This site has a wealth of resources for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) practitioners collected by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). Although the focus is on WASH resources for emergencies, many of the field tools and resources are also applicable in non-emergency situations. Of special interest are the WASH information, education materials (IEC) materials, which are made accessible by topic and regions.
This document sets out WaterAid’s framework for hygiene promotion and behaviour change in the countries where it works. It will also help organisations that work on hygiene in the context of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programmes. WaterAid has developed similar frameworks for sanitation and menstrual hygiene.
The framework’s structure is as follows:
WaterAid, 2012. Hygiene framework. WaterAid, London, UK. 56 p. : 9 fig., 1 tab., photogr. Includes glossary and references. Available at: http://washurl.net/6fyfgy
This thematic brief summarises the key findings of the SREX report relevant to water resources and water management. The Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) was commissioned by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The brief includes material directly taken from the SREX report but it also presents synthesis messages that are the views of the authors of this brief and do not necessarily those of the IPCC.
Aimed primarily at water sector policy-makers and planners, the brief discusses three main questions:
Back, E., Cameron, C., Norrington-Davies, G. and Mitchell, T., 2012. Managing climate extremes and disasters in the water sector : lessons from the IPCC SREX Report. [online] London, UK: The Climate and Development Knowledge Network, CDKN. 30 p.; ill.; tab.; fig.
Available at: <cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/SREX-Summary-WATER_web.pdf>
Posted in Emergencies, Policies & legislation, Publications, Water resources management, Water supply
Tagged climate change, IPCC, SREX
Casey, V., Carter, R. and Yeo, D., 2012. Water security framework. London, UK: WaterAid. 64 p. : 17 fig., 2 tab. Includes appendix with definitions, a glossary and 83 references
Available at: <http://washurl.net/c4jxeo> [Accessed 25 July 2012]
WaterAid have published a water security framework which links sustainable WASH services to livelihood, environmental and food security water uses. It is to be used together with WaterAid’s previously published Sustainability Framework.
The document sets out fundamental priorities for improving the water security of poor and marginalised people as part of a community based approach to water resource management. It describes the nature of the global water crisis as it affects those who do not have access to improved services and calls for Water Resource Management plans and policies to reflect realities on the ground. It puts forward minimum commitments that WaterAid will implement as part of its service delivery work ensuring that it meets with high quality standards.
The framework document has five parts.
Part 1 introduces WaterAid’s definition of water security and how it can be measured.
Part 2 elaborates on the multiple threats to communities’ water security. Besides climate change, these include serious near-term challenges such as population growth, weak political will, low institutional capacities, environmental degradation, intense seasonality, inadequate management of water resources, inadequate disaster risk reduction planning, and poor siting, design and construction of water sources.
Part 3 discussed the four main dimensions of water security: reliable access, quantity, quality and risk of water-related disasters.
Part 4 presents community-based water resource management (CBWRM) approaches to improve water security, based on the ABCDE framework, which stands for Assessment, Bargaining, Codification, Delegation and Engineering.
Part 5 lists WaterAid’s minimum commitments to ensuring water security. They are divided into overriding minimum commitments that apply to all interventions, plus specific additional commitments for drilled water wells, hand-dug wells, spring/river-fed gravity schemes, water treatment and for drought-prone areas.
World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP) and UN-Water, 2012. United Nations world water development report 4 : managing water under uncertainty and risk. (World Water Development Report / United Nations; no. 4). [online] Paris, France: UNESCO. 3 vol. (xii, 867 p.; ill.; tab.; fig.; boxes; maps). ISBN 978-92-3-104235-5
Available at: <http://washurl.net/7e1itc>
The fourth edition of the World Water Development Report (WWDR4) is a comprehensive review of the world’s freshwater resources and seeks to demonstrate, among other messages, that water underpins all aspects of development, and that a coordinated approach to managing and allocating water is critical. The Report underlines that in order to meet multiple goals water needs to be an intrinsic element in decision-making across the whole development spectrum.
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:
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:
Despite progress on many fronts, governments around the world are still confronted with the need to reform their existing water policies in order to meet current objectives and future challenges identified by the OECD Environment Outlook to 2050. Population growth, urbanisation, and changing lifestyles as a result of economic growth are key drivers of these challenges, while increasing spatial and temporal water variability resulting from climate change will exacerbate these pressures.
Building on these water challenges, this report examines three fundamental areas that need to be addressed whatever reform agendas are pursued by governments: financing of the water sector; the governance and institutional arrangements that are in place; and coherence between water policies and policies in place in other sectors of the economy. The report provides governments in both OECD and non-OECD countries with practical advice and policy tools to pursue urgent reform in their water sectors.
After framing the water reform challenge, the book examines the policy challenges surrounding the financing of water supply and sanitation and presents a policy toolkit that can underpin policy dialogues to stimulate much needed reform. The chapter also addresses the growing problem of financing the broader water resources management functions of government.
