Summary of Theme 2: What are the lessons learned?

During the second two weeks of the e-conference we received twelve further messages from participants responding to the questions posed at the start of the session, namely:
-“Whether the extra benefits (of meeting multiple needs) justify the incremental costs, and how these costs and benefits are distributed between different sections of the community? For example, are multiple use water services pro-poor?
- What are the most appropriate approaches, tools and methods to use for planning, designing, implementing and monitoring multiple use water services? Do you have experiences to share?”

Three main themes seemed to emerge from the discussion and are reflected in the structure of this summary: whether multiple use approaches are pro-poor; what implications multiple use approaches have for sustainability; and what lessons have been learned in applying multiple use approaches. A fourth section tries to draw out some initial conclusions.

Section 1: Are multiple use approaches pro-poor?

Discussion started off with several reactions to the question “are multiple use water services pro-poor”. Rocio Bustamante (PRODWAT 20), and Tessa Cousins (PRODWAT 30) warned against casual references to approaches that are “inherently” pro-poor - challenging us to look more broadly for the underlying drivers of poverty which are typically structural and related to broader issues of politics, economics, and inequality. Rob Hope (PRODWAT 21) directly challenged the link between access to water and poverty reduction, based on his experiences in South Africa - "extensive statistical and social analysis of aggregate and relative poverty measures indicates there is a weak relationship with water use or access".

Reacting to Rob’s message, several people spoke up for the pro-poor credentials of productive water use by households, while at the same time accepting that benefits were case specific and that sweeping claims should be avoided. Juan Carlos Perez de Mendiguren Castresana (PRODWAT 29) argued that “… it would be surprising to find that income inequality was driven by access to water in a country like SA. However, this does not mean that water has a low importance in rural livelihoods”. Juan Carlos also reported experiences from South Africa, in this case showing that access to water for productive uses had led to increased livelihood diversity and hence reduced exposure to risk. John Butterworth (PRODWAT 26) said that small-scale productive uses of water have been identified as being important additions to people's rural livelihoods in a wide range of countries. Fieldwork in Bolivia has shown that while seldom top of the list, productive uses of water consistently figured when people were asked to rank sources of income. Joep Verhagen (PRODWAT 25) reported on experiences from Gujarat, showing that when women were supported in becoming actively involved in watershed development projects water for small scale productive uses and domestic uses came higher up the list than when men alone were involved. However, he also made the point, supporting interventions by several others, that in the absence of other enabling factors such as micro-credit, the positive impacts of the improved water supply alone are often limited.

In conclusion, it would seem that multiple use based approaches have the potential to be pro-poor, but only where other environmental and political-economic factors are supporting, and then only if properly – and actively – targeted at the poor (and women).

Are multiple use approaches more sustainable?

The second session of the e-conference had the title “lessons learned”. One clear lesson from the messages posted, albeit a negative one, is that NOT addressing multiple uses (where there was demand for these), leads to the failure of water supply systems. Stef Smits (PRODWAT 22) reports that "my experiences from work in Colombia show clearly that not following the multiple use approach … leads to sustainability problems." Stef reported a case from Colombia where failure to deal with irrigation needs led to conflict and system breakdown. Several cases reported in the summary of the parallel Spanish e-conference (PRODWAT 28) also supported this line, with examples of system stress and community conflict caused by failure to deal explicitly with small-scale productive demand.

Linked to the issue of sustainability, is that of cost recovery. Catarina Fonseca challenged the easy assumption that increased income from productive uses would lead to increased willingness or ability to pay for services, pointing out that problems of intra-community equity, and the need for money for other – more urgent matters – can lead to continuing low cost-recovery. Both Tessa Cousins and Rocio Bustamante also urged caution in taking an overly simplistic approach to cost-recovery – particularly within the context of a pro-poor approach. Tessa mentioned an interesting emergent problem in South Africa where some local governments may even see multiple-use-friendly technologies, such as rainwater harvesting, as a direct threat to cost recovery for more formal systems.

As for being inherently “pro-poor”, the discussion seems to suggest that a simplistic link cannot be made between multiple-use based approaches and sustainability, particularly not where sustainability is interpreted in terms of increased cost recovery. However, it seems equally clear that failing to take multiple uses into account can and does lead to both system failure (through overload) and conflict.

How to go about implementing multiple use systems?

With respect to the approaches most appropriate for designing and implementing MUS, Joep Verhagen mentioned the critical importance of giving women a strong role in overall design, while Tessa Cousins spoke of the need to work at the “multiple levels of decision making” relating to water supply and management. Anna Knox (PRODWAT 32) made the point that a multiple use approach must not fall into the trap of trying to become another magic bullet, but must rather be sensitive to, and build upon, people’s existing knowledge and practices. She suggested that an empowerment or rights based approach was one way to approach this. An approach implicitly supported by Tessa Cousins (of NGO AWARD) who says, “part of our work has been to understand better what actually happens in villages and to adjust our own interventions to supporting livelihood strategies of poor people, and while doing this to inform them better of their choices, rights and responsibilities”.

Sawaeng Ruaysoongnern (PRODWAT 24) urged us not to hide from the apparent complexity of water-poverty linkages, pointing out that it often only exists the minds of outsiders. He urges us to listen to and enlist the support of rural communities in addressing water supply within a clarifying analytical framework, something which Tessa Cousins reports that AWARD have been working on developing in South Africa. Finally, John Butterworth made the point that we should not try to load too much onto multiple-use based approaches. Again, they are not intended to be a new magic bullet, but rather an incremental change to business as usual.

Based on these inputs, it would seem that some level of consensus exists around the need to build multiple use approaches on a people (and livelihood) centred, demand responsive, incremental, and rights based approach. As was the case for cost recovery and sustainability we seem to have more negative than positive support for this understanding. Where this type of approach isn’t taken, systems fail! A point well illustrated in Sandra Patricia Bastidas (PRODWAT 27) case study, the all too typical story of a community being forced to accept something that isn’t quite what they want because of the sectoral set-up of water supplies is told. As Sandra says: “The problem lies in the fact that they work with technical parameters from the city, applying them to the rural areas, with respect to water supplies, tariffs, use and metering of water”.

Conclusions to part 2

The title for this theme was lessons learned. Sadly we have not had as active a participation as we would have wished for. Nonetheless, what we did receive was of high quality, and allows some useful (albeit tentative) conclusions to be drawn, these are summarised below:

Pro-poor requires specific actions

Multiple use approaches are not of themselves inherently pro-poor. But in many cases they have the potential to be so, particularly if a proactive approach to targeting the poor (and women) is adopted in their implementation. Pro-poor is a way of acting – not an inherent property.

Not taking a multiple use approach leads to system failure and conflict

While multiple use based approaches cannot be proved to be more sustainable - NOT taking into account demands for multiple uses can be demonstrated to lead to reduced sustainability, and to conflict within and between communities and user groups.

Multiple use based approaches should be flexible and based on people’s needs

To be successful, multiple use based approaches should be demand responsive, based on people’s empowerment, and flexible with regard to needs (and environment). Again, there is more negative evidence – that not taking this approach leads to failure – than positive case studies of successful multiple use schemes (although messages and case studies from theme 1 do provide some – for a good example see Pump Aids case studies of using the Elephant Pump in Zimbabwe - http://www.irc.nl/page/9497).

Patrick Moriarty (IRC)