Water Aid is the largest international donor agency exclusively focussed on water and Sanitation issues. Depinder Kapur, Country Representative of WaterAid India talks about Water Aid’s activities to overcome poverty by developing access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene education. More in this open and frank conversation with Mr. Kapur.
How does India’s multi-lingual, multi-ethnic character, its diversities in lifestyles, customs and the like affect your working?
More than the ethnic barriers it is the worsening livelihoods and marginalization of the rural poor, slum dwellers that we have to reckon with in our working. Lack of livelihood security leads to increased migration in rural areas, shopping malls displacing slum dwellers in cities and a general lack of hope is the biggest barrier for community participation in our projects and programs.
We have to be careful of language barriers in communication and not be overly dependent on standard communication materials and training kits.
What prompted the decision to expand your work to the northern states? Has the shift from working in the south to working in the north required any specific adaptations to your approach, tools and techniques?
We shifted focus to states where sanitation coverage was the lowest, water quality and access is a challenge and where government programs and systems have a bad reputation for efficiency and accountability. WAI work is more in the central and eastern belt of India, with very small projects. Our work in policy advocacy remains country wide and not restricted to a few states.
We have found different approaches work in different regions of India. Sanitation Fund approach does well in Orissa and Bihar but not in MP. Citizens Action work on public hearings and accountability works well in Jharkhand and Bundelkhand where there are well developed local NGO partners and networks already working on Rights issues. Community managed toilets are a new initiative in central and western India that WAI introduced in MP and Orissa, based on our learning’s from Trichy and it shows signs of early success. Therefore we have not prescribed any set tools and approaches as a standard practice.
In the last phase of our work in central and eastern India 2004-2007), we have focused on Open Defecation Free villages and slums, Infrastructure Deficiency Mapping in urban slums and city wide slums improvement, capacity building of partner NGOs and strategic partnerships with state governments, other organizations(UNH) and Municipalities. We are introducing new approaches (Citizens action, IWRM, District Wide Approach, Menstrual Hygiene and Community Based Water Quality Monitoring) and strengthening the old ones that have worked well.
We are now gearing up for partnerships that are more strategic and influencing, monitoring health outcomes beyond ODF and greater accountability through Citizens Report.
Working in the social sector is of course not about competing with other agencies doing similar activities, but each of us brings some special inputs to it. What do you see as the unique features of WAI’s initiatives?
Three unique features;
1. Commitment to community based approaches in programming (for water and sanitation in both urban and rural areas), we see community formal and informal groups (as demonstrated in Trichy and Gwalior slums community toilets) as the sustainable institutional options for water and sanitation programmes.
2. We see our role as an independent voice and a champion of greater accountability, having the advantage of program experience as well as learning, research and engagement with a majority of civil society, researchers and activists.
3. Working in partnership with other governments, organizations and civil society, to support where required, new demonstration projects and learning initiatives. We also work together, where required, with networks and organizations other than the government for policy influence and greater accountability of service providers.
After considerable lobbying, you have managed to get the government to modify its sanitation subsidies to incorporate low cost latrines. What were the issues here?
WAI has emphasized demand driven and community led approaches in our work. Sanitation Fund and community incentives are better than individual incentives of household BPL sanitation subsidy. The core issue was of people constructing toilets only when they were convinced about its need and not because there was a subsidy to avail.
Sanitation subsidies were reduced but are up again in the last one year. Now states are coming up with higher level of subsidy schemes and there is a danger of contracted out toilet constructions to reap this benefit.
While advocating for reduction in subsidy for construction (from Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 500) - WAI also advocated for,
1. Increasing the investment on hygiene promotion and behaviour change communications.
2. Supporting households with alternate financing mechanisms, like community based sanitation fund, credit, and cross subsidies in interest
3. Strengthening the community based supply chains like trained masons, locally produced materials like slabs, rings blocks etc
What are the broad mechanisms you employ in giving the rural poor a voice in water related decision making, and the challenges you have been facing there?
Water related decision making requires an understanding of the larger level water management issues, including water supply and distribution systems. Sometimes it is issues related to electricity supply that curtail water supply, tax and incentive structures, besides the technical options. In the absence of which people will not understand what is affecting their drinking water crisis and will tend to blame themselves. We work through local NGOs and capacity building technical organizations in order to forge a greater understanding on Water Quality and Integrated Water Management among the local NGO partners and communities.
Water stress and livelihood crisis in central and semi arid regions of the country, is pushing people out of agriculture. Micro and local solutions to water crisis and water quality do not work. The crisis of ground water is not being addressed by government through regulation, policy or price incentives. Some research institutions on water are also justifying the current situation by saying that nothing can be done to regulate ground water since India has many small extractors of ground water. Absence of strong mass a movement based on basic needs / issues of people, presents a major challenge in our efforts to create an environment where core issues are taken up outside Committees and Policy Groups set up by government, into the public domain.
WAI as part of its policy work is raising the issue of water quality and people centric IWRM concerns for India. In our program we are working towards community based water quality monitoring, influencing the state governments to monitor water quality more effectively and implement mitigation measures.
