Ned Breslin Rethinks Water Aid
Ned Breslin, CEO of Water for People, is a self-professed critic of most water and sanitation interventions worldwide — and has set out to challenge longheld assumptions about the role of foreign aid in these projects.
He doesn’t doubt their initial good intentions, but laments the enormous disconnect between these intentions and long-term change. Drilling a water well can save lives, but what happens after the development organization has gone away? “Is the water still flowing,” Breslin asks. Quite often, the answer is no.
“Sustainability is NOT measured by how many handpumps you install, how many beneficiaries you(r organization) can claim, or how many microfinance loans have been given out.” Africa, Asia, and South America, Breslin notes, are littered with broken technologies and infrastructures. “ The problem isn’t a lack of good ideas, Breslin says. “The reality is that the developing world is constantly hammered with ideas, but is the intervention happening, and is it happening over time?”
Instead, success needs to be measured where change actually occurs. “Success is if somebody turns on a handpump and water comes out,” Breslin says. To continue using the same development models if there’s no water flowing is replicating failure. In other words, according to Breslin, “You can’t NGO it, but instead sort out what happened in the past and get water flowing again.”
This fall, Water for People released a monitoring tool called FLOW, for Field Level Operations Watch. The tool relies on smartphones and global mapping technologies to provide networked information about the state of water and sanitation projects. (Click here for more on the details about how the project works.) The ability to track projects allows organizations and individuals to respond quickly as problems arise. Because this technology promises to provide a clear view of what’s working and what ‘s failing, as well as the ability to track results overtime, Breslin hopes that this tool will make it easier to inject accountability in water development projects.
He also hopes that this effort will pull water project out of the hands of NGOs and into the hands of the people who are most impacted by poor water conditions. And that doing so, will provide a voice to the voiceless.
Breslin’s paper on overhauling hydro-philanthropy can be downloaded here.
(Photo credit: Thatcher Hullerman Cook)
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Ned rocks! This is revolutionary. I saw the broken hand-pumps and horrible latrines recently all over Malawi, wasting money and dashing hopes. We can and must do better to end water and sanitation poverty permanently.
I have witnessed the broken pumps and the abandoned latrines in Honduras, Bolivia and Malawi. Broken promises and failed dreams for a healthier life. Water is life and sanitation is dignity. Ned Breslin and Water For People understand this and not only want to help but to insure that what is done is maintained and supported over time. His vision will become reality because it can be done and will be done.
Ned has the right idea here. I have lived all my life in the Central African Republic growing up there with my parents and then taking my family there and spending 20 years in under a mission working there to help the poor in the CAR. ICDI was started only 5+ years ago but we are already seeing communities change by a longer term investment and training program. Regular visits, radio and continued investment in relationship on the village level through the well committee is showing that change can happen effectively. Today these people are for the most part worse off than they were in the 80’s and I believe it is because Non-Governmental Organizations have not handled their resources well. I not only drill wells but also rehabilitate broken wells (I estimate still over 1500 to rehab in the country). We now have nearly 1000 villages in our maintenance program where we have Central Africans trained in groups of two traveling in a truck with supplies, tools, equipment to repair and maintain pumps. In this way we can sign contracts with the villages for $8 a month to keep the water flowing from their hand pumps for as long as they pay their monthly fee. Maintenance visits are once every three months to collect fees and pull the pump for maintenance work. Are their hitches…yep for sure but the proof is in the flowing water. Slowly people are understanding and gaining confidence that they can survive and move their village forward. Next is to bring hope back to the community that this plus Hygiene, sanitation and agriculture can really turn around the infant mortality and mal nutrition taking young lives on a daily basis. We are already seeing progress but it is a "process" and unless people are willing to stay with the program for a number of years it will not succeed. The hole in the ground with a pump on it is only the very beginning and not by any means the end but it is what can foster the trust and relationship needed to bring confidence in what you are teaching in regards to the change needed in the community.
Excellent idea. Having worked in the poor communities in rural and peri urban of Malawi. I have witnessed huge investments by ‘donors’ going almost into drain due to lack of iniutiative like the FLOW and sustainable ideas of sanitation and hygiene programmes just like WfP . The idea of FLOW is the answer to the current challenges in following up investment,sustaining and tracking up progress after initial support and investments to poor communities.
I am currently involved in sanitation programme tageting poor rural and market centre communities in Malawiy funded by the Global Sanitation Fund and Africa Development Bank supported components, I feel if FLOW is shared with this other initiatives and programmes would make a difference and influence the positive change to implement water and sanitation programmes. Can there be programmes on which WFP can support other initiatives in your country of support like Malawi?
please allow the current of change flow to the other programmes in the country.
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