MUS has a greater impact on poverty and sustainability than single-use systems

MUS refers to an integrated approach to water service delivery that aims to meet households’ water demand for both domestic and productive uses (Faal et al, 2009). With this livelihood-based approach, MUS helps make a greater impact on poverty by combining benefits, such as health and productivity, from better access to water. Sustainability results from better planned and managed schemes; use of ‘smart’ technologies; and cost-effective solutions.

Delivering MUS is more cost-effective than single-use systems

A RiPPLE study in 2008 that looked at cost and benefits of implementing a MUS system in comparison to single-use systems (Adank et al, 2008), showed that additional benefits of MUS greatly outweigh additional costs of implementing MUS. The study compared costs in capital invesment, operation and maintenance and support, with benefits gained from improved health, time-saving and increased productivity. Another analysis of MUS systems around the world places cost-benefit ratios between 2.9 and 27 (Renwick et al, 2007).

MUS is now a recommended strategy in the Ethiopian Universal Access Plan

In a recent review of the Ethiopian Universal Access Plan, MUS has been recognised as a strategy for accelerating progress towards attaining targets. Case studies from Ethiopia have convinced policy-makers of benefits of MUS, through increased community contribution and ownership; cost recovery and sustainability and better chances of rapid scale-up. However, more work needs to be done to fill in knowledge gaps and develop clear guidelines.

Policy recommendations

Scaling up MUS requires various changes in policy and practice

Scaling up MUS needs an enabling environment that promotes inter-sectoral working and participatory planning. Both practitioners and policymakers need to recognise MUS as a key option, and always investigate its potential when contemplating service provision. Practitioners need to be more flexible with designs and accommodate more participatory processes. Policymakers should be looking to coordinate and integrate sectors, such as agriculture, health, natural resources management and water, through a ‘development’ body; facilitate a more decentralised service provision; advocate for ’smart’ technology solutions; and support and promote learning on MUS.

RiPPLE has a new policy brief, “Multiple-use Water Services (MUS): Cost-effective water investments to reduce poverty and address all the MDGs“.

References:

Adank, M., Jeths, M., Belete, B., Chaka, S., Lema, Z., Tamiru, D. and Abebe, Z. (2008) The costs and benefits of multiple uses of water: The case of Gorogutu woreda of East Hararghe zone, Oromia region, Ethiopia: RiPPLE Working Paper 7. RiPPLE: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Faal, J., Nicol, A., and Tucker, J. (2009) Multiple-use Water Services (MUS): Cost-effective water investments to reduce poverty and address all the MDGs, RiPPLE Policy Brief 1. RiPPLE: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Renwick, et. al, 2007, Multiple Use Water Services for the Poor: Assessing the State of Knowledge. A report for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Winrock International: Arlington, VA

The decision to use low-cost technologies where possible makes a lot of sense. As well as being cheaper to construct, allowing more people to be served with limited financial resources, these can often be maintained and repaired locally, which increases sustainability. The UAP progress review found that high levels of scheme breakdown were hindering efforts to expand access. This is a particular problem with imported, high-tech technologies which cannot be repaired using locally available materials and skills, so use of low-cost technologies should help. These will not be suitable for all areas – areas reliant on deep groundwater, for example, will continue to need expensive boreholes – but the Government of Ethiopia estimates that they can be used to serve 62% of the population (22 million people).

Achieving high levels of self-supply, however, could be a challenge. Communities will require considerable support in applying technologies which may be new to them, and in establishing appropriate institutions and rules for scheme management. Mechanisms will be needed to ensure that those who are not able to pay or provide labour are not excluded from services. Even with use of low-cost technologies, some external financing may be needed to meet the upfront costs of construction, yet there are serious gaps in the availability of credit in much of rural Ethiopia.

The UAP does outline a plan for capacity building at woreda level, but it is not clear how the necessary support functions will be organised to facilitate self-supply at scale. The UAP also leaves out the question of how the self-supply approach will be coordinated with ongoing investments in water services taking place under the Productive Safety Net Programme.

The UAP proposes that multiple-use water services (MUS) should be promoted as an attractive self-supply option. MUS provide domestic and productive water in an integrated way. Because greater benefits are gained when water can be used for productive, income-generating uses such as irrigation and livestock, as well as for drinking and domestic needs, it is argued that communities will be more willing to invest their own resources in such schemes.

MUS does indeed provide greater benefits than single-use water services, and offers considerable potential for poverty reduction where sufficient water resources are available. However its initial costs are considerably higher, which is likely to militate against self-supply by communities. (See RiPPLE Briefing Paper 1 and Working Paper 7 for more information on MUS.)

