Welcome to our newsletter
The last newsletter went out at the start of 2016 and it seems that things happen so fast that we barely have time to catch our breath and then another year is upon us – a reflection of a busy portfolio of work, but also of changes and expansion both in content and in our team.
In recent months, we worked closely with the World Bank Water Global Practice on identifying the main building blocks of rural water service delivery, a work that builds on the Triple-S initiative. We are happy to see the Triple-S concepts and emphasis on service delivery continuing to find traction with governments and development partners’ policies. A policy brief is already available and accessible here. Sustainability of rural water services therefore continues to be a core focus of our services and we are pleased to provide support to WaterAid in this area along with an exciting initiative funded by USAID on strengthening local WASH systems.
Our sanitation portfolio is increasingly growing too. In Ghana, we are currently supporting the Ministry of Sanitation and Water, via UNICEF funding, to identify financial allocations to sanitation at district level, a work following-up on the TrackFin initiative and conducted in association with Maple Consult. For WSUP UK, we completed a situation analysis of urban sanitation services in Bangladesh, Ghana and Kenya as part of the DFID-funded Urban Sanitation Research Initiative.
Programme monitoring and evaluation have become key focus areas of our services. We have been working in association with Hydroconseil on the evaluation of UNICEF WASH 2012-2016 programmes and supporting UNICEF in strengthening monitoring frameworks for several of its programmes with funding from DFID in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Madagascar, Nepal and Niger.
As one of the founding partners we continue to collaborate closely on the Agenda For Change initiative and the recently developed District-wide RoadMap for supporting universal and sustainable WASH services at decentralised levels.
On the staff front, Georges Mikhael, urban sanitation specialist, has just joined the Aguaconsult family. Sadly, we had to say goodbye to Ryan Schweitzer as he moved to a new position as WASH Officer with UNHCR. We are also looking forward to welcoming Delia Sánchez Trancón, water resource management and irrigation specialist, joining us from the French university of SUPAGRO later this year.
And as there are more important things in life besides work, congratulations to Will and Julia for the arrival of their babies in the last 12 months; we are literally an ever-expanding family!
Finally, we would like to thank all those of you who make our work interesting and yes, sometimes, fun. In particular we would like to thank Claire Allély-Fermé, who did a three-month study placement with us, and made a valuable contribution to landscaping monitoring frameworks for the Agenda For Change, among others. We also thank our clients, partners and associates, especially, IRC, WaterAid, WSUP, the Water Global Practice, UNICEF and Water.org. We look forward to new partnerships and upcoming work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Welthungerhilfe in the next months.
Please read on for more information on our work and areas of expertise, get in touch or visit our website and do share any feedback or comments with us.
Warm wishes
Harold and the team
Publications
Sustainability Assessment of Rural Water Service Delivery Models : Findings of a Multi-Country Review
This assessment uses a multi-country case study approach to identify good practices and challenges toward building sector capacity and strengthening sustainable service delivery models for rural areas
