The draft report is quite correct in drawing attention to the need for coordination of water for domestic sanitary and health purposes (WASH) with food security. One problem is that there seems to be much support for self-standing WASh projects, when such development can be a very valuable catalyst for a much wider agricultural and rural development. These self standing WASH projects to a large extent "run off with the jam" and make wider agricultural and rural development harder.
This thought is spelled out a bit more in a piece I prepared earlier this year which is below.
The Corriere della Sera for 23 January gave favourable coverage to a press conference at the Davos World Economic Forum given by the co-founders, Gary White and the actor Matt Damon of a non-profit entity, Water.org. The aim of the agency is to assist developing countries to improve their domestic water and sanitation through micro-credit arrangements modelled on the Gramin Bank experience. Their target is to raise US$100 million by 2020 and, according to the Corriere’s report on the level of enthusiasm shown at the press conference - they may well be successful.
The Water.org initiative seems to be in line with the UN Global Compact CEO Water Mandate by which CEO’s of multinationals agree to undertake public-private partnerships to address problems of water scarcity. From only six signatories in 2007 some 93 multinational corporations have now endorsed the Mandate. The PepsiCo Foundation has pledged US$35 million to water programmes in developing countries, of which US$12.1 million goes to Water.org. According to the Economist other multi-nationals investing in water (but not necessarily through Water.org) include the Caterpillar Foundation (US$11.3 million), IKEA Foundation (US$5 million), the Swiss Re Foundation, Bank of America Foundation, Levi Srauss & Co and Mastercard.
All of this would appear to be extremely encouraging and a cause for celebration, if only all development assistance was equally easy and of equal attractiveness to both donors and beneficiaries. Unfortunately that is not the case. Drinking water and sanitation projects are at the top of the list of favourites for donors, governments and beneficiaries. They have the great advantage of being self-targeting to the poor, since the better-off have generally already made their arrangements; they tend to have a benefit bias towards women, since water provision for the family is generally considered women’s duty; and they make excellent political publicity. From the beneficiary’s viewpoint they have a beneficial and immediate impact on family welfare as soon as the works have been completed as well as providing employment during their construction. Technically water provision solutions are relatively straightforward and a sizeable programme can be mounted over a quite short, 2 or 3 years, implementation period.
In sharp contrast to water investments many rural project challenges are very much more difficult.
Take, for example, watershed management or forest rehabilitation projects. In both cases the usual situation is a steadily deteriorating physical and community condition, which somehow has to be turned round so that the areas are stabilised, environment better protected, hydraulic regime improved, productivity of the area and family incomes increased. All too often the background to such projects is a number of failed attempts funded either by government or donors.
To make any impact in this situation any project has to have the full commitment of the beneficiary population - and for this the beneficiaries have to have full confidence in the project. Initially beneficiaries are likely to be highly sceptical, not least because of bad past experiences. Moreover the project cannot realistically promise any breath-taking change in living standards. Better managed watershed or village forest means some improvement in living standards, but through items such as better feeding of housed livestock, planting of grasses along terrace edges, increased non-timber forest products and such-like relatively small - even if important - changes.
As well as falling well outside the “get-rich-quick” category, such projects also require quite a bit of social engineering. User groups and committees need to be established at local, community and higher levels to help carry through the programme and to try to ensure equable sharing of costs and benefits. This is a complex and time consuming exercise[1][1][1].
This is the point at which inclusion of a drinking water or drinking water and sanitation component can have such a good impact. If the component is implemented early on in the project it can demonstrate immediately that the project is capable of delivering benefits, which is then reflected in greater interest and commitment to group formation and participation in project implementation.
The water component can therefore be said to have played a truly catalytic role in project implementation which will ultimately lead to a much more successful project outcome.
It is for these reasons that a strategy of having self-standing water or water and sanitation projects is likely to prove counter-productive. Not being able to include a water component means that it is going to be more difficult to get full beneficiary participation, particularly of women. Not only do they have a direct interest and traditional responsibility for water provision, but in many instances become responsible for collection of money for maintenance and repair of the system, which can also develop into small communal processing enterprises or savings and micro-credit schemes.
[1][1][1] Formation of any sort of a group, whether it be for watershed management, village forest management or even water users group normally takes about four years from the time of initial discussions to the point at which the group is stable in structure and self-financing.
John Weatherhogg