Category Archives: Publications

There’s a Line Drawn Between Clean Water, Climate Change and COVID-19

Posted on March 24, 2020 by | Leave a comment

There’s a Line Drawn Between Clean Water, Climate Change and COVID-19. Engineering for Change, March 23, 2020

CONTRIBUTOR: PALLAVI BHARADWAJ

World Water Day and the theme this year is water and climate change. Dr. John Matthews, E.D.-AGWA, is a veteran of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP. He noted recently in a webinar that when he attended COP-15 in Copenhagen in 2009, he was only one of a handful of experts talking about water and climate change. Later this year in Glasgow at COP-26, water shall be front and center for most of the climate-change related talks and discussions.

Water is the connecting link to most everything when it comes to climate change. If we have water in access, we experience floods, not enough causes droughts. There is also the issue of quantity and quality of water and how it contributes to climate change either directly or indirectly.

According to Henk Ovink, Special Envoy for International Water Affairs for the Kingdom of the Netherlands, humans need water to survive, as do all the systems we rely on: sanitation, healthcare, education, business and industry. Action plans to tackle climate change need to be integrated across different sectors and coordinated across borders. And they must have one thing in common: safe and sustainable water management.

Financial institutions also need to do their bit by considering the holistic systems based approaches while considering to finance a new project or venture. There have been some breakthroughs in the form of Climate Bonds in China and the new Green Deal in the US but the banks and investments institutions need to do more, according to Mr. Ovink.

SOLUTIONS TO COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE AND PROVIDE SAFE WASH

The E4C Solutions Library is a living database of products and services that are intended to be accessible and appropriate for those living in poverty. In addition to the Solutions Library, E4C has recently partnered with Siemens USA to offer the Innovate for Impact Design Challenge. Under the challenge you can identify a problem, or opportunity, within SDG2 (zero hunger) and SDG6 (clean water and sanitation).

All the products and services in E4C’s SL, the design challenge with Siemens and all other offerings in the form of webinars and resources aim towards addressing climate change, water and ultimately achieving the UN-SDGs for all by 2030.

Read the complete article.

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Priorities for the WASH sector in Ethiopia: report from a multi-stakeholder forum

Posted on February 28, 2020 by | Leave a comment

By María Florencia Rieiro, Independent WASH Consultant

The annual Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Multi-Stakeholder Forum (MSF) is the most important WASH sector event in Ethiopia with over 300 participants. The first WASH MSF was conducted in 2006 under the auspices of the European Union Water Initiative for WASH sector coordination. The Government Ethiopia’s WASH organisations (education, finance, health and water) took over the WASH sector coordination process later on and, since then, the Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy has led the National WASH Steering Committee and the organisation of the MSF.

2019 marked the 10th MSF for WASH and the 2nd MSFProceedings joint 10th WASH-WRM MulitiStakeholder Forum - cover for the Joint WASH-WRM. The event was held in Addis Ababa on 26th-27th November under the theme “Accelerating integrated, inclusive, sustainable and quality WASH services and water resources management for achieving the SDGs”. Among the WASH topics discuss, it is relevant to highlight equity, inclusion and accessibility in WASH, WASH marketing, WASH financing gaps and financing and equity, quality in WASH, sustainability in WASH, climate-resilient water safety planning and WASH sector institutional capacity building. The MSF 10 also comprised the launch of Ethiopia’s Open Defecation Free Campaign (2020-24).  

The MSF 10 full proceedings present the main highlights of the two days event together with the 12 priority undertakings for the year 2020. From the WASH side, the priority undertakings for 2020 are the following ones:

  • Improve the institutional capacity to deliver WASH services.
  • Increase the WASH sector financing.
  • Improve the business climate for the private sector and improve the private sector’s capacity to deliver WASH services.
  • Develop robust functional planning, monitoring, and a management information system for WASH.
  • Develop rollout national strategies and the ODF campaign 2024 to eliminate open defecation (and urination) in rural and urban areas, and to improve the access to safe sanitation with dignity.