This tension is not adequately addressed in the revised UAP. It is suggested that the promotion of MUS will attract micro-credit, and reference is made to other financing options such as revolving funds, but there is no detail on how large-scale expansion of micro-credit services will be supported and no concrete commitment to new financing mechanisms for MUS.

With its focus on self-supply and low-cost technologies, the new UAP sets out a role for government which is more about community mobilisation and technical support than implementation. Only in relatively few situations (where expensive technologies are the only option, or when community mobilisation fails), is the government expected to directly finance and implement water schemes. This approach requires increased resourcing and capacity building of woreda water offices, and action to scale-up the availability of credit in rural areas.

The UAP has admirable and ambitious goals. Now it needs to be backed up with a clear programme of action to ensure that the necessary support services – outlined but not fully detailed in the plan – and coordination with other sectors are in place at all levels to make sure that plan becomes reality.

Climate change and adaptation is a central topic of the 5th World Water Forum (WWF) in Istanbul. It is the lead theme for the political and thematic processes, and the topic in a High-Level Panel session. Staff from the Water Policy Programme at ODI were invited to present in a major session on adaptation on the back of four ‘water and climate change’ Background Notes prepared in the run up to the forum. The notes deal with adaptation planning, the sustainability of rural water supplies in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), flood risk and food security. These, in turn, follow a DFID-funded meeting series hosted by ODI, which focuses on water and climate change issues in the final event.

Is the overwhelming emphasis on water and climate change justified? Certainly water is predicted to be the primary medium through which early climate change impacts will be felt by people, ecosystems and economies. Both observational records and climate projections provide strong evidence that freshwater resources are vulnerable, and have the potential to be strongly affected. However, the recent IPCC Technical Report on climate change and water recognises impacts on water have yet to be adequately addressed in either scientific analyses or water policy – an issue that will be discussed at a forthcoming meeting hosted by ODI in Parliament on 30 March.

But nagging questions remain. How do we separate out the impacts of climate change from those related to socio-economic and demographic trends, and should we deal with adaptation as a separate development issue? Separating impacts and responses is not easy, but it is clear that climate change is one of a number of pressures on water and livelihoods.

Take demographic change in sub-Saharan Africa. In contrast to the lack of knowledge on the direction and magnitude of hydrological changes under different climate change scenarios, the prospects of demographic change in the 21st century are known with some certainty. The population there  is expected to increase from 700 million in 2007 to 1100 million in 2030 and 1500 million by 2050, and populations will become increasingly urban. Overall water demand can therefore be expected to more than double in the first half of the 21st century, without considering rises in per capita demand for food and water. In Ethiopia, the figures are particularly alarming. The population is expected to increase from 77 million in 2007 to around 146 million by 2050, an increase of almost 90 per cent

What are the implications for development, and for adaptation? There are perhaps two main conclusions. Firstly, treating development and adaptation as separate issues is misguided. In Ethiopia, extending access to secure water and sanitation, and reducing dependence on unprotected water sources, is central to both poverty reduction and adaptation. This is simply ‘good development in a hostile climate’, in a context where access to water rather than its absolute availability will remain key.

Yet despite all the calls for adaptation ‘mainstreaming’ – in Istanbul it is treated as a separate subject; other sessions in different halls focus on water management, water supply and sanitation, irrigation and disaster management. Second, a sense of perspective is needed. There is a real danger that climate change is crowding out other, inter-related concerns around demographic shifts, urbanisation, water pollution and changing land use. There are multiple pressures on water. Climate change is one of them.

Many of the impacts of climate change (drought, flooding, storms, melting ices and rising sea levels ) including effects on climate variability, will affect water resources – the hydrological cycle is inevitably affected by climate change.

Climate change is often considered an environmental issue. However, central role of water intimately links climate change to poverty reduction, economic development and human security, particularly as adverse effects on fresh water systems aggravate the impacts of other stresses (e.g. population growth, changing economic activity, land use change and urbanization)

The wide ranging impacts of climate change on local resources and water services demand tailored responses for the specific locations and specific sectors. Climate change impacts will affect the functions and operations of water infrastructure. Geographic hot spots will include mountains and their rivers, small islands, arid regions, delta areas, as well as developing countries. As water is key resources for a large array of economic activities, it touches many sectors with their own perspectives. The agriculture, environment, WASH, Energy, and business sector are the ones which are heavily affected by climate change.

