4.1.5 Water Aid UK
4.1.5.1 Background
In 1981, the Thirsty Third World Conference was organised in the
United Kingdom to respond to the United Nation's Decade of Drinking Water and
Sanitation Campaign with projects in Zambia and Sri Lanka being the first ones
to receive support from Water Aid. In the 1990s, the organisation begun
developing country strategies and hygiene education policies were put in place
to ensure that people gain maximum health benefits from the different water and
sanitation projects in Nigeria, Mozambique, Zambia, Madagascar and Malawi. By
the early 2000s, Water Aid begun its work in West Africa and in 2002, Access to
Water was declared a Human Right and also added to the list of Millennium
Development Goals. Over the past ten years, Water Aid has reached 19.2 million
people with its safe water campaigns and 15.1 million people with its
sanitation campaigns (Water Aid, 2009).
4.1.5.2 Goals and Strategy
Water Aid has identified the following four global goals to help
25 million people worldwide gain access to safe water, improved hygiene and
sanitation (Water Aid, 2012):
- To promote and secure poor people's rights and access to safe
water, improved hygiene and sanitation.
- To support governments and service providers in developing
their capacity to deliver safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation.
- To advocate for the essential role of safe water, improved
hygiene and sanitation in human development.
- To further develop as an effective global organisation
recognised as a leader in our field and for living our values.
4.1.5.3 Sector of Activity
Water Aid's work worldwide focuses on the following sectors:
Children Protection, Health, Water and Sanitation, Women and Social
exclusion.
4.1.5.4 Project Selection and Management
Water Aid's aim is to make the projects and programmes launched
under the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene campaign sustainable by ensuring that
they are designed in a way that allows them to answer the following
questions:
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- Demand: Does the project or programme respond to a need or
demand and how is the demand demonstrated?
- Design and Implementation: how will quality be assured? How
will user's participation be addressed and how will the required technology be
identified?
- External Support: how and by whom will the external support to
community-based management be provided? How will the organisational
effectiveness be measured and who will pay for the external support?
- Environmental Factors: what impact could factors outside the
control of the project or programme such as water resource availability, land
use, agriculture have on the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene infrastructure?
To ensure the sustainability of the projects and programmes under
WASH, they have to be monitored. Records on functionality and utilisation of
water and sanitation services are therefore maintained and surveys are
conducted yearly to capture the status of the services implemented and the
impact they have had on the behaviours of members of given communities.
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