WSUP animation – welcome to the world of urban WASH programming!

How do you design and implement an effective urban WASH programme? In WSUP’s recent publication “The Urban Programming Guide” we set out the many activities involved, from planning and capacity building to improving services and promoting behaviour change. This short animation brings the publication to life and takes you on a virtual tour of some of these activities in action: enjoy the ride!

You can download the Urban Programming Guide for free from our website.

VACANCY: Urban Water and Sanitation Specialist, WSUP Advisory

Job Location: London, UK
Closing Date: 30^th June 2014

WSUP Advisory is a consultancy service providing technical expertise to those seeking to address the challenges of providing urban WASH services to low-income urban consumers. WSUP Advisory takes the lessons learned from WSUP’s programmes and makes them available to countries across the world.

To meet its goals, WSUP Advisory is seeking an Urban Water & Sanitation Specialist who is interested in supporting cities across the world to adopt successful service models that reach low income consumers, and who is also interested in helping to build an advisory business. This is an opportunity to play a key role in a growing organisation. The role will require creative thinking and tenacity to seek continual improvement.

To read more about the role and find out how to apply, please visit http://www.wsup.com/programme/vacancies.

THE URBAN PROGRAMMING GUIDE: How to design and implement a pro-poor urban WASH programme

Improving water, sanitation and hygiene services to low-income urban areas is a highly challenging and complex task. Traditional approaches have often failed to work. We need new approaches and fresh thinking. We need governments, donors and sector professionals genuinely committed to improving services in slum settlements. It’s challenging but it can be done! This guide offers some solutions based around WSUP’s experience: all you have to do is put them into practice!

The guide provides an introduction to urban WASH programming: how to design and implement a pro-poor urban water, sanitation and hygiene programme.

Who is this guide for?
This guide is primarily designed for WASH professionals working in governments, development agencies, funding agencies or civil society organisations. It will also be useful for professionals working for service providers including water utilities, local authorities and in the private sector.

How to use this guide
The guide provides an overview of some key strategies and service delivery models. It’s not intended to be encyclopaedic: it’s a rapid-reference document with the following intended uses:

• To aid the planning, design and implementation of urban WASH programmes.
• To assist with investment planning by service providers.
• To point the reader towards further sources of information and guidance.

The guide is free to download from WSUP’s website: http://www.wsup.com/resource/the-urban-programming-guide

Hybrid management models: blending community and private management

A clear distinction is generally made between community and private management of water and sanitation services. This distinction reflects the different motivations, values, attitudes and approaches generally associated with each type of provider.

In WSUP programmes, the local context is often suited to community or to private management models. But in practice, WSUP often seeks to go beyond this “community” versus “private” dichotomy, to try to get “the best of both worlds”. For instance, CBO operators are often encouraged to adopt commercial practices and achieve business efficiency. Similarly, entrepreneurs are encouraged to be more supportive of the needs of the community, and more responsive to poverty and gender issues.

In this Topic Brief, the approaches used by WSUP in Nairobi, Kumasi and Antananarivo under the African Cities for the Future (ACF) programme are examined from this perspective of blending community and private management models. The Topic Brief concludes with practical guidance on this issue for programme managers. Click on the image below to download the Topic Brief.

Recognising and dealing with informal influences in water and sanitation services delivery

Donor-funded water and sanitation improvement programmes tend to focus on and operate within the formal frameworks put in place by municipal or national governments. These frameworks broadly comprise the rules, laws and official policies that govern water and sanitation services delivery. However, in order to plan and implement programmes effectively, it is essential that implementers also recognise and take into account the influence of more subtle informal factors, such as conventions, norms of behaviour, and unwritten cultural codes of conduct.

This Topic Brief draws on WSUP’s experience in the 6-city African Cities for the Future (ACF) programme, to illustrate how both formal and informal factors can influence local service provider and low-income consumer behaviours. The Topic Brief also provides practical guidance aimed at sector programme managers to help explore and respond to some of the issues raised here, with a view to achieving greater project sustainability.

For more resources like this, visit www.wsup.com/sharing

Delegated management of water and sanitation services in urban areas: experiences from Kumasi, Ghana

Historically, water and sanitation service providers in low-income countries have struggled to accommodate rapid urban expansion, and particularly to serve the poor in peri-urban areas. One way to approach these challenges is to develop alternative approaches to service delivery, incorporating innovative institutional and contractual arrangements, and involving partnerships between communities, utilities, the private sector and regulators.

This Topic Brief focuses on a delegated management model developed in Kumasi (Ghana), where a WSUP-facilitated partnership between the water utility, the Metropolitan Assembly and a community management committee is starting to play a key role in expanding the provision of clean, affordable water and improved public toilet facilities in the low-income district of Kotei. The Brief explores the nature of the model, the contractual arrangements, and the central role of the community management committee. It also examines the potential for scale-up and replication.

For more resources like this, visit www.wsup.com/sharing