Pre-launch: context-specific validation and introduction of WASH technologies for sustainable services

Sustainable WASH services can only be achieved if the technology used to provide services is sound enough for the specific context. Too often, however, water and sanitation services stop because the WASH technology no longer functions or is too complicated for the context which it’s in. New WASH technologies are promising successful solutions but are often not considered.

WASHTech, an action-research project, is developing and testing processes and tools to perform context-specific validations of potential WASH technologies. WASHTech also aims to successfully introduce the validated technologies into certain contexts such as countries, districts, or sub-districts.

Come and be part of this pre-launch on Friday 12 April 2013 from 09:30 – 11:00 hrs and learn how the “Technology Applicability Framework” and the “Technology Introduction Process” can help you achieve sustainable WASH services.

Register for this session here

Reinventing the toilet?

“We need innovators and creative thinkers to solve the sanitation challenge. And technology is one part of the puzzle. In addition to improving technology, we need to reflect on what we know already, understand what sanitation options people want and strengthen the enabling environment for sanitation services that last. This means investing in formative research and behaviour change, strengthening governance and accountability, working on better supply chains as well as in technology that is not only innovative, but also appropriate.”

Read more to find out how this links to the invitation of the Gates Foundation to ‘reinvent the toilet’  and the technology assessment framework of the WASHTech project in the Learning for Change Blog by Carmen da Silva Wells.

 

Water For People and Akvo to co-develop FLOW monitoring tool

In March 2012, Water for People (USA) and Akvo (Netherlands) entered an agreement to further develop FLOW, a field-level monitoring tool.

Akvo will lead on product development and support while Water For People will lead in product field-testing and monitoring functionality. The product has been rebranded as Akvo FLOW. The software code supporting Akvo FLOW will be published under an open source AGPL3 license.

FLOW – Field level Operations Watch, brings together handheld data collection with Android mobile phone technology, a web-based dashboard and visual mapping using Google Maps and Google Earth software.

Africa wide WASH technology review published

The WASHTech project has published a literature review [1] focusing on 14 technologies used in Africa in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector.

Descriptions for each technology include a selection of interesting case studies, and an explanation as to whether the technology meets technical, financial, social and institutional success criteria.
Only two technologies met all four success criteria: hand dug wells and the India Mark II pump, and the latter only with the caveat that there was a functional maintenance system.

The least successful technology was the Playpump. Pending further research, jerry cans and the gulper were only found to meet one success criteria (technical success). Except for bio-additives to pit latrines and Playpumps, all other technologies were technically successful. The other success criteria were met by roughly half of the technologies.

Core issues that WASHTech plans to take up further include the appeal of inappropriate technologies like Playpumps and Lifestraws to naive donors, and ways to get government approval for low-cost, locally managed technologies like rope pumps, biosand filters, constructed rainwater harvesting jars, water jetting and tippy taps.

[1] Parker, A. et al., 2011. Africa wide water, sanitation and hygiene technology review. (WASHTech Deliverable 2.1). The Hague: WASHTech c/o IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre and Cranfield: Cranfield University. 93 p. : 1 box, 9 fig., 1 tab. Includes references.
Available at: http://wp.me/a1szDW-1o
The aim of the WASHTech project (2011-2013) is to introduce a robust Technology Assessment Framework (TAF), with local partners in Burkina Faso, Ghana and Uganda, that will assess the potential of new innovative WASH technologies. WASHTech is co-funded under the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission’s Africa research programme. To learn more go to washtechafrica.wordpress.com

Gates Foundation awards grants for 26 sanitation technology projects

A reusable self-decontaminating sanitary napkin, a children’s latrine training mat and a latrine using urine to flush instead of water are among 26 sanitation technology projects that have been awarded Gates Foundation grants. The topics of the wining projects range from hygiene, to household  latrines, ecological sanitation, and wastewater/sludge treatment and reuse for fertiliser and energy.

On 28 April 2011, the Gates Foundation announced that 88 new global health projects received grants, each worth US$ 100,000, in the 6th round of the Grand Challenges Explorations initiative. Out of these 88 projects, there were 26 winners in the category “Create the Next Generation of Sanitation Technologies”. See the full list of 26 sanitation awards. Projects with demonstrated success in their initial phase of research have the opportunity to receive Phase II funding of up to US$ 1 million.

