Rainwater harvesting: increasing food security in South Africa

It is estimated that 19 million people in South Africa are rural survivalists with traditional agrarian lifestyles. Of these at least 15 million individuals are living below the poverty line. In contrast farming contributes only 10% of material income for rural livelihoods. Furthermore, land resources in communal areas are largely under-utilised. In some villages in the Eastern Cape and Free State province, levels of food security have increased by means of maize and vegetable production in homestead backyard gardens. In the last mentioned case, this has been achieved through the technology and practice of in-field rainwater harvesting (IRWH) and conservation. This technique has been developed over fifteen years of on-station and on-farm research. It can be classified as a micro-catchment, on-farm method of water harvesting with runoff strips. “Through technology exchange the application of IRWH expanded to more than 1 000 households in 42 rural villages around Thaba Nchu” says Dr Gerhard Backeberg a Water Research Commission Director, in his paper presented in Göttingen, Germany, 14 to 16 July 2009 during the 2nd International Seminar on “Land Resources and Land Use Options”.

Large areas of croplands surrounding these villages are currently lying fallow and indications are that this land has not been productively cultivated for the last 25 years or more. There are clearly opportunities for up-scaling of IRWH from household food gardens to communal croplands. “Results of research station experiments demonstrate that e.g. maize yields increased by up to 50%, compared with conventional production techniques” says Gerhard. Innovative procedures have been developed and tested to identify suitable soils for rainwater harvesting. Through modeling the minimum area of farmland has been determined to meet the food security needs, expressed as either income or caloric requirement. It has also been shown that IRWH is viable in terms of conservation of soil and water resources, reduction of risk, social acceptability and economic feasibility. However, delineating suitable soils and calculating sizes of land holdings is only part of the solution to improve water productivity and rural livelihoods. Surveys in the area have shown that low levels of education are found amongst household members and that widespread poverty exists. Although the expectation is that exploitation of this land can enable households to produce enough staple grain crops for own consumption and also earn cash income with sale of surpluses, various obstacles have to be overcome.

In his presentation he mentioned that the current state of land use at Thaba Nchu is the result of a history of conflicts over legitimate rights and economic means to earn livelihoods. As for the whole of South Africa, a process of land reform is under way, which involves amongst others obtaining tenure security because of past discriminatory practices. The contention is therefore that communal croplands will only be accessed sustainably with secure land tenure arrangements. A pilot project to develop a land register of holdings by households on the communal croplands has confirmed the near collapse of the land tenure system. After consultation a participatory process has started to formulate rules that explicitly define the land holding and ensure exclusive use of the land for cultivation. Various formal groups have been established to ensure enforcement of rules and enable transfer of use rights by means of share-cropping or leases between those who are interested and not interested to farm. Successful up-scaling of IRWH will again require demonstration plots to change unrealistic perceptions regarding prospects of conventional tillage. Farmers, who are mostly women, must also receive skills training and have aspirations to improve livelihoods through more productive farming activities. “The available guide for farmer trainers and facilitators should be implemented for practical skills development to the benefit of women and revitalisation of rain-fed farming” says Dr Backeberg. Further applied research is also being undertaken to investigate appropriate marketing channels of food crops, financing of production inputs and support services of extension which have to be provided to farmers.

Read the full paper

Related web site: Multiple Use water Services Group

Source: Hlengiwe Cele, WRC, 18 Sep 2009

Water safety plans: assuring drinking water quality in rural South Africa

The Water Research Commission (WRC) has completed yet another study that aims to meet the water quality requirements of people in South Africa. There has been exponential growth of small treatment plants in the country with many of these being situated in rural areas with limited technical support. “Management of these water supply systems has been very difficult and water service authorities have to rely on limited resources to ensure that the water supply meets the minimum standards in terms of quantity and quality” says Dr Jo Burgess, the WRC research manager responsible for the project. A generic Water Safety Plan (WSP) manual produced by the WRC will enable South African practitioners to meet the Department of Water Affairs’ and World Health Organization’s (WHO) requirements for WSPs. The WHO has proposed that WSPs be implemented for each country, which will ensure that a sustainable water supply system is implemented and managed thus minimizing the health risks to the consumer.

