Budget and Sanitation

By El Porvenir Posted on Sun 20 Jul 2008, almost 18 years ago

Dear Lynn,

Welcome to PWX.

I have a couple of questions.
1. In the budget, about half of the expenses are admin, although looking at it closely, I see masons (albañiles) and engineers, which I assume are assigned full time to this community, so I wouldn't call that admin myself. Well, that is not my question though (although maybe you can confirm my assumption). The office and communications costs, these are of your office, costs associated with this project? or of the village committee? To be honest, I am not sure what the BPR policy is on admin costs, I think in ours, we just put in a 5-10% admin figure to cover those...

Seems like a very good total cost to people ratio. Well done.

2. What do you mean by the majority of homes have some form of human waste disposal? Do you have a % or a number? I am sure you are aware as we all are, that even one home without proper human waste disposal endangers the health of the entire community. Is there a cultural habit of using latrines in Nebaj? Do the people without latrines or other options, borrow from their neighbours or go off to the bush?

Thanks,
Rob

Budget and Sanitation

By Agua Para La Salud (APLS) Posted on Mon 21 Jul 2008, almost 18 years ago

Dear Rob,
We normally have about 10-12% admin costs or supervision and design of project; about 25% skilled labor; and the balance of the office costs are rents, light , communications,gas , etc. All of these costs aside from materials are normally about 50% of project costs.

The villages in the area have recieved a number of sanitary projects from the government which consist of a concrete slab and stool as the basis for a latrine.The villagers are required to provide the enclosure which in most cases is plastic and stick cabin, thus my term " some form of disposal". Other institutions have constructed formal latrines in the area with metal, durilite, or wood cabins. this is not wide spread. We normally build a wood encloseure when we make latrines. The net result is that most villages are aware of the need to confine human feces and have some means of doing the job.

Questions / Clarifications

By East Meets West Foundation Posted on Wed 23 Jul 2008, almost 18 years ago

Pulay Summary

The budget is a bit confusing. In the Application Details, the Project Cost is specified to be $26,884. There is a very modest level of beneficiary co-financing specified (see below). The attached detailed budget attached is for $63,000, although the budget appears to only include equipment and materials (my Spanish isn’t very good) costs. What about non-hardware costs such as system design, skilled and unskilled labor, engineering supervision, inspection, etc.? Who will finance the skilled and unskilled labor required to construct the system (see below)?

The community contributions are currently limited to:
1. 10% of materials cost and local materials (rocks, wood, etc.);
2. Site costs including rights of way (which is essentially no cost at all);
3. Legal documents (presumably minimal); and
4. Local materials costs such as rock and wood for forms.

While this does represent some modest level of co-financing, if this is all they can provide, are they going to be willing to pay water fees that are sufficient to cover long-term costs of maintenance, repair and replacement? If not, who will cover the costs of these items, without which the system will fail?

This issue is of particular concern because of the statement that “With regards to other NGOs working here, the Guatemalan organization FIS and UNIPAR built a water system here about fifteen years ago. However, these system no longer works properly nor have sufficient water for future growth of the villages.”
If that is indeed the case, what assurance is there that the same thing will not happen with this new system? Beneficiaries should be required to make significant (to them) cash and (at least) in-kind contributions to confirm their commitment to the new system, otherwise the likely of early system financial and/or mechanical failure is significant.

While there are apparently 1900 water beneficiaries, the “Details” statement says: “The village has about 250 families and about half of these are children. What does that mean? Does it that mean that there are 1900/250 = 7.6 people per family, and so about four kids per family? Please specify the number of children that will be getting water in schools (not yet listed, or just none?) and sanitation (apparently none) financed by this proposal. Even poor people have some money, and they should confirm their long-term commitment to support the system by making some reasonably affordable level of contribution to ensure its sustainability.

I assume that there is at least one school within this service area. Does the school have water or not? If not, shouldn’t that be included in the proposal, along with a school latrine (even if household latrines are not being financed under this proposal, should there at least be a school latrine)? If kids go to school from 0700-1230, shouldn’t there be some provision to meet their sanitation requirements over that five and a half hour period? Or is this already going to be addressed by the “hygiene project that will be carried out by the teachers”?

Questions / Clarifications

By Agua Para La Salud (APLS) Posted on Thu 24 Jul 2008, almost 18 years ago

I have checked my proposal and cannot find a reference to $63,000.00. The projects stands on the budget of $26,884.00. The materials list includes all materials , and transport to complete the project. The Monthly schedule of expenses outlines Diego Ramirez as the engineer who works along with volunteer engineers from the UK and other countries. Diego is in charge of the day to day supervision on the projects. He has done this for 12 years.