There is another opportunity to submit proposals for sanitation technology grants in round 7 of the Grand Challenges Explorations (deadline 19 May 2011).

India, New Delhi: using Facebook and SMS to keep the city clean

With this photo on Facebook local resident Akshay Arora asks the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to "kindly send some one and get it clean this Toilet/Urinal". One day later on 7 April 2011, MCD replied: "Your complaint reference no. is 02/0704/SP"

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) launched its Facebook page in January 2011 and an integrated SMS service in March 2011 to enable public monitoring of garbage collection sites and public urinals/toilets in areas under its jurisdiction.The first experiences were positive as illustrated by the example of 22-year-old Piyush Goyal posted his complaint of garbage spilling over from the dump in his area.

On January 8, he clicked pictures of the seven dirty ones in South Delhi’s R K Puram area and posted them on Facebook. And the next day, he says, he saw the pictures of clean dhalaos uploaded by the MCD.

“There is lot of transparency through this way. The man who actually cleans it asked me why I uploaded the pictures. So the information is going from top to the bottom,” says Goyal.

MCD additional commissioner (engineering) Anshu Prakash added:

“This system is increasing transparency, fixing accountability and putting everything under public scrutiny. And none of us like to be ashamed in public. So people have started working at the bottom”.

Akvopedia Sanitation portal – now in Spanish

Through the invaluable support of our intern Niharika Joshi, our Sanitation Platform is now also available in Spanish. After we included the French version last year, this is another step on the road to making Akvopedia a true multi-language platform. We hope it will be useful to Spanish-speaking people around the world.

The new Spanish portal contains 54 detailed articles on a wide range of sanitation technologies. The material was adapted from the extremely useful Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologies (2008, Spanish version here), written by Elisabeth Tilley and colleagues of Sandec, the Department of Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries at eawag, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland. The authors eventually have plans to make that publication available in Swahili. I’ll look forward to that.

The Spanish version of the Sandec Compendium of Sanitation Systems, produced by Sandec.

Mark Westra is editor of Akvopedia, and is based in The Hague.

Guatemala: construction guides for rural WASH facilities

Five Cabin Latrine, Aqua Para La Salud (Guatemala). Photo: Global Water

NGO Global Water provides instructions for building rural water, sanitation, and hygiene-related facilities that were developed by its partner in Guatemala, Agua Para La Salud (Water for Health). The facilities include:

• Ferro-Cement Water Storage Tank
• Hand Washing Stations (Lavamanos)
• Complete Spring Catchment System
• Five Cabin Latrine
• Gray Water Seepage Pits

View the designs at www.globalwater.org/how-to-build.html

Monitoring: Water for People launches Android app

US NGO Water for People has launched a visual technology called FLOW, Field Level Operations Watch.

Using Android cell phone technology and Google Earth software, FLOW provides anyone on the Internet access to data for projects supported by Water For People. This visual open-source data monitoring database was developed by Gallatin Systems.

Field data about water points or sanitation systems can be collected by community members, project staff etc. with an Android phone and uploaded on to Google Maps and Google Earth. Flow integrates GPS tagging and a photo for each entry. Users can review and edit data right on their Android phone in the field.

FLOW will focus on these key indicators:

• Is the water point or sanitation solution being used and functioning?
• How many people have access to water and sanitation in the area?
• Are the services able to expand with the community?
• Is the quantity and quality of water meeting the needs of the community?
• Are sufficient tariffs being collected to ensure ongoing operation, maintenance, repair and eventual replacement?

Local data can be merged with other datasets.

For instance, in Malawi, he [Dru Borden of Gallatin Systems], says, UNICEF has already done a survey of all 54,000 water points in the country. You can download that to the phone, and have FLOW give you GPS directions to each site to check up on, pesky missing street signs be damned. If you compress the surveys, they are so small you can fit millions on a microSD card. That means you don’t actually need a data connection everywhere you go–just somewhere to power the phone.

Once you get back to cell service, and upload the data, it runs on Google’s app engine. The data can be stored in the cloud on a variety of services, so FLOW will be essentially free for the average organization to run, once they buy the smartphones. That equipment cost is the catch. Buying the phones is certainly the biggest obstacle to widespread adoption of FLOW, but Borden estimates the unit cost will be about $99 with the release of a cheaper Android handset in Kenya within a year. Right now his firm has been testing it out on Droids and other more expensive models.

