wash and phones

With all the buzz about using cell phones in the field of development I decided to do a quick review of the different ways people have attempted to use cell phone technology to improve water sanitation and/or hygiene related access.

When we talk about cell phones for water and sanitation we are talking about a broad range of uses and technologies.  On the simple end we can use basic cell phones to transmit data through sms (text messages) or voice.  We can get more fancy and utilize smart phones that run more serious operating systems and have powerful features like internet connectivity, gps, and cameras.  Here are some examples of how people have started using cell phones to improve WASH services in Africa and Asia:

1. Community Led Total Sanitation Tracking via SMS – In a World Bank WSP funded project in Indonesia, Health Officers and Sanitarians started using SMS to report on baseline conditions and progress on the path towards Open Defecation Free Communities.  The officers text in the number of latrines contructed and other key information to a SMS server which processes the information and puts it into some sort of database.  According to WSP they will plan to replicate this in 29 districts in the Province.

2. Q&A – IRC International Water and Sanitation Center piloted an SMS based Question and Answer service to link communities and individual users with information related to their water supply.  Questions submitted via SMS are (or were) answered by one of the members a Water and Sanitation Network.  Questions ranging from the costs of spare hand pump parts to inquiries about low pressure in a piped system in Dar es Salaam have been answered by this service.  This pilot project started back in 2005 and I have not received any response by the operators whether they are still in action.

3. Water from Cell Phones – Grundfos, the Danish pump company, launched a new business model called LifeLink.  LifeLink is a small water enterprise (see previous post on SWEs) that uses cell phones to transfer “water credits” from the user’s bank account to that of the pump operator.  Lifelink constructs a solar powered water kiosk in a community and when someone wants to buy water they add credits to their account thorugh a simple text message transaction.  The kiosk displays the users balance after they swipes some sort of pass.  After that they are free to have as much water as they can afford.

4.  Information Broadcasting – A number of programs throughout Africa and Asia have attempted to use SMS to broadcast information about everything from handwashing to water conservation.

These four cases are surely not comprehensive but give good examples of what people have used phones for in the WASH sector.  I think we can break these uses down to the following:

• Monitoring and evaluation – Cell phones can be used to collect information and relay data back to some central location.  This fucntionality can be extremly useful for tracking progress of work and maintaining transparency.
• Information Services (to end user) – People can get information by calling or texting a specified number (in addition to the example above check out google sms in Uganda).
• Gateway – The cell phone can act as a mechanism to enable a service (think about the Grundfos example above).

To date none of these projects have really gone to scale.  As you could imagine there are some huge barriers to success including poor cell phone networks (including poor coverage and a lot of system downtime).  I have a few ideas of my own on how to enhance WASH service delivery with cell phones and hope to post them in the coming weeks.
Any other interesting cell phone based projects?  Post them in the comments section.

peepoo

While many of you have heard of the peepoo product, the worlds first marketed “flying toilet” like solution.  Many may not have seen it in action.  Here are two interesting videos about the PEEPOO. (I found these videos on http://watersanitationhygiene.org ).  These appear to be having some positive impacts on the Kibera Community in Kenya so if you are interested check out this impact assessment funded by GTZ .

Closing schools for poor sanitation?

I have blogged about different approaches used to encourage improved sanitation, but Uganda has again stepped it up (at least in theory).  Today’s Daily Monitor reports that Kampala City Council is closing schools that don’t conform to city sanitation standards.  While this may be a crucial step to show the importance of sanitation I have a few questions as to the cost vs. benefits of this approach.

-I wonder if these schools have funding to improve their own sanitation conditions.  If not, as I suspect, how could they possibly deal with this?

-What happens to the children from these schools?  Do they stay at home where the sanitation situation is presumably just as poor?  Are they forced to go to another school farther away that probably has a dismal student to teacher ratio?

Apparently they have already closed three schools….What is next?

