Drought resilience - General issues

The list below are general issues to consider to increase the resilience of WASH systems.

Drought Cycle Management and project cycle

• Institutional - Introduce Drought Cycle Management into all NGO programming in drought-prone areas so that money is invested where it should be, rather than being diverted for emergencies.

• Institutional - Access donor funding that supports longer project durations for drought contexts the technical side of implementation not rushed.

Adopt and implement Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM)

Institutional - Align plans across the whole water sector and other sectors that have an influence on water supply (e.g. the power sector) and demand for WASH services (e.g. planning departments)

Adopt principles of adaptive management in planning WASH approaches

Institutional - In a complex and rapidly changing situation there can never be sufficient information to reach a settled ‘optimum’ decision. Hence, the WASH sector should put effort into planning approaches that are and supported by strong monitoring and information management systems, which allow for constant adaptation and the upgrading of plans and activities.

Strategy specific to pastoralist and agropastoralist areas

Environmental - Concentrate efforts on seasonal water points rather than perennial (e.g. those more directly varying with rainfall) and vary according to pasture spatial needs.

Environmental - Reduce pressure on existing pastureland and water sources, and improve animal production through lower travel times by creating new seasonal water points in under-utilized areas of pasture, with maximum distance between sources of 30km, yet in areas of guaranteed peace.

Environmental - Water points for pastoralists should be at least 5km out of towns, which avoids conflict and reduces waiting times.

Technical - Increase number and size of appropriate dryland water sources (ponds, pans, berkeds, hafirs, rock catchments etc) for communities to phase their use through the year. Results include: less distance to walk in dry season, water stays for longer per site, cost of water might reduce, fewer animals die (meaning less cattle raiding and thus more stability)

Technical - Avoid installation of permanent water sources – give priority to water harvesting structures.

Operation and maintenance

Institutional - Concentrate on technologies that need less community management and less operation and maintenance. (See “Promote economic use” below.)

Institutional - Where communal management is required, time is needed that goes beyond the average NGO project cycle (e.g. 33 months). In such situations, devote enough time to community mobilization and user group formation as these tend to be more sustainable.

Financial - For communal managed systems, a good system of regulation or a clear audit process needs to be in place that the whole community is aware of.

Maximize and build on existing knowledge and resources

Institutional - Plan WASH activities with, not for, local people. Listen to local people and consider their ability to sustain interventions.

Institutional - Build on existing community drought coping mechanisms and local knowledge systems.

• Environmental -
• Technical-

Improve involvement of women

• Financial -
• Institutional -
• Environmental -
• Technical-

Promote economic use of water

allow for different management options of water systems, consider private sector====

• Financial -
• Institutional -
• Environmental -
• Technical-

Give preference to decentralized rainwater harvesting systems

• Financial -
• Institutional -
• Environmental -
• Technical-

Technical expertise and piloting new techniques

• Financial -
• Institutional -
• Environmental -
• Technical-

Mix & match

• Financial -
• Institutional -
• Environmental -
• Technical-