A demo of Flow is available on Google Earth at watermapmonitordev.appspot.com

Flow should be posted on Google’s Android Market app store sometime in November 2010.

See below a video interview with Water for People’s CEO Ned Breslin

Other similar new mapping tools include:

• h2.0 Monitoring Service to Inform and Empower Initiativelaunched by the h2.0 consortium
• Water Point Mapper developed by WaterAid

Source: Water for People ; Alex Goldmark, Fast Company, 26 Oct 2010

India, Uttar Pradesh: floodproof handpumps and toilets

Floodproof handpump in Bahraich. Photo: District Administration, District Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh, India

In Bahraich district of northern Uttar Pradesh, India, handpumps fitted on a raised platform were the only source of drinking water to the 400,000-odd people during floods. The idea for the raised handpumps was promoted by District Magistrate Rigzin Samphel and now serves as a model for other flood prone districts of the state. Samphel also helped to build flood-proof toilets for women in Bahraich.

Every year during the monsoons, when the Ghaghra river brims over, [and] desperate villagers end up drinking turbid floodwater. “The floods inundate all the wells, tube wells and hand pumps. So there’s no drinking water,” says Dharamraj, a 40-year-old farmer in [Sohras] village.

The result: widespread illnesses and even some deaths.

This year has been better.

Exactly 200 flood-prone villages in Bahraich district were fitted with four hand pumps each, the crude water fetching devices mounted on raised platforms rather than at ground level so they wouldn’t be submerged during floods. When the floods first came this year in mid-July, these hand pumps —the only source of drinking water to the 400,000-odd people in these villages — delivered clear and potable water.

Raised handpumps

District Magistrate Rigzin Samphel said he got the idea for the raised handpumps at a meeting with villagers when they asked him “If the flood water goes high why can’t our existing hand pumps too go high’?”

Following a survey, Samphel decided to raise four existing hand pumps in each of 200 flood-prone villages.

Then came the design.

Jal Nigam, a government body to oversee water supply in the state, proposed a 1m-high rectangular platform. The idea was debated in an open forum of block development officers (BDOs) from flood-affected areas, engineers from the state’s flood division and Jal Nigam officials.

At the end of the meeting, they decided on flat top platforms with sloping bases for the hand pumps. The slopes would diminish the force of the floodwater and the 2.9m-high platforms would offer a safe spot for people to stand on and draw water.

There was a bigger problem now. The refitting would need Rs 14,000 [US$ 315] per hand pump, or Rs 1.12 crore [US$ 252,000] for 800 of them. After pondering over several options, Samphel and the team decided to finance the project with funds from the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, or MGNREGA – a flagship scheme for providing 100 days of employment to one member in every poor rural household.

To prevent leakages [corruption], Samphel decided against transferring the budget to Jal Nigam, saving on the department’s charges, and instead handed over the funds to the BDOs.

“This was because the project had to (be) accomplished swiftly. So instead of giving funds to 155 village pradhans (village heads), we gave the money to four BDOs. This way I could have better control over the project,” he says.

Uttar Pradesh’s relief commissioner has now asked other flood-affected districts in the state to adopt the model.

Raised toilets

And under the government-funded Sampoorna Swachata Abhiyan (SSA) sanitation scheme, Samphel also helped to build flood-proof toilets for women in Bahraich. Since the scheme had no provision to fund such a project, Samphel used SSA’s 15% publicity budget instead. Samphel gave instructions to paint ‘safe sanitation’ messages on the toilet walls.

The Economist magazine, in 2008, rated Samphel one of the most hard-working bureaucrats in the world. The same year, he won an award from the rural development ministry for his implementation of MGNREGA.

Samphel is single. The demands of his work, he says, don’t leave him much scope to get married.

For more information read the case study “WAT-SAN: Bahraich Model“

In 2005 raised handpumps were also introduced in flood-prone areas in Assam by the Rural Volunteers Centre (RVC) at a cost of INR 10,000 (US$ 225) per handpump, see the case study “Flood resilient WatSan structures : community hand-pumps on raised platforms”.

Source: Pankaj Jaiswal, Hindustan Times, 23 Sep 2010