Everyone Defined
Water For People’s mission, like many in the water and sanitation space, says we are working towards a world where everyone has access to improved supplies of water and hygienic sanitation services sustainably. This means that water flows forever and pathogen-rich fecal matter never again threatens human health. Success will create the foundations for countries to develop, communities to thrive, girls and boys to attend school and water- and sanitation-related diseases to be so dramatically reduced that they no longer are a threat.
A big ambition! But how do we achieve this grand goal? How does Water For People actually program and operate to give real meaning to this ambition, so that the mission may become achievable, not simply aspirational?
- Focus our finances, technical support and creativity in geographically defined regions in the countries where we work (districts and municipalities)
- Initiate a process that moves these districts and municipalities from whatever level of coverage they are currently at to full coverage – so that EVERYONE in that district/municipality has access to improved supplies of water and hygienic sanitation services, forever
- EVERYONE means exactly – everyone. Rich and poor, easy to reach and hard to reach. Politically connected and politically isolated. Every household, every school, every clinic - EVERYONE
- Recognizing that populations change over time, the program will only be a success if the services delivered actually change with the populations of the districts/municipalities. It is not good enough to simply reach the target of full coverage (EVERYONE) in a district for the percentage of people served to decline over time as populations grow and/or communities are reshaped in terms of settlement patterns. No, success will be the establishment of systems and institutional capacity to continue to extend services to new families and new residents without the continual support of Water For People
- Key indicators for water supply will be water quality, quantity, access, limited system disruption (less than 1 day/month) and finances sufficient to operate, maintain and eventually replace water systems when they age. Sanitation indicators will focus on the hygienic maintenance and use of sanitation systems, and handwashing will be tracked.
- Redefine the “project” – current thinking is that the project is all up-front training (“capacity building”), planning and infrastructure construction. Various financial mechanisms are used to accomplish this work (grants, loans, etc.). The wreckage of broken water projects and abandoned latrines littering Africa, Asia and Latin America shows us, if nothing else, that this definition of the project, and programming/funding that enables this poor work to continue, is bankrupt. Instead, the project is now ensuring that water flows, sanitation is sustained and hands washed over time. To do this, the project must include all the work needed to implement infrastructure, the actual implementation of infrastructure and the necessary long-term follow-up support to ensure that water keeps flowing, latrines keep being used, hands keep being washed and services grow as new households are formed and settlement patterns change. This is the basis for our 10-year commitment to monitoring – to ensure skills are applied and institutionalized, to learn from the strategies applied that seem to achieve these outcomes and rethink the strategies that fall short of these goals. Success will be achieved when our support declines over time, and when monitoring continues by local actors without our on-going support
- Operate in the full knowledge that not only can we not accomplish this task alone, but most importantly, understand that Water For People operating alone actually undermines the likelihood that the program will be a success. To succeed, we must operate in a way that makes our engagement less important over time while building the involvement of key local actors – government, the local private sector, local civil society and communities
- This means many things – first, Water For People stands by the principle that it should never fully finance water and sanitation investments. Co-finance must come from communities and governments. Water For People continues to develop a wide range of financial mechanisms to meet the challenge of water and sanitation financing, including mixtures of partial grants, microfinance, and strategic financial investments (debt, equity and combinations of all the above) to create the widest range of options available to achieve the goal of sustained full coverage. Success is seen when the percentage of finances provided by Water For People declines over time in the areas we work so that the works dependence on our finances rightly becomes less important over time. Second, branding the program as “Water For People’s” is dangerous. Instead, EVERYONE should become a movement, led as much as possible by local, regional and national governments, communities, local enterprises, and local civil society actors. International agencies should support local efforts at water and sanitation independence, and should work together to achieve the ambitious goals being set locally. As such, regions where we work should never be considered areas “off-limits” to other water and sanitation agencies. We stand a better chance of succeeding through collaboration!
- Success is that EVERYONE stays covered over time, that water and sanitation systems are replaced with locally generated finances over time, and that these regions where we work never need another international water and sanitation agency’s support to address their water and sanitation challenges moving forward.
