Water security framework

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.

Access to improved water source and satisfaction with services : evidence from rural Ethiopia

Abebaw, D., Tadesse, F. and Mogues, T., 2011. Access to improved water source and satisfaction with services : evidence from rural Ethiopia. (ESSP II working paper ; 32). Washington, DC, Ethiopia Strategy Support Program II (ESSP II), International Food Policy Research Institute. v, 14 p. : 9 tab. 20 ref.

Available at: <http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/esspwp32.pdf> [Accessed 16 January 2011]

In recent years access to safe and reliable water supplies has received increased government attention in Ethiopia. As a result, the national coverage rate for this service has gradually improved. Yet millions of people in rural areas still do not get drinking water from an improved water source. While expanding improved water source schemes is generally essential, it is equally important to ensure that the schemes have increased users’ satisfaction with water quality and availability for everyday use. Using household survey data and employing univariate and bivariate probit models, this paper attempts to investigate the effect of access to an improved water source on users’ satisfaction with both quality and availability of water. The study findings suggest that access to an improved water source significantly raised household satisfaction with both quality and availability of water. However, the effect of the improved water source on users’ satisfaction was slightly lower for water availability than for water quality. (author abstract)

Water ethics and water resource management

Liu, J. … [et al.] (2011). Water ethics and water resource management. Bangkok, Thailand, UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education. 84 p.; 17 fig.; 3 tab. 81 ref.
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This report examines ethical issues associated with water resource utilization and management, including its uses in energy and other domains. Under the “Ethics and Climate Change in Asia and the Pacific” (ECCAP) project, the Water Ethics working group has compiled a report with some case studies highlighting different ethical issues associated with water resource utilization and management. The report systematically discusses how water ethics can make a difference to water related practices and provides a cross-cultural review of the issues. The report reveals gaps in existing knowledge to researchers, policy makers and funders of research, which could be used to examine linkages between research and policy making, and presents areas of policy options to governments. [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.
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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

Access and behavioral outcome indicators for water, sanitation, and hygiene

Hernandez, O. and Tobias, S. (2010) Access and behavioral outcome indicators for water, sanitation, and hygiene. Washington, DC, USA, Hygiene Improvement Project, USAID. iv, 81 p.
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This document provides evidence-based indicators to measure hygiene practices that are critical for the prevention of diarrheal disease and the reduction of child morbidity and mortality.

This manual aims to help program planners, managers, and evaluators design, implement, and evaluate WASH interventions. It is intended for use either in programmes and projects with a principal focus on WASH or with a broad child health agenda.

The indicators proposed in this document, including access to household water and sanitation as well as the practice of key evidence-based hygiene improvement behaviors, are grouped into the following categories:

• Access to water supply and use of household water treatment technologies and safe storage
• The practice of hand washing with soap at critical moments
• Access to and use of sanitary facilities for the disposal of human excreta

There are two distinct categories of indicators presented in separate sections: the first one is defined as “Essential Indicators,” which are recommended for all WASH programs. The second category of “Essential and Expanded Indicators” is a more comprehensive set of indicators, which is included for managers interested in tracking a larger set of issues in their programs.

The document begins with a list of all the indicators organized as described above. Descriptions of each indicator contain the following components, commonly found in other monitoring and evaluation (M&E) manuals used by international donors and development assistance agencies:

• rationale/critical assumptions for indicator
• data source
• data analysis
• issues/limitations
• example of target setting
• indicator calculation

Webinar: An online discussion about this publication and how to apply these indicators to WASH programming will take place on 02 March 2010 from 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM EST (USA). Register here