The water system installed 15 years ago was a time of refugees returning to the area after the civil war. The government had no idea of how many people would return and under built the systems. Many of these systems were built for about a 4th of the existing population. They are still functioning as the result of village maintenance, but cannot serve present population.

The villagers are responsible for all non skilled labor such as digging the trench for the project which I note is understated ( my error) in the proposal. The actual figure is closer to 5000 meters according to the surveys included in this proposal. Normally a village will put about 20 men in the field a day when digging trench. They can cover about 300 meters a day at this rate. It should take about three weeks if no rock is encountered. 20 men for 15 days is 300 man hours. The minimum labor cost in Guatemala is abot $7.50 which equaltes to $2.250.00. The village will also provide about the same number of men per day as the 4 masons building the spring capture; work on gluing of tubes; constructing tanks; repairing tanks; and finally covering the tubing properly. The village labor contribution aside form the 10% cash contribution would be estimated at 4 times the $2250.00 amount or about $10,000.00. The village already has a water committee and they are collecting fees to maintain the water system. They have also bought the spring site.

The population figures given were from the village committee. The last census was some five years ago and I think that they have a rough idea of the population. The local hospital estimates about 250 families. A second stage project is planned for Pulay as funds become available to improve the distribution system. A survey of the actual houses will be done to determine a design for the distribution system during this project if funded.

When I say half are children this refers to all under the legal age of 18. Not all of these are in school for reasons of economics and culture . The school population is about 350 children and they do have water supply and sanitary facilities. Recently Pulay received a government drainage system and there is some talk about the school converting to flush toilets. The school is normally a part of all of our distribution system projects and we will be studying the schools needs if that phase is implemented. Our main focus in this phase is to provide adequate water for a 20 year period so that other projects are posible. We have constructed over 50 school latrine and hand washing station in schools and schools are a main focus of the area projects.

During this project we will ask the teachers at the school to join us in the planning and execution of a hygiene project in the school. This should give us some information about the utility of their present facilities to meet the needs of the school children

Questions / Clarifications

By East Meets West Foundation Posted on Sun 27 Jul 2008, almost 18 years ago

Hi again. I don't know where that $63,000 came from. Perhaps I had several of these reviews open at the same time and was looking at another proposal's budget. Sorry about that.

With regard to the five-year old population figures and the rough estimate by the local hospital of the number of families that you mentioned, it wasn't exactly clear whether or not you are going to size your system for a twenty year life-time or for the current (updated) population figures. Don't forget that future population estimates should not only include birth-based population increases, but also population growth due to new families that may move into the area.

20 years is a relatively long design lifetime of a rural water system in developing countries. Typically systems are designed for a ten year lifetime.

How come only men do the digging? In Vietnam, both men and women dig.

O&M / Water Tariff - I scanned your proposal twice and did not see any mention of water tariffs or how you plan to pay for operation, maintenance and repairs.

Questions / Clarifications

By Agua Para La Salud (APLS) Posted on Tue 29 Jul 2008, almost 18 years ago

Fourteen years ago when we started the projects in this area the majority of the water systems were in a state of failure because the international agencies installing water systems were taking the short view of water system longevity. At that time we recognized that a longer term of use was necessary to avoid shortages of water and duplicate costs. We arrived at the 20 year criteria based upon the government populatiuon projections of doubling of rural population over 20 years, or 3% incerase per year (5% in urban areas). This has proven to be correct since we have not had any of the villages in which we installed water systems over the last 14 years return to ask for augmentations or new water systems. They , however , have retrurned to ask for technical assistance to repair their systems and have been quite good about keeping them in repair.

Each community in this area has adopted one of two forms of paying for maintenance and emergency repairs. In communities that have very low incomes the village committee will meet with the entire town and explain the problem and the financial solution and then once a concensus is reached they collect an equal amount from each family served by the water system. The other form in more well to do comminties is to collect a monthly or yearly fee from the families for maintaining the water system. The method of payment is also detrmined by the amount of trust the villages have in their committees. All in all this allowing the villages to solve the problem has worked well and we have assisted with helping make budgets and assessing the problem for the committees so that they can make informed presentations to their village members.

Pulay has such a committee and they collect Q12.00 ($1.50) per family per year for general maintenance and collect larger sums on an " as needed basis" such as the purchase of the new spring in this project.

Cultural norms dictate the division of labor in the Mayan village. The women are thought to have responsibilities in the home taking care of small children; preparing food for the men in the field; and watching the animals and guarding the house.