The next chapter highlights the key governance challenges confronting water policy reform, focusing on the issues arising from the multi-level governance structure that generally characterises water resources management.
The final chapter examines the coherence issues raised by the linkages between water, energy and agriculture and presents a number of steps that governments need to take to address the water coherence challenge.
OECD (2012). Meeting the water reform challenge. (OECD studies on water). Paris, France: OECD Publishing. 172 p.: 17 boxes, 25 fig., 16 tab. ISBN: 9789264169999. Available at: <doi: 10.1787/9789264170001-en> [Accessed 18 May 2012]
Watch a video on the global water challenge and OECD’s response.
Verhoeven, J., Uytewaal, E., and Harpe, J. de la, 2011. Aid effectiveness in the water and sanitation sector : policies, practices and perspectives. (Thematic overview paper / IRC; 26). [online] . The Hague, The Netherlands: IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. 83 p.; 6 fig.; 2 boxes. With bibliography on p. 53 – 80 and a list of relevant sites on p. 81 – 83
Available at: <http://www.irc.nl/top26>
This paper examines the aid effectiveness agenda and reviews its implementation at international and various regional and county levels. The paper begins with a brief historical snapshot of the beginnings of the aid effectiveness agenda and how it had evolved over the years. It is followed by a discussion of the main mechanisms that deliver aid and how aid effectiveness had been put in practice in the water and sanitation sector. Highlighting the obstacles faced by the sector in making aid more effective, as well as on-going initiatives in rescuing the developmental potential of aid effectiveness, in this TOP, the writers offer a preliminary insight into how the contours of the aid effectiveness agenda may be redefined to better suit the developmental needs of countries. [authors abstract]
Related web sites:
Fagan, B. (2011). Elixir: a history of water and humankind. Bloomsbury. 416 p. ISBN-13: 9781608190034. ISBN-10: 160819003X
Price: US$ 28.00
More information
Publisher’s abstract:
Elixir spans five millennia, from ancient Mesopotamia to the parched present of the Sun Belt. As Brian Fagan shows, every human society has been shaped by its relationship toour most essential resource. Fagan’s sweeping narrative moves across the world, from ancient Greece and Rome, whose mighty aqueducts still supply modern cities, to China, where emperors marshaled armies of laborers in a centuries-long struggle to tame powerful rivers. He sets out three ages of water: In the first age, lasting thousands of years, water was scarce or at best unpredictable-so precious that it became sacred in almost every culture.
By the time of the Industrial Revolution, human ingenuity had made water flow even in the most arid landscapes.This was the second age: water was no longer a mystical force to be worshipped and husbanded, but a commodity to be exploited. The American desert glittered with swimming pools- with little regard for sustainability. Today, we are entering a third age of water: As the earth’s population approaches nine billion and ancient aquifers run dry,we will have to learn once again to show humility, even reverence, for this vital liquid. To solve the water crises of the future, we may need to adapt the water ethos of our ancestors.
Read book reviews in The Telegraph, Hydro-Logic (with map of locations mentioned in the book),
Read an article by the author Brian Fagan on the topic of his book in The Independent.
Related web sites:
Posted in Policies & legislation, Publications, Water resources management
Tagged water history
Smits, S., Dietvorst, C., Verhoeven, J. and Butterworth, J. (2011). Scanning the 2020 horizon : an analysis of trends and scenarios in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector. (Occasional paper series / IRC ; no. 45). The Hague, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. 72 p. : 13 fig., 15 tab. Includes references
Download full report
What will the international Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector look like in, let us say, 10 years from now? Will access to sanitation still lag behind water supply, or will it evolve into a stand-alone sub-sector with its own set of dedicated institutions and organisations? Will aid continue to play a predominant role in investing in WASH infrastructure, or will emerging economies increase their investments in the sector? And, how will trends outside the sector, such as urbanisation or changes in food prices, affect the sector?
Scanning the 2020 horizon presents 21 trends that the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre considers most critical to WASH sector development. It examines trends both within the WASH sector, as well as those outside the sector which have the potential to impact on the sector. Many of these are updates of factors identified in a similar exercise undertaken five years ago by IRC.
In general, compared to five years ago, IRC sees little change in the main paradigms employed in the sector, the issues discussed, the stakeholders involved, or the type and level of financing. This is not surprising as reforms take time.
Based on these trends we developed four possible scenarios, representing diverging futures for the WASH sector:
Scenario 1: Two steps forward; one step back for the sector
Scenario 2: New players in a less stable environment
Scenario 3: Towards a post-aid WASH sector
Scenario 4: A multi-polar WASH sector
The document concludes with reflections on how IRC has used these trends and scenarios to inform its strategic choices and the development of its business plan 2012-2016.
Finally, IRC calls upon other sector organisations to undertake similar exercises, not only to support individual organisational development, but also to ensure a contribution to a better understanding of what will be required within and from the WASH sector as we near the 2015 MDG target date and beyond.
