Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120
- 134)
TUESDAY 12 DECEMBER 2006
PROFESSOR SANDY
CAIRNCROSS, DR
DARREN SAYWELL
AND MS
LAURA WEBSTER
Q120 Richard Burden: Is there anything
DFID should be doing to get behind that? Is there more support
they could give or ways they could influence things more than
they are doing in that area?
Professor Cairncross: Yes, there
is lots of operational research to be done, for example. We gave
a wish list of research programmes to the World Bank Water and
Sanitation Programme, and they passed them to the Gates Foundation.
Gates has given them something like $16 million for the Water
and Sanitation Programme and now they want to use that for their
own programme on other things. There is certainly plenty of room
for DFID to play to its past strength, as Darren Saywell mentioned;
its Knowledge Acquisition Research (KAR) Programme, to fund this
operational research. There is a lot of expertise in the UK in
the sort of areas that need more study and that would be very
much field-based operational research into how these programmes
could be better run and promoted. For example, what are the alternatives?
Sometimes there may not be commitment or funding for a national
soap hygiene promotion programme. How can a district health administration,
for example, do it on its own? Issues like that need further study.
Q121 John Battle: Going back to the
notion of piloting demonstration projects, could I ask you whether
you feel that the Community Led Total Sanitation project in Bangladesh
is a success and whether it breaks through the bureaucrats with
their perceptions and whether it is applicable in African countries?
Professor Cairncross: We sent
an MSc Student to Bangladesh a couple of years ago to do what
Mao Tse-tung used to call squatting at a point and just sitting
in a village and looking at the worm's eye view, if you like,
of the programme. She found that it did not function in exactly
the way it was described by the people who planned it and managed
it. A lot of the documentation about the Community Led Total Sanitation
approach plays on the role of naming and shaming offenders and
planting little flags on deposits of excreta when there is promiscuous
defecation with the name of the author on it. Our finding was
that in fact that played very little part in a household's decision
to install sanitation; much more important were things like convenience
and security—the usual things which tend to lead people
to improve their homes in one way or another. I think one important
feature of a community led project as used in Bangladesh was that
it built upon and made use of the considerable social stratification
in rural Bangladesh society. Wealthy patrons helped to fund the
latrines of the poor. I am not sure that that would be so easily
transplanted to an African setting. It is certainly true, and
some of our experience confirms this, that if you can change the
norm of a whole community at one time it is much more effective
and more sustaining than if you change individuals' behaviour
and promote the idea that other people should follow the positive
deviants. For example, in Zimbabwe, and this had some DFID funding,
the Community Health Clubs, which functioned a little bit like
the Boy Scout movement—mothers met every fortnight for an
evening and had a lecture on a health-related subject and they
got a membership card signed off with each subject they had, collected
a bit like Boy Scouts collect badges. They all agreed at each
meeting to carry out various measures in the next two weeks before
the next meeting. They would build themselves a drying rack, dig
a latrine pit or something and because they had all agreed to
commit to it together it was a lot easier to do it. You were not
trying to persuade somebody to act against the community norm.
You were getting the whole community to act together.
Q122 Ann McKechin: Many people have
commented about the lack of funding in this sector. Some have
argued there is a lack of capacity at local level and also international
level amongst donors. I wondered to what extent your own professional
association has made efforts to overcome the barrier both at a
local level and an international level amongst donors?
Dr Saywell: I think associations
have a long history of supporting the development of water and
sanitation. We have looked at their role in the development of
the UK's water and sanitation and also in countries in the low
income regions. That role really is two or threefold: it is to
help develop and set standards; it is to provide some credence
behind those standards; and it is about the brokering of expertise.
Those things still apply today in parts of Africa and Asia and
Latin America and that is really where the role of an association
can play out most effectively. I have mentioned two things. I
think the brokering of expertise is an important part of what
goes on nationally; so there are people within a country who are
suffering from a particular technical problem, and there are other
people who have come across the same problem in another part of
the country, and associations can help that marriage of knowledge.
I think the second thing we see, particularly amongst system providers
in Africa or Asia, is the opportunity to twin or to mentor experience.
There is currently an initiative which is ongoing on Africa which
my Association is involved in which is about the twinning of expertise
between similar utilities, and that is a very potent way in which
you can have people who are practitioners who are at the sharp
end of implementation learning from each other, because that cadre
of technicians seem to learn in a more effective way from people
from within their own cohort. Associations have a long history,
but their main role is around the brokering of expertise and the
mentoring of process-led change.
Q123 Ann McKechin: We have obviously
discussed the fact that DFID have over the last few years cut
the number of technical experts, and although they have pledged
to increase their budget at the same time they have got to reduce
the number of staff who are supervising the funds. In other words
do more with less. How do you think DFID could make better use
of water professionals such as those who are members of your Association
to try and ensure that the new money they are providing will be
effective in delivering better sanitation?
Dr Saywell: I think the first
thing to say is that DFID probably does make use of professional
association members but on a rather informal basis. In any African
country you will probably find that some of the consultants or
some of the advisers who are working with DFID on its programmes
are drawn from those professional associations; but I think you
are talking about something that is a more formal engagement.
The thing about associations is that they tend to offer opportunities
to amplify change. A more positive engagement with those learning
societies would allow a ripple effect to go across the water and
sanitation sector and its professionals and bring about a change
in policy, practice or science. An example I have is that my own
Association tends to be rather conservative from an engineering
perspective when it comes to development; but a lot of the opportunity
I have is to talk about a range of technical options, for instance,
and to try to amplify that change through that rather conservative
engineering body. That is a way in which you can bring about longstanding
and effective change which will have a strong institutional base.
