Few questions

By Protos Posted on Sun 02 Aug 2009, almost 17 years ago

Just a few questions Gemma, since the approach seems to be close to what PROTOS tries to do in some African and Latin-american countries: create capacities at local and regional level for community managed water systems, while emphasising the complementary roles of civil society and local government with respect to local basic and public services.

Is UNYPAD the Regional Water POD for North Kabuntalan ? Or is UNYPAD rather your counterpart in setting up the regional POD's ? Is UNYPAD working in other sectors also ? And what is their relationship with the local POD's ?

I can imagine that the local POD's will need a support on the longer run for more sophisticated interventions; is the idea that the regional POD should give this support ? If so, is there any organisational link or mechanism for accountability between local and regional POD's ?

You're talking about 15 existing POD's all over the country. Any statistic information, evaluation reports or so on this experience ?

What about the ownership of the water systems ? Officially, I understand that LGU is responsible for water supply - and also the official owner of the assets ? Do you plan also any mechnism of "local auditing" ?

What about the longer term savings for rehabilitation and renewals ? Our experience shows that it's rather easy to get people contribute for operation and short term maintenance, but savings in the community for the replacement of a pump in another 7 years is not so easy - and one of the reasons seems to be the rather unofficial status of the water committee. Any data or approach with respect to this blottleneck in the PODS-scheme ?

Few questions

By A Single Drop Posted on Sun 02 Aug 2009, almost 17 years ago

Few questions

By A Single Drop Posted on Tue 04 Aug 2009, almost 17 years ago

hi stephan

Very excited about sharing our insights about community water service models!

UNYPAD is being mentored to become a Regional POD. It is an existing organization that also works in education and livelihood. ASD and UNYPAD will be helping to create the local PODS where eventually, they will be the local NGO that will continue the technical, organizational and development support when needed by the local PODS. ASD will continue ongoing mentorship with UNYPAD to transfer additional water technologies as well as build their skills and confidence in developing and supporting Local PODS on their own. Ultimately, ASD will have a competency validation standard that will create the accountability mechanism for the relationship between both the national PODS (ADSSW) and regional PODS and the local PODS as both the National and regional PODS have the capacity to develop local PODS. this will be acquired through several consolidation strategies for continual monitoring and recording all learnings and milestones.

Currently the exisiting PODS are all in different stages of development. Some were developed before the WiN/WASH Analysis was integrated. We have found that the most successful and the ones that have moved forward and upscaled quickly are those that went through the process of the WIN/WASH because they made their own decisions as opposed to the decisions being made by the funders. We are currently being considered for a research grant that will help us to do a comprehensive survey on the impacts of community-led water service projects. We will be looking into the obvious, health impacts, reduction of disease, but are also interested in researching the change in government WASH funding.

Actually, ownership of the water has not been the issue. It's more a question of who is managing the system. The government as well as the community acknowledge that the local PODS are the stewards of the system, and the water is by right, available for the entire community's benefit, and that the fee they are paying is for the service of the water closer to their homes. One of the PODS officers is an internal auditor. There are also collectors, a treasurer, bookkeeper.

As part of the PODS organizational development workshop, the PODS establish a business plan that creates a cost structure that will have 25% of it's fees go to a savings for upscaling their project or creating another community development project. Also, another 25% goes towards an incentive program that basically ensures that each member has shares in the system. The organization is SEC registered and there is an MOU that is signed by the PODS and the local government recognizing that the PODS is the official management of the water system.

Two of our projects, (one of which united 2 barangays (villages)) developed a spring and built a Level II water system, which basically means there are communal tap stands. in less than a year, about 3% of their users have already upscaled to a Level III water system, which has piped water from those tapstands into multiple homes. This is an example of how some have used their shares and paid extra to upscale their systems from Level II to Level III.

I hope that helps!

Would welcome your opinion and insight anytime!

Be well
Gemma