SustainableWASH.org

A global portal for advancing sustainability in WASH

February 2013

PGWI's 6th Annual Conference- Gender & Water: Leading Beyond the Burden

Tuesday, April 9, 2013 - 08:00

Wharton, University of Pennsylvania

The Conference will highlight and share best practices and solutions for the women, water and sanitation crisis among world leaders, top-tier universities and companies and to build upon global water and environment conferences to go beyond talk and into action.

To register, go here.
To view the agenda for the event, go here.

Developing Financially Sustainable Approaches to WASH Webinar

Thursday, March 7, 2013 - 11:00

While there seems to be an emerging consensus that cost recovery is an integral part of WASH sustainability, it is not yet entirely clear how that should be applied across contexts. This webinar will bring together a diverse range of award winning organizations to discuss payment mechanisms, prices, and profitability for safe water services. By looking through various lenses, this webinar will provide a concrete understanding of the challenges and promising approaches to reaching financial WASH Sustainability.

'It's Africa's Time' airs on CNBC Africa, First Episode on Safe Water for Africa (SWA)

Thu, 02/21/2013 - 11:03 -- Ariel Sayre

See the full article here.

Newly launched series, 'It's Africa's Time' reviews the broad-scale impacts of economic growth and poverty reduction interventions in Ghana, Zambia and Nigeria.

The series made its debut on Monday, 18 February 2013 on CNBC Africa, DSTV channel 410, with repeats on Friday, 22 February at 9.30pm and Saturday, 23 February at 10.00am CAT.

Mapping the Way: What water point mapping technologies are there and how do they compare to one another?

Thu, 02/14/2013 - 11:53 -- Ariel Sayre

A research team from Georgia Tech surveyed five water point mapping technologies; Episurveyor, OpenXdata, DataTap, DeviceMagic, and FLOW. For more information, see their full blog post.

What are other water point mapping technologies in the sector and how do they compare to these five?

Mapping the Way: Experiences with Water Mapping Technologies in Nicaragua

Thu, 02/14/2013 - 09:41 -- Anonymous (not verified)

Article By Emma Bones, Graduate Research Assistant
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

Why is failure so common for water and sanitation systems in developing countries? Why is operation and maintenance such a huge challenge for many governments and NGOs? And, most importantly, why does this statistic still hold (more or less) true thirty years after it was originally discovered? These were several of the main questions driving our research team as we traveled to Nicaragua during the summer of 2012 to test some of the newest and most promising water mapping technologies.

The call for proposals for the lunch session at the Forum has closed!

Thank you for sending in proposals to be a lunch presenter at the 2013 WASH Sustainability Forum!

We are currently in the process of selecting who will showcase their PechaKucha-style presentation during this session. If we had enough time, everyone would be allowed to present -- all of the submissions were phenomenal! Sadly, the schedule of the Forum is tight (it's full of exciting, impactful sessions) and we can only have a limited number of lunch presenters. If you submitted a proposal, we will be back in touch with you soon with our decision.

The Sustainability Framework and Assessment Tool

Average: 4 (1 vote)
The Sustainability Framework and Assessment Tool was developed at the Center for Public Health Systems Science (CPHSS), a public research center at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. CPHSS is a recognized leader in public health systems research and evaluation.

Thank you to all those who participated in the webinar on Friday!

Tue, 02/05/2013 - 10:27 -- Ariel Sayre

The Measuring Sustainability webinar hosted by GWC, WASH Advocates and SustainableWASH.org this past Friday was a great success! Thank you to all of our participants and to the webinar team. We hope to continue the conversation. Be sure to check out the questions and to comment to keep the conversation going.

Have any of the presenters used participatory methods of measuring sustainability?

Fri, 02/01/2013 - 15:11 -- Ariel Sayre

Have any of the presenters used participatory methods of measuring sustainability? How were the end users involved? And does more research need to be conducted to involve the end user in the measuring tools presented?

How are the results of the Sustainability Check communicated with national stakeholders?

Fri, 02/01/2013 - 15:00 -- Marie Linne von Berg

Can you explain how the results of the Sustainability Check (SC) are actually communicated with national stakeholders (government at district, provincial levels etc?) and give a concrete example of something that changed as a result of the SC tool?

What are your thoughts on the practicality of real-time monitoring?

Fri, 02/01/2013 - 14:58 -- Marie Linne von Berg

My question relates to the timing of the sustainability check. I wonder what role mobile technology can/should play in enabling the communities to report problems in real time. This question builds on the earlier question about engaging the community in the monitoring of their water service. Of course, real-time monitoring would only be successful if there is likely to be a real-time response to reported problems. I'd be interested to here your thoughts on the practicality of this idea for Mozambique (from a technical, management/institutional, and financial perspective).

What can we learn from the Seattle water company economic analysis for the rural water sector in the developing context?

Fri, 02/01/2013 - 14:56 -- Marie Linne von Berg

What can we learn from the Seattle water company economic analysis for the rural water sector in the developing context - or are they too different?

Can we compare the cost of including running maintenace or not?

Fri, 02/01/2013 - 14:54 -- Marie Linne von Berg

There is also the running maintenance which can contribute to increasing the life time of the installation. The down side is the cost in maintaining skilled labour over time (specifically for rural water installations). Can we compare the cost in including running maintenace and not?

Will impact monitoring be included?

Fri, 02/01/2013 - 14:53 -- Marie Linne von Berg

From your presentation, the Sustainability Check focuses more output (system functioning). What about the impact (long term - effect or change in the lives of people using the water). I think the objective of water provision is to have an impact on disease reduction and improve livelihoods. So if the systems functions well, is it automatic that people uses it? How can we link this to the use of multiple sources of water? Should impact monitoring be included?

How do we articulate the need for operations and maintenance (O&M) to donors?

Fri, 02/01/2013 - 14:49 -- Marie Linne von Berg

How do we articulate the need for O&M to donors? As much as we would all like to put our budget towards long-term O&M of systems donors often do not want to pay for O&M because its not as "sexy" as contributing to a new system?