Rural Water Policy in Africa and Asia

Hope, Rob; Foster, Tim; Koehler, Johanna; Thomson, Patrick

doi:10.1002/9781119520627.ch9

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 52 publications

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“…Who owns the pump, pipes or taps is largely moot if there is nothing coming out of them. This viewing of rural water supply as a service delivery challenge (Moriarty, Smits, Butterworth, & Franceys, 2013) both leads to discussion of professionalization within the sector (Hope, Foster, Koehler, & Thomson, 2019; Le Gouais, 2011; Thomson & Koehler, 2016) and the increasing acceptance of the role enterprise can play in rural water service delivery.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Remote monitoring of rural water systems: A pathway to improved performance and sustainability?

Thomson

2020

WIREs Water

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The presence of the mobile phone network in rural areas where there is little other infrastructure has opened up the prospect of automatically monitoring rural water systems, something previously possible only in person and perhaps only on foot. The technology to monitor these systems continues to develop: basic systems are now leaving research and being implemented in operational WASH programs; machine learning is making pump failure prediction possible. With the move from the previous infrastructure‐focused community management paradigm, to a service‐delivery approach to rural water, remote monitoring has salience with its potential to inform professional maintenance services. This is not without cost. To justify its use in rural water service delivery remote monitoring must generate benefits for service providers: (1) it must be integrated into management systems, and help redesign them; (2) it must contribute to increases in performance that produce real improvement in outcomes for water users; (3) it must open up new transparent sources of funding previously unavailable to the rural water sector. If remote monitoring can do these three things it has a role to play in achieving SDG 6.1; if not it will join the list of development techno‐fixes that failed to make an impact despite the best of intentions. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Human Water

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Remote monitoring of rural water systems: A pathway to improved performance and sustainability?

Thomson

2020

WIREs Water

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Not all risks are equal: a risk governance framework for assessing the water SDG

Koehler

2023

Int Environ Agreements

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While it becomes apparent that the sustainable development goal for water will likely not be met by 2030, the first UN Water Conference in almost half a century has produced a large number of non-binding commitments and pledges, thus falling short of closing the global governance gap that is widening through climate change. This article adopts a risk governance perspective and provides reflections and recommendations on the need for coordination, critical evaluation, integration and a deeper understanding of risk perceptions and responses related to the water SDG across public, private and civil society actors. Drawing on van Asselt and Renn, the paper proposes a water risk governance framework applying the principles of communication and inclusion, integration, and reflection, to assessing progress toward the water SDG. Focusing on the transformation of water services, it discusses who is represented, whose risks are perceived and responded to, and who is responsible for providing evidence and scaling innovation. It concludes that for scaling up four elements are necessary, including institutional innovation, financing mechanisms, monitoring, as well as social and policy uptake.

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Is volumetric pricing for drinking water an effective revenue strategy in rural Mali?

Wagner,

Koehler,

Dupuis

et al. 2024

npj Clean Water

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Africa lags behind the world on operational and financial progress to maintain safe drinking water services. In rural Mali, we explore the implications of monthly flat fee contributions and volumetric (pay-as-you-fetch) payments for water use and revenue generation. By assessing 4413 months of data across 177 handpumps, we find that once payment modalities switch from volumetric payments to monthly flat fees, a waterpoint registers a more than three-times higher monthly revenue. While flat fees cover a higher share of the operational costs of providing reliable water services, a subsidy gap persists. Flat fees appear to stimulate daily water use which more than doubles compared to volumetric payments. We estimate that a 1 °C increase in average monthly temperature is associated with 180 more litres of water used every day per handpump, emphasising the importance of climate-resilient water supplies. Based on these insights, we discuss the role of professional service delivery models to support reliable drinking water services for rural communities.

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Rural Water Policy in Africa and Asia

Cited by 5 publications

References 52 publications

Remote monitoring of rural water systems: A pathway to improved performance and sustainability?

Remote monitoring of rural water systems: A pathway to improved performance and sustainability?

Not all risks are equal: a risk governance framework for assessing the water SDG

Is volumetric pricing for drinking water an effective revenue strategy in rural Mali?

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