Using ICT to support sustainability of water initiatives in fragile states: the case of Goma in DRC

The water sector is increasingly adopting Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) tools to support water services in developing countries. In an emergency context, ICT tools can help reinforce the impact and resilience of projects by empowering local populations with robust systems that they can adapt to the local context and sustain in the long term. In the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the ongoing conflictual situation provides a continuous influx of NGOs. One consequence is that the population comes to rely on this presence, for instance for construction, operations and even monitoring of water systems. This paper looks at the case of Goma in DRC, where Mercy Corps and SeeSaw have implemented a digital system to monitor an extension of the city’s water network to poor areas. The rationale behind adopting a digital system will be presented, alongside the benefits sought, as well as some early lessons

The role of human-centred design in implementing ICT solutions in WASH projects

Over the past decade in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, there has been a continual rise in the advancement of telecommunications, as well as a continual rise in urbanisation. Within this context, a number of sector professionals have acknowledged the potential for the rapid growth in information and communication technologies (ICT) to offer new opportunities to water providers to address some of their enduring challenges. Desille and Faggianelli (2013) emphasise the importance of those both collecting and analysing information to ensure data collected is relevant and regularly updated. Unfortunately, little attention is initially given to catering these systems towards those collecting data. This paper uses lessons learned regarding appropriate and inappropriate design approaches in ICT projects in the WASH sector to showcase two case studies implemented by the social enterprise, SeeSaw. Despite SeeSaw’s attempt to incorporate the personalities, incentivise, and motivations of the reporters at the onset of the project, some challenges still remain. These results suggest both the challenges avoided when design considerations incorporate those collecting information, but also the challenges that still remain – and that future research can help clarify

Supporting private entrepreneurs to deliver public goods: engaging sanitation entrepreneurs

Despite the inclusion of sanitation in 2002 as part of the MDGs, the global backlog still grows. Current investment is heavily biased in favour of sewerage over nonnetwork forms of sanitation, yet the vast majority of urban dwellers in developing countries actually live with what is (often euphemistically) known as “onsite sanitation”. Onsite sanitation is typically seen as a household responsibility; if people want a toilet built or emptied, it is for them to find someone to do it; public agencies working on onsite sanitation are often few and far between. Smallscale providers and sanitation entrepreneurs typically fill this service gap and are very prevalent across the globe. This article reviews how the 'onsite sanitation market' functions and discusses existing roles of sanitation entrepreneurs. It identifies four areas that need exploring in order for the sanitation aspects of the MDGs to become relevant to the urban poor

Using ICT to support water sector monitoring: how underlying drivers shape incentives and outcomes

The use of new ICT tools to support water services provision is expanding rapidly. Mobile phone and web technologies are particularly being used for monitoring the performance of service providers (e.g. for data collection, the reporting of break downs or oversight of service delivery). This paper looks at some of the drivers underpinning this trend and suggests how these drivers need to be understood during the design of any ICT-based monitoring system. Our observation is that too often the focus appears to be on the tools themselves or on the ability to collect data in a different way – and not sufficiently on what the data gets used for (or how the provision of data can actually change the dynamics on the ground). As a South African based company working in the ICT and water sectors, SeeSaw has good experience of designing and adapting ICT tools to support the WASH sector – we leverage this to suggest some early lessons and to suggest a slight ‘reality check’ to the implementation and adoption of ICT – making sure that the positive contributions are not lost through poor design or over-ambitious approaches

Applying ICT to solve complex WASH challenges: insights and early lessons from the water and health sectors

There are growing expectations that harnessing ICT intelligently can bring about radical improvements in the way that health, education and other sectors function, particularly in developing countries. There is also quite some interest in the water sector, which until now has been more conservative in its innovation, with a growing recognition that these new tools can perhaps help with the institutional challenges that bedevil the water and sanitation sector. To examine experience to date – and to help the water sector learn from other sectors – two South African-based organisations active in this sphere, SeeSaw and iComms, convened a multi-disciplinary learning and sharing workshop in Cape Town in 2012. This paper summarises the background to those discussions, gives an overview of the open sharing of experience that took place, and provides some early lessons for those in the WASH sector that plan to harness some of the emerging ICT tools