The call for adaptation therefore means a call for enabling mechanisms for water adaptation to happen using tools such as planning and assessment, vulnerability studies alongside better financing and governance structures.

The meeting held on November 28, in Adama/ Nazareth- Ethiopia, included presentations and debates on the country’s water policy and the system of engaging actors in policy process, Joint Budget Aid Review (JBAR) reports, experience sharing of community development fund (CDF) in financing community water supply programs in Amhara and a number of research outputs on Water Supply and Sanitation (WSS) financing.

The Ethiopian water sector policies have key principles of decentralization, participation, cost recovery and WaSH integration. The policies promote devolving ownership and management of WSS services to the lowest level possible and encourage transparency and accountability. They promote involving all stakeholders in service delivery and streamlining NGO/donor interventions. They also promote principles of self reliance- local self sufficiency. Principles of cost recovery are promoted – fully for urban areas and to cover operation and maintenance costs in rural areas.

Greater alignment and coordination and investing in local capacity building – including local government and community institutions – are logical outcomes of such a policy. Yet a look at actual experiences and happenings on the ground leads one to wonder whether policy intentions and practice are standing at opposite ends.

Alignment and coordination

Poor alignment and coordination can be one of the weakest points of WSS financing in the country, affecting integrated sector planning and budgeting as well as utilization.

The water sector is currently receiving increasing funds from various sources, including the national treasury, grants and loans, food security financing and internal revenue. However, only the treasury budget and block grants from treasury at woreda level are reported in government systems.

The process that has started to bring donor money on budget – for ADB, WB and DFID financing – has been slow and dragging for two years, with still the expenditure from this sources not being seen on MoFED expenditure reports.

Other sources of finance like Productive Safety Net Program and food security budget, which provide a significant amount of financing for water supply, even higher than grant and loans – taking current expenditure reports into account – are not integrated into sector processes – WSS planning, financing, M&E systems ; and water offices at woreda level don’t have information about them. NGO financing is also significant and especially makes 60% of pro-poor financing but is not integrated. An example of one woreda in Oromiya showed about 95% of woreda capital budget for WSS financing is off-budget.

Higher utilization of treasury budget compared to loans and grants provides a strong argument for more alignment. But most donors – excepting the few mentioned above – pursue bilateral support – the reasons being ‘the need to develop confidence on the efficiency and transparency of government systems before using government systems’.

Local government capacity

One may ask weather increasing resources to the water sector in general have meant more resource allocation at local government level and more money availed for local capacity building, considering also the country’s water sector policy intentions. From the reflections on the meeting the answer will be not enough. A slightly deeper look as to the why indicates that poor coordination contributes its share to the problem.

There is increasing trend in allocation of capital budget to regions and very slowly increasing capital budget allocation to woredas. Recurrent budget allocated to woredas is also increasing; but most of it goes to Salaries as operational budget allocation has remained constant. As a result, there are more staff in woreda offices, with relatively better training. However, with out adequate operational budget, the relatively better staffed woreda offices are finding it difficult to operate effectively, deploy their staff and provide the support needed to communities managing rural water supply schemes.

On the other hand, most of the capital budget at woreda level is off-budget – mostly by NGOs operating in the woreda – and woreda water offices have weak capacity to influence and monitor off-budget investment. They have weak capacity to do strategic planning and budgeting or to coordinate off-budget investments.

Poor capacity at woreda level extends to poor reporting and accountability systems. Upward accountability is weak- poor documentation and reporting systems. Downward accountability is also weak – lack mechanisms of participating citizens.

Actors need to invest more on local government capacity building, channeling more resources and building their capacity in strategic planning and budgeting. Better coordination of WSS financing, starting from the smaller unit- woreda level also needs to take place.

(RiPPLE’s intended Long Term Action research on WSS Coordination, Information flow and Management can contribute a lot in these areas)

Local Self Reliance

The water policy gives emphasis to cost recovery – limited to operation and maintenance costs in rural areas – and use of local materials, low technology and self reliance approaches. JBAR assessment of WSS financing at national level, however, shows no-significant improvement in internal revenue generation, as other sources of finance for WSS increase; though this can also be linked to a problem of poor reporting system. Studies in Oromiya, by Italian cooperation on Economic sustainability of rural water supply systems and Finland AID, CDF experiences in Amahara region show enough financing can be generated from communities to cover WSS operation and maintenance costs and to increase sustainability of services, if communities’ capacity is built and if the development process is participatory to the extent that it is community-led. Investing on community institutions appears to be the key to ensure local self reliance.