According to Dr Jo Burgess, WSPs aim to improve water quality assurance through a multi-barrier concept. The multiple barrier principle implies that actions are required at all stages in the process of producing and distributing water, in order to protect water quality. This includes source protection, treatment (when applied) through several different stages, prevention of contamination during distribution (piped or non-piped) and maintenance within households. The role of indicators is seen as primarily being a means of verification of the WSP in meeting water quality objectives, rather than as a routine tool for monitoring water quality.

A WSP provides an organized and structured system to minimize the chance of failure through oversight or management lapse. The process provides consistency with which safe water is supplied and provides contingency plans to respond to system failures or unforeseeable hazardous events. Water safety plans can be developed generically for small supplies rather than for individual supplies.

“With the use of WSPs the determination of whether the drinking water supply chain as a whole can deliver water of a quality that meets health-based targets will be achieved’ says Jo Burgess. “They also provide control measures in a drinking water system that will collectively control identified risks and ensure that health-based targets are met” she adds. Measures of operational monitoring, that ensure that deviation from the required performance is rapidly detected in a timely manner have been included. Management plans describing actions taken during normal operation or incident conditions and documenting the system assessment (including upgrade and improvement), monitoring and communication plans and supporting programmes also form part of the WSPs. They aim to provide guidance on both day-to-day actions and long term planning, collectively ensure the provision of safe water, and aid system managers and operators in gaining a better understanding of the water supply system and the risks that need to be managed. A comprehensive checklist has also been included to ensure the proper use and maintenance of a WSP.

Copies of the WSP manual can be obtained by contacting WRC publications (012 330 9016 or orders [at] wrc.org.za and requesting a copy of report number TT415/09).

Related web site: WHO – Water Safety Plans

Contact: Dr Jo Burgess, Research Manager KSA 3, WRC, South Africa, e-mail: job [at] wrc.org.za

Source: Source: Jo Burgess, WRC, 28 Sep 2009

Hygiene promotion: lessons from Save the Children’s programme in Malawi

When Save the Children launched its School Health and Nutrition (SHN) program in Mangochi, Malawi in 1998, only 42 percent of schools had access to clean water and none had hand-washing facilities. [...] Only 54 percent of schools had separate facilities for girls. In 2003, when Save the Children expanded its SHN program in Malawi to Balaka district, the situation was a marginally better than it had been in Mangochi five years before [and] as in Mangochi, no schools in Balaka had hand-washing facilities.

Qualitative surveys conducted in both districts also showed that before Save the Children’s SHN program:

• Students traveled long distances to fetch water, which often made them late [to class or] miss class altogether;
• Girls who traveled to collect water faced harassment from boys and men;
• Girls missed school when they were menstruating due to the lack of privacy in school latrines;
• Students drank from unprotected shallow wells and rivers;
• Students did not wash their hands after using the toilet because there were no hand-washing facilities; and
• Despite the availability of facilities, many children did not use them because they were locked or unhygienic

To increase access to and use of safe water and sanitation facilities, Save the Children worked with communities, schools, and water and sanitation experts to construct and rehabilitate boreholes, latrines, and hand-washing facilities and to train teachers and communities on hygiene.

Separate, ventilated latrines with doors and handwashing facilities nearby not only promote good hygiene but also enable girls to consistently attend school. Photo. Save the Children

[...] Quantitative and qualitative end line surveys conducted in Balaka and Mangochi district in 2006 and 2007 respectively showed that the presence of adequate water and sanitation facilities have had a tremendous impact on children’s lives and communities.