Ugandan Primary School Students Painting a Latrine with Health Messages

Malawi and the MGDs

The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) released a paper yesterday that gives a comprehensive view on the state of water and sanitation in urban areas of Malawi through the lens of meeting the MGDs.   This paper, written by a Malawian Professor/Consultant, delves into the dismal state of urban poor in Malawi and essentially says that Malawi’s proclaimed achievements towards meeting the MGDs for Water and Sanitation are crap.

Official 2006 Malawi stats show that 96% percent of the urban population have access to potable water and 97% have access to sanitation.  Based on the results of this (albeit not an academically rigorous) study this situation is NOT likely!!  The real problem comes in defining what ACCESS really means…If it means that 5 households have a neighbor who has one primitive pit latrine that they can use once in a while – then may be that data could be plausible.  If access to water is defined by having a public tap that charges double the standard rate for potable (and many times not even clean enough to be considered potable) water and is only available at best for 6 hours a day (and sometimes not for a week at a time) – then the data could be plausible.

After living in Malawi for almost 2 years in a very nice area of the capitol, Lilongwe, I cannot believe this data.  Even in my posh neighborhood, we had days where no water flowed from the tap and other days where the water was brown.  If Malawi cannot provide reliable access to the wealthy, who are willing to pay anything for their water, how could they possibly claim to adequately serve the poor.

Malawi’s poor governance is surely to blame for this dismal situation but the international community and agencies like UNICEF also need step up.  UNICEF continues to pour money into WASH projects in Malawi and has not been able to strengthen the corrupt broken system within the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Development (and MoH).  They have focused on spending their own money and meeting arbitrary goals (often times set by their donors) while letting the bureaucrats take them (and their money) for a ride.  Instead of focusing on drilling as many boreholes (regardless of location) as possible (with little investment for O&M), buying ArcGIS for each District Water Officer, and other marginally beneficial endeavors – UNICEF must step up , use their weight as the lead UN agency for water and sanitation, and try to honestly strengthen the system.  Why would UNICEF and others support false data about the Water and Sanitation situation in Malawi?  They too want to look good, right?  They don’t want to press the government too hard, right?  Make them think?  Hold them to more rigours standards for data collection? (ok ok enough UNICEF ranting for now but I promise to justify some of these claims in a future post)

Beating the MDG targets for Water, huh?

Here are a few interesting quotes from the paper:

“the policy to subsidize tariff to kiosks (MK44/m3) [in Blantyre] with the view that the poor should pay less for water is not achieving the intended results as the poor in the low-income area (kiosk customers) are paying three times (MK150–175/m3) more than the recommended tariff”. (Malawi Government, 2007c:75)

“Sanitation is under-emphasized in relation to water supply, despite the recognition of the inseparable link between them. Water supply is approached as an investment, while inadequate sanitation is regarded as an issue requiring increased education on hygiene behaviour. For
example, a sanitation marketing strategy has been developed to promote on-site sanitation, while for water supply an investment planning document 77 was prepared”

No latrine, go to jail!

One of the difficult issues facing governments, development agencies, and public health professionals alike is how to get people to poop in latrines. Authorities in Kitgum Uganda have resorted to arresting people without latrines.  29 people thus far have been reportedly arrested and will be forced to do community service and build a latrine (Daily Monitor, 8/3/09).  Having been to Kitgum, a place where most of the population has been displaced in camps for years, I am really impressed that they are taking the initiative to prioritize sanitation. May be it is the fear of another Hep E outbreak?  May be authorities are just fed up with dealing with cholera each and every year?  I wonder how long this “by-law” will be enforced?  Will it really work?

Law enforcement in Northern Uganda is surely not efficient and I doubt they will devote too much time to rounding up non-latrine-owners.  This type of action could however be part of a larger campaign to create social stigma around open defecation.  Many education campaigns and approaches like Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) aim to get the community to identify their state of sanitation and propose solutions to move forward.  Could law enforcement from the top help this in any way?

Latrine in Northern Uganda (Gulu/Amuru District)