Welcome to the first Aguaconsult newsletter of 2016
Time flies when you're having fun, or so they say, and it seems 2016 is living proof as we are already almost a quarter of the way through, which is pretty fast! This year is indeed already an exciting time for us here at Aguaconsult, full of new opportunities and positive change, as well as some challenges no doubt as we continue to grow and incorporate new thematic areas of focus in our work.
A new year with new faces
We are very happy to introduce four new colleagues who bring new talent and skills and will certainly make a huge contribution to the organisation and strengthen our capacity across the board:
Melissa Magna and Nic Jones have already been on board for several months and together represent a formidable administration team, always on hand to support our clients and partners, making sure the office is running smoothly. Melissa comes from a background in film production and the Red Cross-Red Crescent movement and Nic has worked extensively with CAFOD in the past, so both know the realities of working in the south.
Starting in January as a new staff member is Goufrane Mansour who is a sector specialist, focusing on financing, economic and institutional aspects of water and sanitation services. Before joining Aguaconsult this month some of you may know Goufrane from her years at Trémolet Consulting. She has a PhD from the University of Paris-Sorbonne and is completing her MSc in Public Financial Management at SOAS University in London. Goufrane is fluent in English and French, with a working knowledge of Arabic and basic Portuguese.
In February we welcomed Will Tillet to the team. Will is a WASH specialist with nine years’ experience in designing, managing and evaluating programmes in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. For the last five years Will has worked as manager of a major WASH funding facility in Sierra Leone for DFID and has experience in urban sanitation and climate resilient infrastructure provision. Will holds an MSc from Cranfield University in the UK and has a working knowledge of French and Spanish.
Finally we are happy to say that Delia Sánchez Trancón has started a six month study placement with Aguaconsult as part of her final year at the Haute Ecole d’Ingénieurs, Montpellier Supagro in France. Delia will be working on both data analysis in support of the sustainability assessment in Myanmar and researching a multi-country study into rural water supply service delivery models.
At the end of 2015 we were sad to see our colleague Richard Ward leave, but we know that he is going to thrive in his new position at IRC and we will no doubt continue to work closely with Richard in the years ahead; we wish him every success in his new role!
Please take a moment to read about some of the exciting projects and partnerships that we are involved with and share any feedback with us on this mail.
We all look forward to working with you in the coming year and to making a positive contribution to those who cannot enjoy basic rights, such as clean, potable water, a safe place to defecate and a clean, hygienic environment to live in. The year 2016 marks a new set of commitments to sustainable development and we will work hard to make sure our contributions count to these global efforts to improve people's lives.
Wishing you a safe, peaceful and productive new year
Harold and the team
We are also happy to announce our new memorandum of understanding, or friendship agreement, with the University of Essex Human Rights Centre. Further details of this partnership will be available shortly, but we are excited to be working together with this globally recognised centre. This collaboration brings together our practitioner knowledge and in-country experiences of the sector, with the human rights expertise and academic rigor of the University. We have already carried out a number of joint activities and look forward to building on this platform as we cement our relationship.
UNHCR is planning an extension of the work on life-cycle cost analysis of water supply in refugee camps. UNHCR will renew a contract with IRC in 2016, which will represent the third and final phase of this analysis. Ryan has been part of this as from the outset and this third phase will include the development of tools for analysing cost data, which will be used for planning. Ryan and Catarina Fonseca from IRC worked on Phase II and will continue on Phase III. More information on Phase I can be found here.
Our collaboration with WaterAid UK continues and after providing support to the Southern African offices in 2015, Julia and Ryan have been working with staff in Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia to review and improve strategies to ensure sustainable WASH services and incorporating these into the new country programming. They are joined by Harold from March onwards as we research a series of sustainability case studies across WaterAid's global programme
Tanzania VFM analysis of rural water supply
The DFID Tanzania-funded life cycle cost analysis of the national rural water programme continues. After completing the field work in November, Julia and others from the team are now analysing the findings and drawing conclusions on what it costs to keep services working in rural Tanzania
Sustainability Assessment, Myanmar
Aguaconsult is managing a sustainability survey of the DFID-funded ASWA programme implemented by UNICEF and government partners in Myanmar. Julia and Ryan are in country and piloting the survey tools with our local partner MSR. The full results will be available in late April/early May and we will hold a dissemination workshop with government and other stakeholders in June.
Sustainable WASH Forum 2016
