DRR in WASH (for emergency and reconstruction situations)

Introduction

There is a need to reconstruct and develop WASH structures that prove to be resilient and robust in extreme circumstances.

The importance of DRR in WASH (or Resilient WASH) becomes clear when for example considering building a WASH infrastructure in a low lying flood prone area. If doing this without considering the flood risks, you may just as well not build anything at all. It is a waste of time and resources.

Questions:

• How do we make emergency solutions beneficial for long-term development and vice versa:

• How do we make our long-term solutions more resilient to disasters?

• What are the specific demands for the design and development of our systems when we want them to function under extreme circumstances?

WASH technologies need to be adapted to local extreme conditions

The response after a disaster need to look at resilient WASH solutions which can cope with the extreme conditions after a disaster, for example high groundwater. Here are two examples, one more suitable for long term use and the other for emergency use. Photos below show raised toilets which prevent contamination during floods and cyclones and enables continued functioning of toilet and use by communities.

Photo Left: Raised toilets in Haiti by IFRC, Photo Right: UDDT, Saif Uddin, The Bangladesh Water Development Board

Governance for resilient WASH systems

Resilient WASH is not just about technologies, it is also about governance. This means different things:

• • Actor roles and power relations: Although for a good cause NGOs often end up doing too much, becoming too influential, and are at the same time not accountable to the state. For example - Haiti is nowadays called the nation of NGOs. NGOs should ideally only come in and facilitate community ownership and kickstart actions. Instead, the persons on the ground are often overwhelmed to act as a facilitator. A multitude of advice from various expertise demands their attention, while at the same time there are demands from the community and from administration and reporting to supervisors, who are interested in results on paper.

  • The lack of transparency is a big problem in the reconstruction phase after a disaster, when many houses need to be rebuilt. The issue is much about lack of ownership, which has the potential to block development and exacerbate inequalities. For example, a problem is created if a house is reconstructed on land, which a ‘landowner’ later on demands rent for, or even claims back as private property. After the tsunami in 2004 people even put up signs in the shoreline to claim land. As a prevention measure, efforts should therefore be made to map existing land ownership, and give land titles to both genders.

  • There is also a great pressure to reconstruct quickly, for example after the 2004 tsunami there were riots because people were not getting houses in time. This points to the importance of measures in advance of disasters such as to map vulnerabilities and risk zones. This could speed up the reconstruction of housing and infrastructure and enable adequate estimate on the number of houses to build, where and how DRR should target the community level:

  • Understanding the user communities’ preferences and showing them the value of a measure and how to use it, is crucial. For example, after the tsunami, many houses were built without toilets and as many as 250,000 houses had to be retrofitted. Showing communities the value of sanitation becomes very important in such a situation.

The private sector is a forgotten actor:

• • Private sector could play a more important role but a problem is that we don’t really always understand the private sector needs, and can therefore not enable it to do so properly. NGOs can for example, in spite of good intentions make local vendors (private sector) redundant when they hand out medical supplies for free. A buffer fund would be helpful to the private sector and other organizations (such as CBOs loans, savings groups) to empower people at household level to take up private enterprises. Social return on Investment criteria (making everything count: health, etc) could for example be used in evaluating recipients. NGOs could help subsidize products which need to find their way into a market, however there is a tension between the NGO sector and private sector, which is not favoring collaboration in general.

DRR measures in WASH should be presented in a simpler way. It is actually about common sense. DRR can often be very simple measures, which create redundancy in systems.

The above are some key messages from a workshop which the cluster group organised in aug 2012. Presentations:

• Background presentation of the aim of the meeting and process leading up to where we are now: div. projects and tentative results, need to engage (WASTE general, Speedkits, Stoutenberg workshops 2009-2011, June workshop ACF, Oxfam) Åse Johannessen and Gert de Bruijne, WASTE

• Presentation by WASTE: Thoughts on WASH & Resilience – focus on sanitation (see objective and questions above)

• Presentation by Petra Wadström CEO and founder of Solvatten (water treatment by UV light) and experiences from Haiti: Thoughts on WASH & Resilience – focus on water supply

• Presentation by Alastair Morrisson SIWI, WASH & resilience from experiences from UNDP, Oxfam and elsewhere: Thoughts on WASH & Resilience – focus on governance

Invitation and agenda

Meeting Notes