Despite these important achievements, the project encountered a number of challenges:

• Only 33 percent of the handwashing facilities in schools were functional and none had soap or ash. [...] When communities provide soap, it usually gets stolen. Just 41 percent of children report hand-washing after visiting the toilet and only 28 percent of children said that they used soap and water the last time they washed their hands.
• Community resource efforts were not consistent. In less active communities that did not provide sand, bricks and labor, latrines and hand-washing facilities were not constructed. However, among most communities that did provide resources, community participation helped create a sense of ownership and ensured the facilities were well-maintained.
• Community members sometimes vandalized handwashing facilities [and] school committees could not always afford to [...] fix facilities quickly. To minimize these incidents, Save the Children directed communities to report all instances of vandalism to the police.
• Rural shop owners did not regularly keep borehole parts in stock, so community members had to travel long distances to buy them.
• Water monitoring assistants conducted frequent supervision of the water point committees to ensure the committees and the boreholes functioned properly.
• Monitoring of hygiene education in schools was infrequent, as primary education advisors rarely monitored the teaching of hygiene. [...] Some teachers said they were not comfortable with the topic due to its sensitive nature and the use of words such as “defecation.”

While Save the Children’s SHN program saw tremendous progress in improving access to safe water and adequate latrines, hand-washing remained a low priority for schools and communities. Hand-washing facilities are not maintained and children rarely wash their hands with soap or ash. A targeted campaign around the importance of hand-washing is needed. Save the Children’s experience in Mangochi and Balaka districts illustrate the importance of community participation and ownership along with regular supervision.

[...] After approximately 20 years of programming and ten years supporting School Health and Nutrition in the district, Save the Children is phasing its programs out of Mangochi. Malawi’s Ministry of Education adopted most of Save the Children’s School Health and Nutrition activities when it began a nation SHN program in 2007. Unfortunately, the provision of water and sanitation facilities is expensive and the government will probably not be able to bare the full cost to equip all schools with adequate facilities.

Source: Save the Children (2008). Improving water, sanitation, and hygiene behaviors in schools : successes and lessons learned from Mangochi District, Malawi. 4 p. Download here

Sanitation promotion: experiences from government-led initiative in southern Ethiopia

In Ethiopia’s Southern Nations Nationalities and People’s Region (SNNPR) an innovative programme has promoted latrine construction and use, hand washing and safe water storage and handling. The intervention is an example of how visionary government leadership can create the political momentum for low-cost sanitation and hygiene (S&H) and reach out to rural communities.

Papers from the Overseas Development Institute, in the UK, and the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, in the Netherlands investigate the SNNPR approach. The research was undertaken by Ethiopian researchers on behalf of the Research-inspired Policy and Practice Learning in Ethiopia and the Nile Region (RiPPLE) project.

[...] In 2003 the SNNPR Bureau of Health (BoH) began a new community health strategy, including S&H [which aimed] to reach households through paid health extension workers (HEWs) and volunteer community health promoters (CHWs) [and which] promoted latrine construction without any form of subsidy.

A combination of political promotion and institutional mobilisation was successful in launching and expanding the regional government’s strategy as a ‘movement’. [...] The key elements of the S&H strategy were designed to be politically attractive and administratively feasible, and were written in non-technical language.

The researchers found after the project:

• The proportion of households having latrines increased by a factor of eight.
• There was less acceptance of open defecation.
• Questionnaire results indicated better knowledge on hand washing, although actual practice remained poor.
• There were hand washing facilities in 82 percent of households, but only 6 percent were near the household latrine and few people used soap or detergents.
• Water storage and handling practices also remained poor.
• Men mostly decided latrine design, siting and construction, although women were involved in providing materials and plastering.

Despite these positive developments, doubts remain about sustainability and some latrines have collapsed [and] many are infested with flies. As CHWs are unpaid and receive little follow-up support or training, many have lost motivation. Higher levels of government have not provided enough technical support or monitored changes in household S&H behaviour.