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Posted in Africa, Campaigns and Events, Publications

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Ethiopian CSOs’ contributions to the WASH sector

Posted on February 21, 2020 by | Leave a comment

Ethiopia - WASH sector report 2017-2018

A new report presents data on contributions from 29 civil society organisations (CSOs) to the Ethiopian WASH sector in 2017-2018. The CSOs reached over 8 million people through the implementation of 658 WASH programmes with a total financial allocation that exceeded 2 billion Ethiopian Birr (US$ 61.9 million).

It also provides key recommendations and ways forward which relate to a) fostering the geographic diversification of WASH programmes; b) encouraging CSOs’ involvement in emergency areas; c) revisiting the urban sanitation and hygiene situation; d) focusing further on approaches to WASH that address gender disparities; and e) strengthening the existing national WASH platforms to foster further collaborations in the WASH sector and plan for more targeted WASH interventions.

The report was published the Consortium of Christian Relief and Development Associations (CCRDA) with support from Dorcas Aid, Hilfswerk der Evangelischen Kirchen Schweiz, WaterAid and World Vision.

Read the full report.

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Sprinting the last mile in Nepal

Posted on February 19, 2020 by | Leave a comment

In September 2019, the Government of Nepal declared the country ‘open defecation free’ (ODF). Leading up to this milestone, the Government of Nepal and other sector partners focused on  the challenging Terai plains – the ‘last mile’ of Nepal’s Sanitation Campaign.

Sprinting the Last Mile: Nepal’s Sanitation Campaign in the Terai documents the key success factors from the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council’s Global Sanitation Fund programme in Nepal, executed by UN-HABITAT, concentrating on the Terai region. By building local campaign coordination bodies, leveraging local finance, and igniting broad-based movements for improving sanitation and hygiene, sanitation coverage in the Terai accelerated from around 13% to near universal coverage in just over four years, according to data from the Government of Nepal. These insights and lessons are relevant for other behaviour change-based sanitation and hygiene campaigns across Asia and beyond.

Also available in French!

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Posted in Publications, Sanitation and Health, South Asia

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IDS sanitation research | PEER research proposals | Recent WASH research

Posted on December 16, 2019 by | Leave a comment

IDS SANITATION RESEARCH

Who is being left behind in Swachh Bharat Mission? How do we include them? Immersive research report by WaterAid India with Institute of Development Studies, gives insight into who is missed in sanitation programming in areas of India and how to include them. podcast

‘More or less: A rapid review of ‘water for toilets’ in rural India’, examines both technical and behavioural aspects surrounding water collection, management and consumption related to toilet use in rural India. It provides recommendations for steps forward.

Retrofitting of toilets is a complex and challenging stream of work and is included as one of the main components of Open Defecation Free-Sustainability (ODF-S) plans under Swachh Bharat Mission- Gramin (SBM-G). This rapid topic review ‘Retrofitting: The Next Step for the Swachh Bharat Mission?’ aims to provide recent evidence and insights into the scale and nature of the challenges of retrofitting.

PEER RESEARCH PROPOSALS

PEER Cycle 9 Call for Proposals Now Open – On behalf of PEER’s sponsors at USAID, the National Academies are happy to announce that this year’s cycle of PEER is now open and accepting proposals. There are several country-specific focus areas: urban WASH and transboundary water in Afghanistan, clean energy in Bangladesh, multiple research sectors in Tunisia, and bioremediation of dioxins and furans in Vietnam.

JOURNAL ARTICLES

School-based, blacklight handwashing program can improve handwashing quality and knowledge among pre-school aged children. Evaluation and Program Planning, February 2020. Authors: Deirdre Dingman, Jingwei Wub, Heather M.Murphy – Puzzles and structured handwashing observations can be used as handwashing evaluation tools. Use of a black light technology as an educational tool can help to improve handwashing quality among pre-school aged children.

Impact of the “BALatrine” Intervention on Soil-Transmitted Helminth Infections in Central Java, Indonesia: A Pilot Study. Trop. Med. Infect. Dis., Dec 2019. We tested a low-cost, locally designed and constructed all-weather latrine (the “BALatrine”), together with community education promoting appropriate hygiene-related behaviour, to determine whether this integrated intervention effectively controlled soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections.

