Sustainable Water Services at Scale (Triple-S)

Triple-S – Sustainable Services at Scale – is a multi-country learning initiative to improve water supply to the rural poor. It is led by IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The initiative, which will run through 2014, currently operates in Ghana and Uganda and will start in Burkina Faso in late 2011. Lessons learned from work in these countries feed up to the international level where Triple-S is promoting a re-appraisal of how development assistance to rural water supply is designed and implemented.

Why target rural water supply? And why focus on sustainability?

Of the almost one billion people globally without access to a reliable, nearby source of safe water, nine out of ten live in rural areas.

In addition, a closer examination of those considered ‘served’ reveals that a significant proportion receive poor service or no service from water systems that are not working properly or have failed completely. RWSN found 36% of hand pumps across 21 countries in sub-Saharan Africa were not functional. This level of failure represents a waste of between $1.2 and 1.5 billion in investments over the last 20 years. Recent studies across different countries and technologies confirm a repeated pattern of failure and breakdown rates somewhere between 30% and 40%.

So how do we change the picture?

It is not so much a matter of financial resources or technological solutions, as it is the approach to how we deploy resources and solutions.

We need to shift our aim from building infrastructure to building services – with attention to long-term sustainability, which means better post-construction support, training, availability of spare parts and professionalised management.

We need to shift our focus from projects at village level to strengthening institutions and policies at both national and local government levels to support service delivery.

We need to improve coordination and harmonisation within government-led processes, so that everyone is following the same rules and working towards the same goals.

What is Triple-S doing?

Triple-S is promoting these shifts by working with partners on the ground in Ghana, Uganda and Burkina Faso and at the international level.

In Ghana, Triple-S is working with the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) to:

Revise policies and operational guidelines to improve coherency and strengthen post-construction support, including a national financing mechanism to ensure major rehabilitation of water infrastructure is covered as a part of life-cycle costs.

Define national indicators for sustainability and establish district and national baselines to inform investment decisions and remedial actions.

Facilitate dialogue through multi-stakeholder learning alliance platforms to clarify and strengthen the framework of local government accountability and oversight.

Carry out action research and learning in three districts to develop and test a decentralized framework for water service delivery under the Community Ownership and Management Model.

In Uganda, Triple-S is working with a consortium of partners coordinated by the Ministry of Water and Environment to:

Strengthen institutional support for O&M through work with Technical Support Units and piloting Hand Pump Mechanics Associations as a private sector-based model.

Assess service delivery models in Lira and Kaborole districts, including Community Based Management and Water Supply and Sewerage Board models, to identify gaps and success factors in both standard models and innovations.

Establish a baseline of service delivery performance using an agreed set of indicators.

Revive and sustain the District Water and Sanitation Coordination Committees as platforms for district learning and for effective harmonisation and coordination. Internationally Triple-S works collaboratively with a range of IFIs, donors, NGOs and other development partners to:

Capture and share positive examples and learning from organisations and governments that are making the shift to more sustainable approaches.

Develop and promote practical tools and concepts for sustainable service delivery.

Incorporate sustainability concerns into rural water sector investments and strategies and improve harmonisation and alignment with government clients.

What impact will Triple-S have & how will it be measured?

To ensure lasting change, Triple-S is using both quantitative and qualitative approaches to measure success. Expected impacts include:

Increased functionality rates of water supply systems in pilot districts; measured through water point mapping and regular testing.

Increased satisfaction of water users in pilot districts; measured by collecting users’ experiences and analyzing using Sensemaker®

Increased adoption and integration of service delivery approaches in government discourse, policies, guidelines and budget priorities in Ghana and Uganda; measured through policy mapping and story analysis using Sensemaker®

Improved sector learning capacity at decentralized and national levels; measured by mapping and analyzing the performance of learning platforms

Increased integration of service delivery approaches among global development partner policies, operational guidelines and funding priorities; measured through Sensemaker® by collecting and analyzing large sets of information and stories, structured interviews and by audit of organizational policies

What makes Triple-S different?

Systemic approach: creating water services that last requires coordinated changes at multiple levels – Triple-S helps partners see the big picture, but also look realistically at how and where change is possible.

Focus on learning: the Triple-S approach goes beyond just fixing current problems to trying to build a stronger rural water sector that can learn and adapt over time.

Emphasis on legacy: conventional methods of technical assistance have limits in terms of ownership and once projects end often so do the benefits. Triple-S does not operate like a ‘project’ rather it is attempting to catalyse a movement, by working with existing platforms and initiatives.