[...] Aspects of the SNNPR experience which might help improve [sanitation elsewhere] include:

• promoting local, rather than donor-driven, S&H programmes and technology designs
• using community promotional change agents coordinated by local authorities in command and facilitation roles
• reviewing local S&H progress within wider health sector review processes
• ensuring that strategising, political positioning and communication are based on solid evidence
• realising that sanitation workers cannot make their case to high-level politicians without understanding the political dynamics around S&H.

Source: id21, 01 Apr 2009

Transparency: public accountability through “Citizens’ Voice” initiative, Cape Town, South Africa

The “Raising Citizens’ Voice in the Regulation of Water Services” is a public education initiative driven by the National Regulator (currently within the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry [DWAF]). It supports a bottom-up approach to water services regulation by actively involving citizens in the local monitoring of water and sanitation services.

It aims to empower citizens to hold local government accountable through:

• Training citizens about their rights and responsibilities, and then
• Setting up “User Platforms” which serve as monthly meetings between the municipality and the community for ongoing civil society water services monitoring and problem solving.

The initiative aims to build partnerships between the three spheres of government (national, provincial and municipal levels) and civil society.

Important lessons learned so far are:

• the need to secure political support, through getting endorsement and providing training to local government officials;
• after citizens are trained, User Platforms should be established as soon as possible to keep them engaged;
• ensure citizen ownbership of User Platforms and not let them become a public relations vehicle for local government.

Read the full story in the WIN-SA lesson series no. 20 “Public accountability through “Citizen’s Voive”: City of Cape Town shares good practice (March 2009).

Community kiosks: learning from water supply failures in Malawi

The Lilongwe Water Board is the sole water supply authority in Malawi’s capital city. However, its service suffered from inadequate response to system and community problems and lack of transparency in water billing. In response to a request for assistance from the community, WaterAid Malawi developed a strategic partnership with the Lilongwe Water Board, aimed at improving management of water services in unplanned low-income neighbourhoods.

An [April 2008] paper from WaterAid Malawi describes its partnership with the Lilongwe Water Board and a local non-governmental organisation – the Centre for Community Organization and Development (CCODE).

WaterAid research indicated that the system to distribute water through water kiosks was not working. Poor households owed huge sums to the Lilongwe Water Board – the monopoly water provider. They were paying far too much: prices at communal kiosks in low-income areas were twice as high as those in high-income areas. Charging systems were inconsistent and billing was not transparent. Some households paid equal monthly fees for different levels of consumption while others were paying per bucket.

Political and traditional leaders corruptly controlled kiosk management committees and failed to pass on funds they collected from communities to the Lilongwe Water Board. The private operators who were able to pay their utility bills resold water to poor people at high and unregulated tariffs. Many meters were vandalised but even those still working were often not read for over a year. The water board charged customers for estimated, not actual, consumption. Without consultation with users, the utility factored in arrears into water bills to cover money misused by community leaders.

Further problems included: illegal installation of boreholes, failure to check water quality, dependence of on unsafe sources when kiosks were disconnected, high leakage rates

[Following a reform programme] the utility now regards itself as a public service provider with obligations to consult users and to extend the network to unserved communities, while also embracing private sector principles to improve the efficiency of billing, debt collection and reduction of water losses.

Reform has also involved:

• establishing a focal point within the Lilongwe Water Board to whom community kiosk users could take their grievances: the Kiosk Management Unit regulates prices and promotes timely reporting of faults and prompt action to fix them
• WaterAid providing technical and financial advice and funding to rehabilitate communal water kiosks, replace meters, construct meter boxes and improve drainage facilities at kiosks
• building CCODE’s capacity to mobilise communities’ capacities to identify kiosk management options, settle debts, monitor the utility and promote hygiene education.

Source: id21, 01 March 2009

The policy implications of accountability in municipal service delivery in Sudan

Musch, A. (2008). The policy implications of accountability in municipal service delivery in Sudan. The Hague, The Netherlands, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 11 p. Download here.

