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

WASH technology information packages

Baumann, E., Montangero, A., Sutton, S. and Erpf. K. (2010). WASH technology information packages : for UNICEF WASH programme and supply personnel. Copenhagen, Denmark, UNICEF. 194 p. : fig., photo. Includes references.

Download package (includes a PDF file and related Excel files).

The WASH technology information packages (TIPs) are a practical set of guidelines and selection tools for WASH programme and supply staff.

The following WASH technologies are covered:

1. Hand pumps for drinking water
2. Boreholes and drilling equipment for rural water supply
3. Solar powered pumping
4. Motorized and small piped systems
5. Faecal sludge emptying equipment

The TIPs are linked to Excel spreadsheets giving selection tools and bills of quantity.

Originally written for UNICEF WASH Programme Officers, the TIPs have now been made available on the UNICEF web site. They are free to be reproduced as long as UNICEF is credited as the source.

WaterAid water source options poster

WaterAid has produced a new poster resource that rates different water supply technology options in relation to their relative capital cost, operational cost, water quantity supplied and water quality supplied.

The poster also provides information on the situations in which certain water supply technologies are most applicable.

Levels of appropriateness are colour coded based on different combinations of the above variables.

The resource can be printed as a poster on A4, A3 or A2. You can download it here:

Water source options – a comparison ( PDF 93KB)

Rainwater harvesting: a lifeline for human well-being

Barron, J. (ed) and Stockholm Environment Institute (2009). Rainwater harvesting: a lifeline for human well-being : a report prepared for UNEP. x, 69 p. Nairobi, Kenya: UNEP. ISBN: 978-92-807-3019-7
Download here

This publication highlights the link between rainwater harvesting, ecosystems and human well being and draws the attention of readers to both the negative and positive aspects of using this technology and how the negative benefits can be minimized and positive capitalized.

It discusses watershed management, rainfed agriculture, forestry, urban water management and flood mitigation, rural water supply and climate change.

History of Delhi Water Supply – interactive map

The Centre for Science & Environment (CSE) in India has produced an interactive map depicting three stages in the history of the capital Delhi’s water supply: 1940-1970, 1970-2000 and 2000-now. The map depicts the locations of raw water intake works and water and wastewater treatment plants, together with their production capacities.

India Water Portal’s playlists on YouTube

The India Water Portal has posted playlists of short videos related on water-related issues in India on the following topics:

• Agriculture
• Drinking Water
• Ecology
• Groundwater
• Rainwater Harvesting
• Sanitation
• Urban Water
• Wastewater
• Water in Industry
• Water Quality
• Waterbodies
• Watershed Development

Support for the decentralisation of hydraulics management in the region of Gao (PADH) [video]

This video [in French] titled “L’eau en mode decentralise”, presents the activities of the project “Support for the decentralisation of hydraulics management in the region of Gao (PADH)”, implemented by Belgian Technical Cooperation (BTC) in northern Mali.

Gao, in the North of Mali, is located in a semi-desert region. The number of drinking wells is insufficient to meet the population’s water needs. Mali has launched a decentralisation process early 2000. Water management is one of the competencies handed over by the state to the municipalities.

The project seeks to improve the access to drinking water by constructing and repairing boreholes, and to strengthen the capacities of municipal officials, users, the private sector and the regional section of Water and Energy (DRHE).

The municipalities started by listing all the existing boreholes. This work was the basis for the creation of 249 management committees, each consisting of 5 members, including one or two women. They are responsible for hygiene around the wells, they collect water fees and indicate possible technical problems.

Source: BTC

Jalyatra: Exploring India’s Traditional Water Management Systems

Author: Nitya Jacob
Published by: Penguin Books India
April 2008, Paperback, 280 p.
Price: Rs 295.00
ISBN 0143104136
ISBN13 9780143104131
Order online here

“‘In spite of surplus water, and one of the world’s richest traditions of managing it, India’s water crisis has reached critical levels.’

Water shortage and the poor quality of water available for human consumption and agricultural purposes are problems that plague urban as well as rural India. This, according to Nitya Jacob, is because inherited knowledge regarding traditional methods of managing and maintaining water resources has been consistently ignored.

The author looks at the traditional water harvesting structures of southern India-the eris and ooranis-and the gharaats, the river-run flour mills of Uttaranchal. In Chambal, he meets Brij Mohan Gujjar, dacoit turned water conservationist, who is working on the check dams designed to control the flow of water in the ravines; and in Shillong, Lan Potham shows him the uses of the easily available bamboo to construct the shyngiar which irrigates his areca nut plantation.

Each system, Jacob finds, takes into account the lay of the land, available raw material, as well as the social structure and make-up of the area it serves. Thus the springs of Uttaranchal, important for water supply and social interaction, are also accurate indexes of the caste lines along which the society using them is divided. The upper castes use the water nearest the source. The author also notes that in most places, modernization of water supply and management systems, which may range from plastic pipes that have replaced the more malleable bamboo for the shyngiar to inefficient dams, has not succeeded.