Changing Business as Usual

October 16, 2010
By Eileen Lambert

On October 12, Water For People co-hosted an event with IRC, supported by USAID, the Case Foundation and another major foundation. About 75 representatives of donor organizations, implementing organizations, and advocacy groups came together to discuss ways to facilitate sustainable water and sanitation services at scale. The focus was on changing the “business as usual” approach.

Ned Breslin’s story of how our approach has evolved over time emphasized that we can’t just say sustainability without proving it. He announced that we have developed a powerful, visual way to track the impact of our work over time so that we can learn; real data will allow us to build on strengths and address challenges in creative ways to get to lasting results. Each participant was challenged at the end to commit to practical actions to overcome obstacles to building sustainability into their programming.

While there was broad consensus around the goal, notable challenges were surfaced:

Donors often seek tangible and immediate results, like the number of beneficiaries. The question donors need to ask, however, is ‘will those people still have water flowing in 10 years?’
To create broadly successful services, the number of people involved can become unwieldy.

In order to show success in water and sanitation services, monitoring will be of utmost importance because an organization won’t be focused on the individual results of one water pump affecting 250 people but rather that a service improved access for an entire community now and for years to come. Breslin shared with the group the successes and challenges we’ve faced to improve sustainability in our programs. It all comes down to monitoring, he said. If the “solution” doesn’t work, it’s not a solution and it’s time to analyze and find the best path forward. Rather than judging projects on how many people were served by the implementation of the project, Water For People will celebrate, instead, when water is flowing a decade later.

What do you think?