The thematic area for the meeting was Financing WASH sector where different organization including donors presented their studies and shared their experiences to all. The donors who made presentation in the meeting were WSP- WB, Italian Development Cooperation (IDC), and Finland Embassy(FE) in the following titles:

• What Financing Modalities works best for the water sector-WSP
• Economic Sustainability of Water Supply Schemes in Oromiya Region-IDC
• Community Development Fund (CDF) in Amhara Region-FE

WAE and PANE from NGOs side made presentations which PANE presented their studies carried out at national level and WAE on case study on finance in Tenna woreda of Oromia region.

The MoWR  has also made two presentations i.e. update on Joint Budget Aid Review and on policy of water sector. The discussion on the presentation of water sector was very hot in which a lot of comments and questions were raised which very useful for better understanding of the policy.

Full report of the meeting will be available soon on RiPPLE as well as the MoWR websites

Mr. Abera mekonnen, representing Mr. Asfaw Dingamo , Water Resource Minister, officially opened the symposium by recognizing the importance of such event in bringing forward the issues and gaps in the sector  and help in addressing them . He also retaliate that the ministry of water resources has devised the universal access plan to address the lack of access of water in the country. Access to water for basic domestic uses alone however is not sufficient since people require water for small –scale productive uses in which case providing water for multiple uses is an important issue to be considered.

Following the opening remark lots of interesting papers and discussion where conducted.

Some of the interesting points raised for discussion include:

• Does MUS only focus on water and not on sanitation?
• Is MUS a holistic approach that includes IWRM or vice versa?
• Is MUS about multiple water services or systems?
• In one case study, MUS was mentioned as expensive? But is it expensive than that of single use where we have to invest for each single purpose?

These were just a few points and lots of others have been also raised. What are your ideas on the above issues?

“Ever since 2003 the Rural Agro-Enterprises Development Project of the International Center of Tropical Agriculture, CIAT, has facilitated the Learning Alliance for Rural Agro-Enterprises in Central America. This initiative promotes collaborative learning processes amongst different social actors of research, development, public and private sectors leading to promote institutional innovations which facilitate the implementation of development activities and more effective policies that may contribute to generating sustainable rural livelihoods in developing countries.”

An executive summary in English and full report in Spanish are available at: PRGA News: Assessment of CIAT’s Experience with the Learning Alliance in Central America

In this International Year of Sanitation a key question is: how can the case be made for sanitation, to draw the attention of national governments, donors and funding institutions?

This issue is being debated at this conference.

Sanitation specialists need to come up with persuasive ways of communicating their message, aligning their arguments to what is close to the hearts of people and decision makers.  Sanitation is not as yet a priority issue in many countries’ development agendas and donors have in the past been slow to support sanitation and hygiene programs. The team from RiPPLE is here in Stockholm to look for ideas, comparisons and tips.
The hurdle for sanitation is that it is often not readily identified as a priority need by communities, so elected representatives relegate it to the bottom of the development agenda. And until recently donor funding follows other national government priorities, allocating little budget to finance sanitation.

The IYS is to help change that.

Creating and strengthening community demand for sanitation and hygiene means formulating a persuasive messages, appealing to households’ sense of dignity as well as highlighting health benefits. That needs to be done in plain language which people can understand.

To make the case to policy-makers requires thinking out of the box, doing away with compartmentalisation of development interventions, to present sanitation as part of a larger development whole. A good example of this is UNICEF’s ‘child survival program’ in Ethiopia which has put sanitation and nutrition issues together to present a compelling package. Packaging interventions in this way recognizes that 25% reduction in under-five mortality can be achieved by improving both water and sanitation facilities, even as poor nutrition continues to threaten infant lives. Child survival is an issue governments and development financiers simply cannot ignore – just as the regional bureau heads in SNNPR (Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Region) in 2003 accepted the urgency of improving sanitation conditions in communities as one component of a movement to improve basic health.

In national policy debates, advocates for sanitation should take their messages beyond the commonly cited impacts on health to make the link to major issues like economic growth, by investing and building in human capital – which is key.

In the end, since it boils down to sharing the national cake with other ministries of government, sanitation gets better support where collaboration across ministries is taking place. Coordination across government ministries forming cross-sectoral working groups helps to get support at cabinet level in national governments.

“I look forward to making use of the new insights and ideas I gather here in Stockholm to inform RiPPLE’s Policy engagement work, which links evidence of water and sanitation realities to improvement of policy and practice.” says Bethel.