This paper highlights the importance of issues of local government accountability to citizens, analyses how changes in accountability mechanisms have been accomplished in a specific case, and examines the policy implications. The analysis is based on the case of the city of Gedaref, in Sudan. Over a period of about eight years, many channels were created in the city through which citizens could express their concerns and demands. This compelled the local government to improve the quality of its services (drinking water, waste, health and education), issue rules that were seen to be fair, and allow the leaders of a great many citizens’ associations and participatory platforms access to decision-making procedures. Key elements in the process were increased public awareness of rights and standards, changed civic attitudes, the involvement of a critical mass of citizens, and recognition by the city authorities that they are dependent on these associations and platforms. Outside help was provided by Eindhoven, a twin city in the Netherlands through hands-on municipal service projects. Much of the funding came from VNG International’s LOGO South programme. This paper looks at how results were achieved in Gedaref and where the external actors had the greatest influence in bringing about change. It concludes with lessons and advice for donors who may wish to facilitate similar processes.

The paper recommends that donor officials:

• accept that effecting changes in accountability takes between five and ten years;
• spend less time on designing the best aid distribution channels and more time on finding trusted implementers;
• reward approaches that create choice for citizens and reach a critical mass of participation, and discourage approaches based on ‘the best accountability mechanism under the circumstances’, which are only open to a small group;
• accept approaches based on general principles that involve many civic organisations and multiple ways to reorient accountability downwards, but insist on details when it comes to the incentives.

Strengthening accountability for improved service delivery: SNV’s local capacity development approach

Todd, B. (2008). Strengthening accountability for improved service delivery :  SNV’s local capacity development approach. The Hague, The Netherlands, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 15 p. Download here

Better accountability improves service delivery performance. Based on more than twenty-five case studies in over twelve countries, this paper describes the attempts of SNV Netherlands Development Organisation to strengthen the accountability capacity of citizens, government and service providers. Breaking accountability down into five actions, it examines a number of strategies that have produced good results. It finds multi-stakeholder approaches particularly valid and highlights the critical need to empower citizens, especially marginalised groups. Greater investment in developing the accountability capacity of local actors to delegate, finance, perform, inform and enforce, can produce significant improvements in service delivery.

While accountability is not a silver bullet, it is a powerful driver of change and improved performance. To really improve service delivery, it needs to be accompanied by other elements (such as increased resources, improved infrastructure and equipment, better technical capacity and internal reforms), which all are complementary to building capacity for greater accountability.

Examples of SNV”s work in the water sector mentioned in the paper are:

• Capacity building support for the Public Health Engineering Division of the Bhutanese Ministry of Health has resulted in an increase in drinking water coverage from 45% in 1990 to 85% in 2005. The service provider has adopted and institutionalised participatory approaches to community operation and maintenance, and to hygiene education, which communities have enthusiastically supported.

• In collaboration with the Water Resources Development Bureau in southern Ethiopia, SNV designed and supported a comprehensive governance and service delivery assessment of household access to safe water. The survey motivated the Bureau to rehabilitate 16 water schemes in two months and improve water access for 1,600 households. It also generated long-term, institutional momentum for continuous improvement.

• SNV has been working with municipal water companies in Ecuador, Honduras and Nicaragua to enhance efficiency, quality of services and sustainability through organisational development, integrated management and improved local water governance. This has helped to establish the conditions for sustainable and improved service delivery for about 355,000 people in urban areas and has created opportunities for improved livelihoods for about 210,000 rural dwellers.

• Service providers in Ghana are delegated huge responsibilities which can only be fulfilled through better coordination and collaboration with all stakeholders. In the northern capital of Tamale, the service provider can only guarantee water supply for two to three days a week. A multi-stakeholder consultation process facilitated by SNV agreed that the key to improvement lies in a new water governance system. This will involve delegating some of the service provider’s responsibilities to decentralised and non-state local providers. [...] The lesson learned is that, even within a weak institutional environment at national level, it is possible to improve performance at local level through better leadership, partnership and coordination.

