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World Water Week 2024:

More Expensive is Ultimately Cheaper: Last Mile Service Delivery

Monday August 26
5pm - 6 pm Stockholm
8am – 9am Seattle
9am – 10am Honduras
6pm – 7pm Kenya
9pm – 10pm Bangladesh
Languages: English, Spanish, Bengali
Online - Session ID 11510
Summary
Locally-led NGOs from Africa, Asia and Latin America present case studies highlighting successful programs integrating community-managed water systems with household water service and safely-managed sanitation. These pioneering organizations will share their blueprints and practical experiences with engineering design, construction, long-term sustainability, financial management, and collaboration with local government and funders.
Would you like to join our Community of Practice?
Join here
We are forming a Community of Practice that will include an in-person visit to two of the case study communities and more opportunity to collaborate on shared development goals and challenges. Let’s join together in knowledge and experience to continue to advance last mile water and sanitation service knowledge and competencies.
How to join our session:
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Online access to this session is FREE OF CHARGE. We have created a short step by step guide to help you find and join our World Water Week session.
Would you like to join our Community of Practice?
Join here
We are forming a Community of Practice that will include an in-person visit to two of the case study communities and more opportunity to collaborate on shared development goals and challenges. Let’s join together in knowledge and experience to continue to advance last mile water and sanitation service knowledge and competencies.
Piped Water Construction Standards:
Click here
Water systems should be constructed and operated with the same best practices no matter where they are located. The extra time and resources invested in the proper design and proper construction that implementers and the community make in the design and construction stages will reduce the water system’s operations and maintenance costs and will improve system dependability fifty years into the future.

Because piped water networks that supply safe water 24/7 are rare, especially in rural areas, new competencies in design and construction also need to be developed in order to meet the targets of SDG6. To aid in that process, we are sharing Version 1 of Piped Water Construction Standards. We welcome feedback from implementers to continue to improve these standards. Tremendous thanks to Steve Deem and Nancy Feagin of the Washingston State Department of Health for developing this document. For questions and feedback, please contact Steve Deem.

Session Summary and Videos

Session Description
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for water and sanitation are ambitious and stress the right to safely-managed water and safely-managed human waste. Currently 80% of the population of rural Africa lack access to both safely managed water and sanitation services. While accessibility in urban areas is higher, at least 40% of people in African cities do not meet SDG targets for water and sanitation. Thus, funders, implementing organizations, and governments worldwide need to develop new competencies to bring their work in alignment with those goals. Learning from institutions at the forefront of this effort can speed the sector’s progress. Locally-led organizations based in Kenya, Bangladesh, and Honduras, working in both urban and rural contexts, will share the real challenges they have experienced and solutions they have developed while implementing integrated community-managed piped water systems that deliver last mile services. A case study from the mayor of Valladolid, Honduras will describe a long-term collaboration with a locally-led NGO resulting in a household piped water systems approaching 100% coverage in the region. Case studies will include detailed practical knowledge and lessons learned in design, construction management, community-management, government collaboration, and how funding partners can contribute to successful implementation, monitoring and follow-up.

Convenors

Comité Central Pro Agua y Desarrollo Integral de Lempira (COCEPRADIL)
Honduras

COCEPRADIL, an association of water committees in the department of Lempira in western Honduras, was founded in 1989. COCEPRADIL´s roots in the communities, awareness of water access, quality and hygiene issues and participative project planning and execution have enabled them to develop sustainable projects that carefully nurture and respect the needs of the communities they serve. COCEPRADIL is widely recognized as an important motor for development in Lempira, one of the poorest regions of Honduras and Latin America.

The impact of COCEPRADIL has gone beyond the management of water resources to form part of a broader territorial development dynamic over the past two decades. They have protected Congolon, a major watershed in the region. They also provide advice on land management practices for farmers and health and nutrition practices for communities and families.

Note that the videos below are subtitled in English. Select the CC button in YouTube to access the English subtitles if they don’t automatically appear for you.

COCEPRADIL’s success in building capacity of water management committees over several decades means that those hundreds of committees have savings from monthly water fee collection. That led to the formation of Cooperativa Mixta Aguas de Congolon (also known as COMIXACOL).

COMIXACOL provides financial services for members of COCEPRADIL including making loans for WASH facilities.
COCEPRAIL in Honduras collaborates with municipalities, including as they mentioned, the co-financing of water system infrastructure.

Thanks to the efforts of COCEPRADIL and the local government, household water access in Valladolid is over 99% and the municipality is currently undertaking a project to install household water meters at every home as a climate change preparedness initiative.

Dushtha Shasthya Kendra (DSK)
Bangladesh

Dushtha Shasthya Kendra (DSK) is a non-government development organization (NGO) an NGO that has been working since the late 1980s to eliminate poverty in hard-to-reach areas of Bangladesh. The aim of DSK is to realize the basic needs of the poor, marginalized and disadvantaged people and to build a society free from exploitation and deprivation.

DSK has developed expertise in many program areas that are critical to the wellbeing of the marginalized and disadvantaged including Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Primary Health Care Services, Microfinance, Humanitarian Response, Disaster Preparedness/Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation, Non-formal Education, and Advocacy and Human Rights.

Mohammed Shaiful Haque, a civil engineer, will describe some of the data they have collected about water service level preferences in one of their programs serving the urban poor. An important note: users of the water systems pay 100% of the construction costs via a two-year, low-interest rate loan.

Community Asset Building and Development Action (CABDA)
Kenya

CABDA was founded by a Kenyan woman, Ephy Imbali and is based in Kakamega, Kenya. CABDA works with thousands of orphans, vulnerable children, and their families who have been significantly impacted by the HIV pandemic in Western Kenya.

CABDA brings a unique expertise to their water and sanitation programs in building economic capacity in low-income households through Self Help Groups and Savings and Internal Lending Communities (SILC).

Kenya Water for Health Organization (KWAHO)
Kenya

KWAHO is Kenya’s oldest non-profit organization focused on addressing the water, sanitation, and hygiene needs of Kenyan communities. KWAHO was founded in 1976 following the UN-Decade of Women conference in Mexico City addressing the needs of women around the world. The women’s delegation from Kenya made a presentation on a concept for providing easy access to safe water for Kenyan women. UNICEF decided to fund the project and the women from the delegation formed an implementation team. The work was so successful that the team decided to create an organization to replicate the outcomes throughout the country. Since that time, KWAHO has continued to implement projects that address the water and sanitation needs in Kenya, impacting over 3.5 million lives.

KWAHO is based in Nairobi, but they have projects throughout the country.