Policy review of the Dutch contribution to drinking water and sanitation – 1990-2011

Tesselaar, R. et al., 2012. From infrastructure to sustainable impact : policy review of the Dutch contribution to drinking water and sanitation (1990-2011). (IOB evaluation ; no. 366). The Hague, The Netherlands, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. 132 p. : 9 fig., 12 tab. 54 ref.
Available at: <http://washurl.net/d6qgwq> [PDF 4.6 MB]

This policy review examines Dutch aid during 1990 to 2011 to improve drinking water and sanitation services in developing countries. The main focus is on the period from 2004 when aid was directed at supporting the Millennium Development Goal of halving the world’s population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015.

The review is primarily based on:

• a study of Dutch policy and its execution;
• impact evaluation studies of drinking water and sanitation programmes in Benin, Egypt, Yemen, Mozambique and Tanzania.

Following an introduction, chapter 2 covers the problem analysis and international context. Chapter 3 describes the Dutch policy that lies at the basis of the targets for drinking water and sanitation, the responsibilities, instruments and policy execution, the budgets, monitoring and evaluation and the available information about the realisation of the contribution to the MDG target for drinking water and sanitation. Chapter 4 analyses the impact of the Netherlands-supported programmes and sustainability of results. The final chapter discusses findings that concern policy efficiency.

The main findings were:

• Dutch aid helped millions of people gain access to improved drinking water supply and sanitation
• the substantial increase in the use of improved water sources did not a guarantee the safety of the drinking water or the necessary water consumption
• effects of training and education on the building of toilets and their use and on hygiene was often limited and sanitary facilities were often too expensive for the poor
• improved access to drinking water supply significantly reduced women’s burden and increased their participation in programmes, and gave girls more time for school, but had a limited impact on income
• positive health impacts were generally modest or non-existent
• water supplies benefitted many poor communities but to a lesser extent the poorest segment while sanitation increased mainly in better off villages and households
• capacity of local communities, governments and NGOs for the maintenance of the facilities remained insufficient, there was limited involvement of the private sector, and partial subsidies remain necessary
• costs of communal water supplies and of privately owned toilets made with local materials were low, but benefits were often limited
• internal policy processes still fell short

SWITCH in the city: putting urban water management to the test

Butterworth, J. (ed.); McIntyre, P. (ed.); Da Silva Wells, C. (ed.) (2011). SWITCH in the city : putting urban water management to the test. The Hague, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. v, 413 p.; fig.; tab.; boxes.
Download full publication

With more than half the planet’s population living in urban areas, and rapid growth predicted, cities present a daunting test in water management. Their scale and concentrated populations provide a special challenge in providing water and sanitation services, creating a safe and pleasant environment, and handling wastes. As sustainability concerns have risen up the agenda, the challenge is for cities to do more, with less. To provide better services to all citizens, with less negative and more positive environment impacts on cities and their rural hinterlands. The SWITCH project was a five year experiment focused on some of the key sustainability challenges in urban water management. In a number of cities around the globe, it set out to test what was needed for a transition to more sustainable urban water management through a combination of demand-led research, demonstration activities, multistakeholder learning and associated training and capacity building. The book brings together the experiences of 12 cities involved in the SWITCH project from four continents (Accra, Alexandria, Beijing, Belo Horizonte, Birmingham, Bogotá, Cali, Hamburg, Lima, Lodz, Tel Aviv and Zaragoza) with a set of guidelines focused on promoting stakeholder engagement in such processes. It is targeted at people interested in undertaking demand-led research, promoting multi-stakeholder engagement, and scaling up research impacts, not only in urban water management but also in other areas where we find such complex and ‘wicked’ problems. [authors abstract]

Access to water, women’s work and child outcomes

Koolwal, G. and Van de Walle, D. (2010). Access to water, women’s work and child outcomes. (Policy research working paper ; WPS 5302). Washington, DC, USA, World Bank. 39 p. : 9 tab. 46 ref.
Download full paper

Poor rural women in the developing world spend considerable time collecting water. How then do they respond to improved access to water infrastructure? Does it increase their participation in income earning market-based activities? Does it improve the health and education outcomes of their children? To help address these questions, a new approach for dealing with the endogeneity of infrastructure placement in cross-sectional surveys is proposed and implemented using data for nine developing countries [Madagascar, Malawi, Rwanda and Uganda ; India, Nepal and Pakistan ; Morocco ; and Yemen]. The paper does not find that access to water comes with greater off-farm work for women, although in countries where substantial gender gaps in schooling exist, both boys’ and girls’ enrollments improve with better access to water. There are also some signs of impacts on child health as measured by anthropometric z-scores.