Sector reforms: lessons and challenges from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia

A paper [1] commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, summarises critical water and sanitation sector reform implementation issues by drawing from recent experience in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. It was written by a group of policy advisors of the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), who, as long term advisors, have supported these reforms.

The experiences examined in the four case study countries clearly demonstrate that the reform process is unique to the specific institutional, historical, socio-economic and other conditions prevailing in each country, as well as the existence of individuals who champion a reform process, or strong interest groups who try to prevent change. As a result, the authors said it was not possible to develop overall guidelines that would precisely match the reform needs in other countries. However, they did draw a number of lessons learned from the experiences that may help other countries to design and implement sector reforms, on the following issues:

• Reform history and timing
• Policy and strategy development
• Reform management set up
• Reform communication
• Role of development partners (including Sector Wide Approaches [SWAp])
• Establishing effective regulatory institutions
• Commercialisation and clustering
• Private sector involvement
• Community participation
• Addressing the staffing challenge
• Information management
• Resources management
• Pro-poor approaches

[1] Richards, T. … [et al.] (2008). Water supply and sanitation sector reforms in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia : challenges and lessons. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ). 33 p. Download here

Aid effectiveness in the water sector: lessons from Bangladesh, Uganda and Ethiopia

A study by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) reviewed the extent to which the five Paris Principles (PPs) on Aid Effectiveness (AE) as set out in the Paris Declaration (PD) on AE: ownership, alignment, harmonisation, managing for results and mutual accountability, are being applied in the water and sanitation sector. Comparisons were made between the water, health and education sectors.

The approach included in-depth case study research in three countries (Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Uganda) and a broader document review. From this evidence the study aims to identify ways in which external support to the water sector can be delivered more in the spirit of the PD.

ODI found that the water sector was not consistently underperforming in the three country case studies. Rather, situation is one of ‘fluid dynamics’ – the sector is moulded by the surrounding political-economic context in which it is situated, i.e. predominantly by the national governance environments in the countries examined.

The following conclusions and recommendations emerged:

1. The broader governance environment is a more important influence on progress against the Paris Principles than sector characteristics. Aspects of the governance context beyond the sector, rather than sector characteristics alone, are a key influence on progress.

2. The perception that the water sector is lagging behind is not supported if the spirit rather than the mechanics of the PD is considered. SWAPs or other instruments should not be seen as a one-off step but rather as an ongoing dynamic process, a platform for learning for both donors and recipients. The pace and level of engagement depends on the opportunities at hand in a given situation provided by the prevailing politicaleconomic context.

3. Some dynamics are specific to particular (sub-) sectors and require a more targeted approach. The type and number of actors and type and levels of financing differs between
sectors. The water sector is likely to be more affected for instance by new donors such as China with a particular emphasis on infrastructure development while the health
sector stands out for receiving high levels of aid from private foundations and multilateral funding initiatives.

4. Some aspects of system alignment such as PFM and procurement cut across sectors. Engagement at a higher level than the sector may be more effective than trying to find solutions within a sector.

5. Paucity of data prevents the measurement of progress against the PP for AE at sector level. There is
also currently no evidence that the fulfilment of the PP leads to better development outcomes e.g. increased access to WSS.

Welle, K. … [et al.] (2008). Fluid dynamics? : achieving greater progress on aid effectiveness in the water
sector – lessons from three countries : final report to the Department for International Development. London, UK, Overseas Development Institute. 57 p. Read full report

A shorterned version of this paper was published in 2009 in Water Alternatives:

Welle, K.; Tucker, J.; Nicol, A. and Evans, B. 2009. Is the water sector lagging behind education and health on aid effectiveness? : lessons from Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Uganda. Water Alternatives ; vol. 2, no. 3 ; p. 297‐314. Full article