitation technologies. The material was adapted from the extremely useful Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologies (2008, Spanish version here), written by Elisabeth Tilley and colleagues of Sandec, the Department of Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries at eawag, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, D√ºbendorf, Switzerland. The authors eventually have plans to make that publication available in Swahili. I’ll look forward to that.

The Spanish version of the Sandec Compendium of Sanitation Systems, produced by Sandec.

Mark Westra is editor of Akvopedia

The Alliance will work together with a broad network of partners in the Netherlands and abroad, including other NGO’s, businesses, institutions and governments. The money will fund projects aimed at the sustainable provision of water, sanitation and hygiene in 8 countries over the next 5 years. In total, the Dutch government will fund 74% of the total amount requested by the WASH Alliance, which was 68.6 million Euro.

Rolien Sasse, director of lead partner Simavi: “Given the large cuts in development aid budgets, we are extremely happy and proud with this result. Of course it will be tough to implement the 26% discount into our program, there are a number of countries that we can now not support. What is important is that we now can get to work with all the partners in the programme, and we will do our utmost to find additional funding.”

This Friday it is the 3rd annual Global Handwashing Day. 15 October is the date on which global attention is given to the importance of handwashing with soap. The main two themes for Global Handwashing Day 2010 are children and schools. Please do take a look at the official website . Here, you can get more information on the day and find useful tools and resources to get involved personally in the global handwashing celebrations.

Above: Front page of the new Smart Hygiene Solutions Booklet

Timed to coincide on Friday is the launch of a new Smart Hygiene Solutions Booklet, produced by our partner Netherlands Water Partnership. This aims to assist local community teams in making a deliberate choice for SMART hygiene promotion by offering an overview of the different approaches and tools to encourage good hygiene behaviour. It's the latest in the series of SMART booklets ‚Äì like the previous ones (Smart Water, Sanitation, Water Harvesting, Finance and Disinfection Solutions) it’s not written to serve as a manual, but more to provide the reader with useful links for further reading. The booklet’s a joint collaboration between NWP, Unilever, Aqua for All, Plan Nederland, and IRC with contributions from Simavi, AMREF, and Unicef.

I had the chance to talk to Elbrich Spijksma, who works with Aqua for All and is one of the main authors. I shot this video with her in Den Haag on 12 October 2010 (sorry about the noisy traffic).

The booklet can be downloaded for free from the IRC website while hardcopies of the booklet can be bought and ordered with KIT Publishers.

Happy Handwashing Day!

Luuk Diphoorn is Akvo's project coordinator.

Through the invaluable support of Neesha Jambagi, the Akvopedia Sanitation Platform is now also available in French. This is the first step on the road to create a true multi-language platform, and we hope it will be useful to french-speaking people around the world.

The new French portal contains 54 detailed articles on a wide range of sanitation technologies. The material was adapted from the extremely useful Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologies (2008, French version here), written by Elisabeth Tilley and colleagues of Sandec, the Department of Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries at eawag, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland. At a later date, the publication will also be made available in Spanish.

The French version of the Sandec Compendium of Sanitation Systems

One of the key lessons from past decades is that many attempts to make WASH programmes more sustainable have not been successful. Actions to address this issue have varied over time, but most attempts had in common that they were input-based, donor driven and mono-sectoral, focussing on just one aspect of sustainability.

The WASH Alliance wants to have a sustainable impact. Water, sanitation and health services should endure on the long term and be maintained and operated at local level. Sustainable WASH services have at least five dimensions: a Financial, Institutional, Environmental, Technical and Social dimension, together forming the acronym FIETS.

Financial sustainability refers to providing innovative financial concepts which minimize dependency on external subsidies. Business approaches and private sector involvement are used in a optimal way, strengthening the “in-country” structural finance for WASH services.

To reach institutional sustainability, WASH services should be integrated in national policies, with NGOs and local stakeholders working in close collaboration as capacity builders, facilitators and watchdogs. NGO's represent the voice of marginalized people and complement governmental efforts, working from a rights based approach.

Environmental sustainability requires the sound management of water resources and waste resources for current and future generations in response to water scarcity, environmental pollution, and depletion of scarce resources such as phosphorus. We need to build climate resilient solutions and adopt Integrated Water Resource Management and ecosystem approach principles.

Technical sustainability means using WASH technologies that respond to demands, capabilities, opportunities and ideas from consumers and investors and that are context-specific and can be operated and maintained locally. Whenever possible and appropriate also the WASH technologies should be produced locally.

Social sustainability refers to realizing and maintaining social conditions or prerequisites that are essential to realize the right to water and sanitation both from the perspective of the rights holders and the duty bearers. It takes local demand and local cultural incentives as a starting point and focuses on the role of women as change agents.

