HOW TO MAKE WASH PROJECTS SUSTAINABLE AND SUCCESSFULLY DISENGAGE IN VULNERABLE CONTEXTS

Achieving sustainability of water, sanitation and hygiene promotion has continued to challenge southern governments and development actors.

Sustainability is affected by a wide number of factors, including those internal to communities and their dynamics, those influenced by the project design and factors external to the particular context.

Sustainability is not usually the main priority in the immediate aftermath of an acute emergency event, but increasingly emergencies have become protracted, it is difficult to differentiate or separate chronic emergency situations from situations with chronic structural problems, and in other contexts communities may be vulnerable to repeated conflicts or natural disasters. Increasingly therefore, humanitarian actors such as the ACF-IN, are faced with longer
term complex situations in which communities are still vulnerable, but in which sustainability of interventions is crucial if the interventions are to last long beyond the project period and have a longer term impact.

When the usual challenges to sustainability are compounded with additional challenges from vulnerable contexts the opportunities for failure increase yet further. Examples may include the limited access for trained staff to insecure areas, the death or displacement of trained community members or leadership, displacement of whole or part of communities which may increase the numbers of people using specific services, changes in community solidarity, risk of structural damage from natural disasters, or theft of equipment.

The research, undertaken during 2007, has learnt from previous and current approaches of the ACF-IN Missions, from communities, a wide range of sector actors and from desk based research, as to the factors which affect sustainability, the major challenges, and examples of good practice. The aim of the manual is to document the learning and to share good practice within the ACF International Network, and outside where appropriate, on responding to sustainability in vulnerable contexts. The research has included four periods of field work in Lao PDR / Cambodia, Liberia, Northern Kenya and Colombia, selected to provide a range of contexts, challenges and examples of good practice.

Key findings of this research include that ACF-IN already commits within its Water & Environmental Sanitation Policy, 2006, to supporting communities to have sustainable interventions, and the programmes visited as part of the research were seen to already be making efforts towards this goal through activities such as the training of mechanics, supporting water and sanitation committees, selecting simple technologies and in some cases providing back up support after the time the initial implementation ends. However more attention is still needed to the contributions
which humanitarian actors can and should make to sustainability when working in vulnerable contexts. A repeated message from documented researches is the need to pay more attention to engaging and capacity building the local intermediate level actors to be able to provide back up support over the longer term. The reason why many of the projects become unsustainable is not because of technical issues but related to management, social relationships and community dynamics.

A practical manual of recommendations and good practises based on a case study of five ACF-IN Water, Sanitation and Hygiene projects.