Comments (10)
Christian Muhawenimana10 months ago
Ned, the meeting must have been very fruitfull for both sides (IDB&W4P). I am glad you managed to convince IDB that our role is not to be there all the time, rather to influence the communities to realize their full potentials. We have to make sure that the communities can manage and maintain the infrastructures put in place even after we will have gone. However, this is a long term process. In the first round of the process, I think we have to parterner with the communities so that we put in place some infrastrucutrures. The sencond round should be then to build their capacity (may be train community water boards) so that they can maintain those infrastrucutres.
If we could afford to reach that level in some places in countries where we are operating, then the next step would be to ask the governments to replicate the approach.
Does this sound OK Ned?
Christian Muhawenimana May 23, 2011
If Rulindo Challenge is successful, Rulindo will be the first District in Rwanda, and possibly in Africa, to have 100% coverage of safe drinking water.
Everyone is a big and ambitious concept. I strongly hope that it will be achieved if governments, local partners, NGOs, every community, in fact EVERYONE, would be willing to participate in it. I think that co-financing will make it possible. If happen to get everyone involved, sustainability won't be an issue.
Kalimuthu Arumugam May 23, 2011
Excellent – captures all key aspects. Every one across our organisation should have "one voice" on this subject.
We need to have a rough estimate for full coverage in an optimum size of an administrative unit to workout resource implication? For example, in each block in India would have a population of 400,000 to 500,000, over 100s of high schools, 200+ primary schools, one primary health centre and 3 to 5 sub centres, block office etc… within the available resources, what would be our strategy to achieve a full coverage in an administrative unit such as block? How many blocks can we target ?
Michael Chimaliza May 18, 2011
What a great idea to help achieve the MDGs by 2015. This idea if embraced is going to revolutionalize hoe NGOs and government approach water and sanitation work. Initially we have been thinking of achieving to a certain level of coverege. But truly, the question is: what about the few individuals, schools and clinics left without access to safe water and improved sanitation. What we have been forgetting is that even in principals of public health it says that if there are a few individuals practicing open defecation and drinking from unprotected sources, these would be potential sources of infection.
However we have a challenge: convincing goverment and other NGOs to embrace this approach. This is a gainst a background of allocating one NGO to one area and many NGOs disliking partnership with other NGOs. As we have seen from this blog, evryone also means every participation of government, the local private sector, local civil society and communities. I saw this in Rulindo challenge during my maiden visit to Kigali.
Elias Assaf May 13, 2011
Inspiring!
Congratulations great Job!
Jim Hocking May 13, 2011
NIce Job, Water for People....the target is great. Lets start defining each step so that as you move forward with this project being monitored for 10 years we can all gain knowledge into what step we are on and how much further we have to go. Actors all need to be involved too but the definition of what that means both to "set up" the water system (tap stand, hand pump, water catchment etc.) as well as the maintaining and and expanding of that system for the future growth of the "everyone". Looking forward to more steps so we can implement in the countries we are working in.
Satyanarayan Ghosh May 13, 2011
The target / vision is grate and that is something wherein WATER FOR PEOPLE is different from others. However, the more important is about the way how we should demonstrate and sustain this. Looking one step ahead, we also think about how we can mainstreame this idea with the government syste.
Muthi May 13, 2011
great vision - simple, crisp and clear HOWEVER challenging. i am wondering that we would have to do to convince a great many people of the possibility of this in view donor-dependent government bureaucracies and the accepted NGO view that SMART means working within a fixed defined scope. it will be a challenge but Hey! isnt everything else we are doing @ W4P just that!
Kate Harawa May 7, 2011
I like the word EVERYONE and how helps to describe our work in line with our mission-
A thousand kilometer journey starts with the first step- we will start with everyone in the districts
Steven Sugden May 6, 2011
Slick and very watchable. Compelling message, even though I'm not entirely sure how to achieve it.