** 95/96

The above figure, based on Koolwal, G. and Van de Walle, D. (2010), was included in a presentation by Jaehyang So (2010), “How can the G20 best support economic development through Infrastructure?”

Corresponding author: Dominique van de Walle, World Bank, USA, dvandewalle [at] worldbank.org

Greywater use in the Middle East : technical, social, economic and policy issues

Greywater use in the Middle East : technical, social, economic and policy issues
Edited by Stephen McIlwaine and Mark Redwood
Practical Action/CSBE/IDRC 2010
ISBN 978-1-85339-698-4
e-ISBN 978-1-55250-466-6
200 pp.

View online and download full publication

In water-scarce areas of the Middle East, greywater (household wastewater excluding toilet waste) is commonly used by poor communities to irrigate home gardens. This both supplements the water available to the household and improves food security.

This book draws together material presented at a conference in Jordan in 2007, and examines the technical approaches to treating and using greywater for irrigation, including its associated risks to health and the environment. It discusses many of the non-technical issues that influence effectiveness and sustainability of greywater use. It also takes a hard look at economic issues, arguing that more clarity and consistency from policymakers is essential if low-income, water-stressed communities are to make better and safer use of their existing water supplies. The book concludes by offering suggestions for where donor efforts and research could best be focused in the near future.

Greywater use in the Middle East is important reading for researchers, donors, implementing agencies, and policymakers, in the fields of water supply, water reuse, livelihoods and agriculture.

Wastewater irrigation and health : assessing and mitigating risk in low-income countries

Wastewater irrigation and health : assessing and mitigating risk in low-income countries
Edited by Pay Drechsel, Christopher A. Scott, Liqa Raschid-Sally, Mark Redwood, and Akiça Bahri
Earthscan/IWMI/IDRC 2010
ISBN 978-1-84407-795-3
e-ISBN 978-1-55250-475-8
432 pp.

View or download full publication

In most developing countries wastewater treatment systems have very low coverage or function poorly, resulting in large-scale water pollution and the use of poor-quality water for crop irrigation, especially in the vicinity of urban centres. This can pose significant risks to public health, particularly where crops are eaten raw.

Wastewater Irrigation and Health approaches this serious problem from a practical and realistic perspective, addressing the issues of health risk assessment and reduction in developing country settings. The book therefore complements other books on the topic of wastewater which focus on high-end treatment options and the use of treated wastewater.

This book moves the debate forward by covering also the common reality of untreated wastewater, greywater and excreta use. It presents the state-of-the-art on quantitative risk assessment and low-cost options for health risk reduction, from treatment to on-farm and off-farm measures, in support of the multiple barrier approach of the 2006 guidelines for safe wastewater irrigation published by the World Health Organization. The 38 authors and co-authors are international key experts in the field of wastewater irrigation representing a mix of agronomists, engineers, social scientists and public health experts from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and Australia. The chapters highlight experiences across the developing world with reference to various case studies from sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Mexico and the Middle East. The book also addresses options for resource recovery and wastewater governance, thus clearly establishes a connection between agriculture, health and sanitation, which is often the missing link in the current discussion on ‘making wastewater an asset’.

TheArabWaterChannel

TheArabWaterChannel – www.thearabwaterchannel.tv – is a new theme site presenting videos (ten at present) on water issues in the 22 countries that make up the Arab World.

It was set up by the Arab Water Council in partnership with TheWaterChannel, which hosts the site, and with the support of From the Source, an interactive multimedia platform for water issues in the Middle East.