In partnership with various civil society networks (WASH India and other forums) for policy work with the government, including research and collaboration, WAI seeks to support pro - poor decision making. Through our knowledge dissemination work and policy influence, our focused engagement with agencies and organizations, our own initiatives of public recognition to the good work, we provide a platform for informing and influencing.
We support our partners and other civil society organizations and even state governments, municipalities and gram panchayats – with the lessons learned from not only our work but also from the good work done by others – to be in a better position, in order to be more effective in supporting a people’s agenda for change in the water and sanitation sector.
WAI works in several countries. Are you able to bring a common approach to your work across countries or do you find the specificities of country situations overwhelmingly dictating the nature of responses? [ed – it’d be nice if you could give a few examples]
As part of our International Strategy, WaterAid is committed to supporting a few core pro - poor and people’s agenda that are monitored through annual country program performance and mid term strategy reviews. These are: Partnership (with local government), Equity and Inclusion, Water Resources Management, Sanitation, Hygiene, Sustainability. In addition to our core focus on urban and rural programs.
While individual country programme approaches and ways of work differ, we do try and ensure that we remain committed to our internal strategy work together on few common priorities. We then try and share knowledge on these priorities and seek to improve ourselves.
Recently some of the major international approaches have been on – IWRM, Urban programme learnings, Sanitation and Local Government Financing.
In the Asia where WA works in 4 countries (India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh), we find that the urban slums situation is quite similar while the rural areas are all different. There is a good learning environment for urban slums work (Orangi Pilot Project in Pakistan) and also in some aspects of community approaches in rural areas ( CLTS approach in Bangladesh). We find value in cross learning and experience sharing and try to keep our partners in the forefront of such learning initiatives.
You have been pivotal in bringing about 100% sanitization in some of India’s slums. It must have been a great challenge. Could you tell us a little about this?
Denial of sanitation is a human right violation for a very significant majority of Indian citizens who cannot afford to live in regular housing. It is not a policy failure but an outcome of the complete absence of pro - poor commitment in urban planning. It is based on the wrong assumption that slum dwellers are temporary residents for whom the State does not need to provide low cost housing. It has resulted in the poor being dislocated from slums within the cities and thrown out to the periphery.
WAI work has been to support individual sanitation facilities where possible and community infrastructure as a low cost alternative option. Child Friendly Community Toilets were the first major initiative of WAI in Trichy city in the year 2000. When the world was celebrating new millennium and promises of post industrial society, we were promoting (with our local NGO partner Gramalaya), basic community facilities and a commitment from the Municipality to provide water and electricity in slums.
Community toilets need to be upgraded with washing and bathing facilities, as has been done in Trichy. WAI has worked with Municipalities and the ADB project in 4 cities in Madhya Pradesh, to scaleup this initiative. In other states (Orissa and Jharkahnd) a few of our partners have taken up urban community toilets work. We have done a review of our Trichy experience, where we have analysed the operational viability of different community managed toilets and come out with Policy recommendations for urban pro poor slums.
We see an increasing tendency of Municipalities to sub contract the Public Toilets to agencies who are only interested in it for commercial purposes. They then end up sub contracting it to others. In the process, the quality of service and affordability are compromised.
WAI has recently been considering the idea of coming out with a citizen’s report on water and sanitation in India. What is the thinking behind this?
WAI currently supports programs in 10 states with 43 NGO partners. Our programs have brought out experience and lessons that have formed the basis for policy advocacy. Our research and policy work has also been significant and has enabled us to extend our policy advocacy work beyond our project experience alone. We have produced 3 national level reports of major significance in water and sanitation in the last 3 years. The National Status report on water and sanitation was the first of its kind, followed by the ADB Water Policy Review (urban water and sanitation projects in 4 states) and the Sanitation For All publication for SACOAN.
We are now in a position to support and lead the initiative on a Citizens Report on Water and Sanitation.
The thinking from WAI has been driven by a desire to put into action our strategic commitment to be an independent voice in the sector. To be closer to reality on the ground, to provide for a platform and to bring together a coalition of organizations and individuals, to present to the nation what is happening in water and sanitation issues that are pro - poor and should be a national issue. To prick the consciousness of people, to listen, to see, hear the reality and to act.
When Anil Agarwal took up the First Citizens Report on Environment, even he could not have imagined the impact a report like that could have. A Citizen’s Report that captures what is happening and tries to learn from the people, is bound to generate valuable knowledge. By identifying a few core issues, getting local people and experts debating on them, generates out of the box ideas, brings equality and balance in what are otherwise numerous technical reports and scholarly pieces that are not even read. Therefore the process of coming out with a Ctizens Report, with many people and organizations working together, is as much an output as the final report.
We have had a launch workshop in Delhi on 12th Jan 2008 where an endorsement was made in favour of this Report. We also formed 3 groups. The first is a Coalition Group that includes anyone who is agreeing with and willing to support this initiative. Second an Advisory Group of eminent personalities who can provide moral leadership and advise to the report writing and dissemination later on. Third, a Task Force consisting of people who can actively work on writing the Report.
We urgently seek the greater participation of individuals, organizations and civil society in this initiative, in any of the 3 Groups.
Depinder Kapur, Country Representative
WaterAid India
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