Relationship of sanitation, water boiling, and mosquito nets to health biomarkers in a rural subsistence population. Am Jnl Human Biology, Dec 2019. This suggests that relatively low cost and low maintenance public health interventions may wish to focus on latrine use, as there is unmet need and potential health benefits for those who use latrines. Additionally, while the cost is higher, public health organizations aimed at improving sanitation may be able to use minimally invasive field‐collected biomarkers as a diagnostic to objectively test the efficacy of interventions with greater specificity than anthropometric measurements.

Citywide Inclusive Sanitation through Scheduled Desludging Services: Emerging Experience from India. Front. Environ. Sci., 27 November 2019. This paper first reviews the need for regular desludging of septic tanks. It then outlines the emerging experience of design and implementation of scheduled desludging for inclusive, equitable, and sustainable sanitation to achieve social and environmental benefits in two Indian cities. In these cities, a performance-linked annuity payment framework is used to engage a private desludging enterprise. Payment is met through a sanitation tax and transfer from the general property taxes.

VIDEOS

Kenya RAPID video shows impact in year 4. MWA, Dec 2019. See this above video for an update on Kenya RAPID as it nears its fifth and final year of implementation.

BLOG POSTS/NEWS ARTICLES

Water, Sanitation Can Systematically Prevent Antimicrobial Resistance in India. The Wire, Dec 2019. Limited access to water, sanitation and waste management services, increases risk of infections and leads to greater dependence on antibiotics which contributes to AMR.

By, for, and of the People: How Citizen Science Enhances Water Security. New Security Beat, Dec 2019. This article is part of ECSP’s Water Security for a Resilient World series, a partnership with USAID’s Sustainable Water Partnership and Winrock International to share stories about global water security.

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Global Waters Stories – November 2019: Celebrate World Toilet Day

Posted on November 19, 2019 by | Leave a comment

Global Waters Stories – November 2019: Celebrate World Toilet Day

World Toilet Day 2019: These Countries are Making Sanitation Gains with USAID’s Help
As we celebrate the transformative public health impacts of improved sanitation this November 19, USAID takes you from Ethiopia to Indonesia in this photo essay to showcase how innovative thinking, government action, and private sector participation have helped generate some of the greatest recent sanitation success stories around the world. globalwaters

Strengthening Urban Indonesia’s Water and Sanitation Systems – USAID is working with Indonesia’s government and private sector to tackle the challenge of untreated waste through the regulation of sludge removal and provision of financing for septic tank construction.

Podcast: 2019 Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water Report – Global Waters Radio presents the WHO’s Bruce Gordon and USAID’s Oliver Subasinghe discussing this report’s key takeaways and how its data help inform the Agency’s approach to WASH investments

Read the complete issue.

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Global Waters – July 2019

Posted on July 31, 2019 by | Leave a comment

Taking the Pulse of a Water Lifeline to Hundreds of Millions

Asia’s great mountain ranges feed vast river systems that deliver snow melt, glacier ice melt, and rainwater to millions of people in downstream communities. globalwaters

But these resources are declining. USAID–supported efforts to unlock their secrets is helping prepare these communities for a more water-variable future. Read more.

Global Water and Development Report Released

USAID’s annual Global Water and Development Report provides funding data and spotlights country activities. A new companion page tracks how the Agency delivers results to millions.

Raising Voices to Save Water in the Ararat Valley

To address groundwater loss in Armenia, PURE Water promotes civic engagement, good governance, and increased transparency of water management policies and systems. Read more.

Saving Livelihoods One Drop at a Time

The Lebanon Water Project is helping the country better manage its water resources through small grants that improve the quality and quantity of water available to parched farmers. Read more.

Check out Recent Issues of Water Currents

For the latest water-related research, resources, and news, check out recent issues: Handwashing Research | Peri-Urban Sanitation. Or visit Globalwaters.org for back issues.

Link to the complete issue.

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