Making the most of the water we have : the soft path approach to water management

Brooks, D.B., Brandes, O.M. and Gurman, S. (2009). Making the most of the water we have : the soft path approach to water management. London, UK, Earthscan. 272 p. ISBN 9781844077540
Price: £49.95
Order online here

Publisher’s description:

“Demand for water is one of the major challenges of the current century, but past approaches are no longer sufficient. Based on the “soft path” approach to the energy sector, a transition is now under way to a soft path for water. This approach starts by ensuring that ecosystem needs for water are satisfied and then undertakes a radical approach to reducing human uses of water by economic and social incentives, including open decision-making, water markets and equitable pricing, and the application of super-efficient technology, all applied in ways that avoid jeopardizing quality of life.

This book is the first to present and apply the water soft path approach. It has three aims: to bring to a wider audience the concept and the potential of water soft paths; to demonstrate that soft path analysis is analytical and practical, and not just “eco-dreaming”; and to indicate that soft paths are not only conceptually attractive but that they can be made economically and politically feasible. These goals are reflected by the scope of the book which is organized around the three aspects of any soft path: a vision of a sustainable water future based on the soft path concept; an analytic method to define alternative routes to get to that future (most literally, the soft paths), as illustrated by case studies in Canada and elsewhere: and a tool kit for planners and other practitioners”.

Chapter 17 is on “Water Soft Path Thinking in Developing Countries” with examples from South Africa, India, and Middle East and North Africa.

Community-Led Total Sanitation

This site replaces the Livelihoods Connect hot topic on CLTS. It is currently still under construction.

The CLTS website forms a part of the project: Going to Scale? The Potential of Community-Led Total Sanitation. This research project is managed by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID).

The CLTS website aims to be the global hub for CLTS, connecting the network of practitioners, communities, NGOs, agencies, researchers, governments, donors and others involved or interested in CLTS. The site contains practical information about the approach, information on CLTS in different countries, research papers, relevant news and events and other materials.

Local Governance for Basic Urban Services – Country cases from Burkina Faso, Egypt and Sri Lanka

Blankwaardt, B., Casella, D., Smet, S. and Snel, M. (2008) Local governance for basic urban services : country cases from Burkina Faso, Egypt and Sri Lanka 2003 – 2007.  (Technical paper / IRC ; no. 51). Delft, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. 56 p.
Download here

The Basic Urban Services (BUS) Initiative aims to strengthen the capacity of local authorities and their partners in dealing with access to basic urban services, such as water and sanitation, in poorly serviced low-income urban neighbourhoods. These services affect the majority of the urban poor and represent the most common environmental issues needing to be addressed at local level.

This booklet presents a summary of IRC activities within the BUS framework, carried out over a five-year period (2003-2007) through an Agreement of Cooperation with UNCHS (UN-Habitat). The activities formed an integral part of the Second Phase Dutch Support to the Sustainable Cities Programme (SCP), aimed at ensuring that local partners, including municipalities, play an important role in achieving the Millennium Declaration targets for poverty reduction.

This booklet underlines how good local governance – the result of interactions, relationships and networks between different sectors of society – is a precondition for sustainable delivery and improved access to basic urban services by the urban poor. Since governance involves decision-taking and negotiation to determine who gets what, it is politically sensitive and strongly affected by power relationships.

This booklet highlights the major experiences and lessons learnt and the remaining challenges. It also suggests ways forward, in particular in scaling up BUS demonstration projects. It will be of interest not only to those involved in the BUS/SCP project, but also to readers who want to know more about the process, outcomes and future prospects for projects like this.

Water and peace for the people

Water and peace for the people : possible solutions to water disputes in the Middle East
Jon Martin Trondalen
Water and Conflict Resolution Series – UNESCO-IHP (New series)
Book, 246 pages, 16 maps, 7 tables, 23 figs, colour photographs, annexes, biblio., index
2008, ISBN 978-92-3-104086-3
Price: € 38.00
Order here

This book proposes practical and objective solutions to the entrenched water conflicts in the Middle East. The author reveals and clarifies the complexity of the water conflicts, drawing on years of experience facilitating and chairing water negotiations in the region.

The bottom line is: Unless the countries involved co-operate, the consequences will be devastating. The lack of plentiful and clean water for the people will not only result in severe human suffering, but could also have grave geopolitical consequences.

The book covers four critical areas:
- the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, where new documentation reveals alarming trends,
- the politically sensitive Golan Heights, with its water disputed by Israel and Syria,
- the Hasbani water dispute between Lebanon and Israel,
- the longstanding water resource dispute between the Israelis and Palestinians.