The FIETS principles aim to ensure that at the end of the programme, local stakeholders can continue to build upon the benefits of the Alliance's efforts, without further recourse to external inputs. It won’t be easy to integrate all these principles all of the time, but we will work hard to start including more and more in the work we do.

On 23rd of April, the WASH Alliance received the news that its grant application for 68.8 million Euro to fund sustainable WASH services has passed the first round of the MFS II grant scheme. Of the 43 consortia, only 20 made it to the next round.

MFS II is the grant framework for Dutch civil society organisations (CSOs) that work systematically to achieve a sustainable reduction in poverty. Alongside multilateral and bilateral cooperation and partnerships with the private sector, the civil society channel has long formed an important pillar of Dutch development policy. The objective of this policy is to support poor countries and poor people in their efforts to create a better quality of life, to reduce their vulnerability and create scope for self-betterment; in short, to provide structural scope for development.

With MFS II, the Minister for Development Cooperation has created scope for financially supporting Dutch CSOs in their work. A sum of €2.125 billion has been earmarked for the provision of grants within this framework between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2015.

The siphon filter, an innovative water filter for family use.

Complementary to the rights-based approach towards access to water and sanitation, WASH Alliance is a strong advocate of building local capacity on innovative and sustainable WASH technologies. During the proces of composing the contextual analsyses underlying the DWA program, a recurrent theme in many countries was the perceived lack of sustainable technological options and skills.

The WASH Alliance partners recognize that sustainability of WASH technologies is best assured if products and services can be produced and repaired locally, are affordable for the target group without subsidies, and are available through the local private sector, to achieve ‘profit-based' sustainability of the supply chain. Local production strengthens the capacity of the local private sector and produces jobs. Strengthening the local private sector contributes to resilience of society, as local private sector companies also function in times of political instability, when local and international NGO's might not have access anymore.

Using low-cost technologies in implementation programs allows for the more efficient use of budgets both because a given amount of funds pays for more systems, and because beneficiaries can afford technical solutions, such as water pumps for irrigation, without subsidies. Technological innovations need to be guided by local needs, adapted to local circumstances, and sustainable for the economy and environment.

Impact

Among NGO's, there is a growing awareness that low-cost WASH technologies can have a strong impact towards realizing the MDG goals. Examples of this trend include the recent UNICEF manual drilling program, and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) funded by Gates Foundation and Rockeller Foundation, an Alliance funding sustainable agriculture programs which aim to develop water technologies for small farmers.

During the last decade, many innovations in low-cost WASH technologies have become available, such as improved household water treatment, low-cost manual drilling, a range of locally produced water pumps, irrigation technology, etc. Besides innovations focusing on providing drinking water, several innovations provide new income opportunities by putting water to productive use. More than 70 percent of the world’s poorest people are small scale farmers, and for many of them, access to irrigation water provides a substantial productivity gain and increase in food production, hence contribute to food security. The WASH Alliance views productive water as one of the entry points to creating income opportunities for these 900 million people.

Many of these solutions are still relatively unknown. The public sector and civil society have a large role in promoting sustainable technologies and services through capacity building and procurement under various programs. One of the main roles of NGOs is to disseminate best practices, strengthen the local capacity, and develop and promote sustainable technologies and services.

WASH Alliance activities

The WASH Alliance partners have planned a number of activities to bring this forward. First of all, influencing policy towards inclusion of innovative low-cost WASH technologies, by familiarizing decision makers (in national governments, in NGOs and in funding agencies) with the various low cost technological options and encouraging them to incorporate these in their programs. To this end, several lobby materials will be created, such as booklets and short promotional movies.

Secondly, strengthening the knowledge base of civil society organizations working on WASH, by making the knowledge on the technologies themselves available through the Akvopedia knowledge sharing platform. Knowledge sharing instruments include introductory articles, manuals, instructional video’s, technical drawings, etc.

Thirdly, to build local capacity in using low-cost WASH technologies. Depending on the country, this can be done through supporting the development of WASH technology centers or providing tailor-made trainings to the local private sector or local NGO's, such as those done by our partner Practica Foundation. WASH technology centers, which are under development in a number of countries, act as local knowledge basis, training location, local R&D, etc. Activities will include sharing educational materials and providing or facilitating focused technical trainings.

Finally, to adapt technologies for which the need is apparent from the contextual analysis to local circumstances and make the results available to a wider audience.

On the first of December, the WASH Alliance submitted their proposal for a grant of 68.8 million Euro for the sustainable provision of water and sanitation services in 11 countries.

MFS II is the grant framework for Dutch civil society organisations (CSOs) that work systematically to achieve a sustainable reduction in poverty. A sum of €2.125 billion has been earmarked for the provision of grants within this framework between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2015.