Community water plus: results from an investigation into community managed rural water supply in India

This paper reports on the outcomes from the ‘Community Water Plus’ (2013-2016) project that was designed to give donors, IFIs and low-income country governments the evidence base to determine and justify the ongoing resources needed to support community rural water services. The research demonstrated that significant recurrent financing from government and other sources subsidised the costs of services in successful community management programmes in India. The Gram Panchayat, the local-self government institution, also provided on-going support and carried out everyday operation, maintenance and administrative functions. The implications of the Indian experience are that successful rural water service delivery requires such significant on-going support, including funding and the delivery of key functions, that it is better to conceive of it as a form of coproduction between state and citizens, rather than community management, and governments should allocate resources accordingly

Community water plus: assessing the plus of successful community-managed rural water supply in India

In the community management model significant support from government and other entities is needed to ensure sustainable rural water services. The Community Water plus project investigates the nature and resource implications of such support in twenty community-managed rural water programmes that have been deemed to be successful in India. This paper presents the research framework and discusses the emerging findings from the first nine case studies. Contrary to the research hypothesis, which is that in these successful cases a significant amount of on-going specialist support will be found, the findings to date are showing a considerable level of support in the project implementation stage but a limited amount of specialist support in the service delivery and capital maintenance phases. However, in many of the cases, the close integration of community management in the prevailing system of local government, particularly the Gram Panchayats, creates an underlying mechanism for support during the service delivery phase. Whilst this arrangement has pragmatic benefits, it also raises questions about the boundaries between what constitutes community management and public service provision, as well as about the lines of accountability between communities, service providers and local governments

Financial flow diagrams to promote policy-making, based on 20 community management case studies from India

This paper reports the development of ‘Financial Flow Diagrams’ as a means of better communicating complex financial information, directly inspired by the development of ‘Shit Flow Diagrams’, in this case highlighting, for policy-makers, donors and service providers financial challenges. We describe the design considerations investigated during the preparation of visual oriented financial communications. This includes arguments about the merits and limitations of visuals and associated tools/software that best display flows of resources (in our case financial). We then present visuals that were submitted for testing across a panel of informants, some closely related to the Community Water Plus project, a 20 case study, 17 States research project of ‘successful’ community managed water schemes in India, which provided the source financial information. Finally, we provide a critical analysis and feedback on the limitations of using Financial Flow Diagrams as a mean to convey messages on funding distribution in the context rural water supply

Emotional wellbeing as a proxy indicator for water security among pastoralists in Afar, Ethiopia

Recent thinking proposes a more holistic approach to measuring household water security. In addition to conventional service-level based indicators, assessments should account for broader social, political and cultural structures which shape how households interact with water. Contributing to this agenda, the paper introduces new research that aims to evaluate the relationship between emotional wellbeing and water security among pastoralists in the Afar region of Ethiopia. It is hypothesised that the measurement of emotion could have potential value as an indicator of water security among vulnerable populations who have particularly complex water use patterns that are poorly captured by conventional indicators. Within the pastoralist context, preliminary data collection has indicated an emotional response to seasonality in resource availability and distance travelled to infrastructure points. Further research is underway to explore the complexity of emotion and its interrelation with water security to better understanding the needs of pastoralists in Afar

Evaluating the efficiency of different provision strategies for scaled-up container-based sanitation

This record includes an extended abstract and MP4 presentation. Presented at the 42nd WEDC International Conference

How does inequitable planning and community resistance affect aspirations of universal sanitation services? A case study in Mzuzu, Malawi

This record includes an extended abstract and MP4 presentation. Presented at the 42nd WEDC International Conference

Rural-urban transition and the peri-urban sanitation gap: evidence from Hyderabad, India

This record includes an extended abstract and MP4 presentation. Presented at the 42nd WEDC International Conference

The circular economy for sanitation: a study of five cases in India

This record includes an extended abstract and MP4 presentation. Presented at the 42nd WEDC International Conference