Water for People is an amazing organization based out of Denver, Colorado. Small, but dynamic and they want you to rethink how we (development practitioners) are "fixing" the water crisis.
Transparency, sustainability, accountability are great buzzwords; only a few of the many that are tossed around the development world - and they don't hold water. I want you to think about the projects with which you have been involved; the millions of dollars invested by multi-lateral and development agencies. Think about the tangible products or "solutions" that have been implemented around the world to help those in need lead healthier lives. Think about the self-congratulating and back patting that occurs when I project is deemed successful and the marketing campaigns that follow.
Now, give it five years after close-out, eh... give it two, and go back to those projects. What do you see... another broken pump, another over flowing latrine, broken technologies, and people that are returning to ways that they were promised would be long past. So is this now broken project still considered a success?
Now this type of failure is not always the case and the world is not filled with evil development workers that are intentionally trying to bring about these unfortunate situations. The reality is funding does run out, the areas where these projects are implemented are often in conflict or difficult to reach, and there are competing priorities. However, we need to start accepting the reality that we are not always creating sustainable projects, we in fact are just moving on to the next intervention.
“We in fact can often exacerbate or create problems with the projects we implement... and we know it.”
There is not a one-size solution, in fact there may not be a solution at all because development is often trial and error and no one has all the answers, or else this industry would have worked itself out of existence (debate for another posting). However, I hate when people announce a problem without offering ideas for transforming it (commonplace in academia).
I would like to introduce a tool that may be helpful called FLOW. A mobile-based phone system for survey use developed by Akvo and Water for People. I encourage you to check it out and listen to Ned Breslin's (CEO) presentation on "Fixing the Water Crisis", quite powerful. Share with me your ideas and enjoy the video!