Q124 Ann McKechin: It is obviously
the sheer lack of numbers of people on the ground in places like
Africa and Southern Asia which is one of the main constraints
of how you can scale-up the projects to reach millions more people
in a relatively short period of time. To what extent can your
members in other countries, the UK or elsewhere, actually try
and help to provide assistance? I have heard of one project where
engineers in the UK have agreed to go on to the internet and give
a few hours of their time if someone has a practical problem to
try to assist them, because we cannot expect them all to travel,
it would not be realistic. Given the sheer constraints of trying
to get a working system of engineers and all the necessary technical
staff established that is going to take some time. I was just
wondering is there any way to piggy-back on the existing expertise
elsewhere in the world?
Dr Saywell: I think there is.
I am slightly cautious about brokering expertise from, say, a
Norwegian utility into a Malawian utility because simply the context
is completely different. In principle that can happen, and that
is one of the types of things my Association is actively doing.
I mentioned an initiative earlier called the Water Operators'
Partnership where we are involved actively in that. I think the
real gains are at the local, national or regional level. Really
that brokering of expertise is what needs to be done. There is
actually very little innovation in capacity strengthening at the
local level. I think there is a lot more that could be done there.
For instance, the notion of a circuit rider—expertise moving
between different utilities, helping to troubleshoot on particular
operational problems—that degree of innovation you do not
hear much of, and that is the type of thing that my Association,
in concert with other development partners, including DFID, could
help do. There needs to be more information.
Q125 Ann McKechin: Your Association
is talking at a local level and, I would agree with you, that
is very important. How could you assist in building up training
programmes to increase knowledge in local areas? Could your Association
play a part in building up knowledge?
Dr Saywell: We could do. We would
like to, I think, say that we would work with what exists locally.
In Africa at least there is a very strong resource centre network,
regionally based institutions which have a training consultancy
and research arms to them. They have a variety of different bases
for funding—some of them are stronger than others—but
they are a very potent force within Africa and in other regions.
Of course an association like ours could bring to bear its 10,000
members to operate and to support such local-based resources.
We would try to work through what exists locally. I think we can
provide a technical backstopping or a technical support process,
rather than duplicating a whole new level of intervention.
Q126 Chairman: We often hear, where
NGOs and government agencies have moved in and set up systems,
they do not leave enough local knowledge behind and the systems
fall into disrepair and disuse for lack of maintenance because
there are not enough people in the community who know how to service
them, whether they are water or sanitation systems. Is that something
you could do more with? Are there any other people to do that?
Clearly it is teaching people to do their own thing that will
be more beneficial in the long-term. Go in and create knowledge
and understanding of the system and move away.
Dr Saywell: At the community level
I would probably argue the cases that you cite are cases of an
inappropriate capacity-strengthening approach. You basically let
a community down two or three years later and they end up not
understanding how to operate and maintain the system. I think
the more broad-based opportunity is to try to mainstream more
appropriate forms of engineering or development within the existing
structures. If you look at the engineering curricula in parts
of Africa, it is still based upon Western European modes of engineering—completely
inappropriate in my opinion. What resource centres have to do,
like TREND in Ghana, is do retrofitting for those people who come
through into the engineering circle. They have to go through another
training process. The more effective opportunity is to actually
work with the engineering curricula at source and to develop curricula
that reflect the local engineering and technical socio-cultural
needs, rather than have to do this retrofitting process. There
is no doubt about it, there is limited capacity, particularly
in countries which are going through a decentralisation process
and there is responsibility for water and sanitation at a municipal
level. That is not something that can change rapidly overnight.
It is not something that my Association or any individual organisation
can help change rapidly overnight. It is a medium- to long-term
process of working with the existing schools and universities
and building change in a more sustainable fashion.
Q127 Richard Burden: From the figures
we have been given, from 2002 there are about 2 billion people
in rural areas in developing countries who do not have access
to improved sanitation and the figure for urban areas is 560 million.
I would just like to get your impressions of where you think the
balance should lie in terms of effort being put into one sector
or the other. As far as DFID is concerned they are stressing to
us that they see part of their job is to get a clearer rural focus
on sanitation. If you look at the World Bank it is the other way
round—85% of their activities are in urban areas. What is
your view on where the balance should lie?
Dr Saywell: My own opinion, and
this tends to reflect the opinion of our Association, is where
the greatest need is going to be in the next generation will be
in urban areas—that is where the greatest growth will be.
Within those urban centres the greatest need will be in informal
or marginal or unplanned settlements. It seems to me very clear
that urbanisation is a process that is not going to go away; it
is going to accentuate and accelerate if anything and, therefore,
the responses that my Association are bringing about, and I think
also the responses of bilateral donors, should be much more focussed
in the future on urban areas. That is a complex and difficult
task to take forward and that is often the reason why agencies
tend to shy away from urban sanitation, because it is a lot more
difficult to deliver a solid sustainable outcome in urban sanitation
approaches than it is in the rural context. I think the demographic
change is clear—in Africa in the next generation two-thirds
of the population will be urbanised and that is where the greatest
need is going to be.
Q128 Richard Burden: How do you think
we can best approach the issue of improving sanitation in poor
urban areas? One thing DFID told us when they were talking about
the need for focus in urban areas, they were particularly highlighting
the issue of land tenure being a problem that needs to be overcome.
Dr Saywell: My opinion on approaches
would tend to echo the things that Sandy and Laura have mentioned,
which is around understanding what drives sanitation first and
foremost; organising a supply chain that can respond to that demand,
and that is primarily at the small scale and private sector level:
and engineering an appropriate framework in which all of that
can happen. That is more important in the urban context because
you have got a rigid regulatory standards framework to operate
in. I would echo those things. I would add to that, particularly
in the urban context for sanitation, we need a much more mature
debate about the types of technologies and the combination of
technologies that can be deployed in the urban context. My Association,
which generally tends to be a rather conservative engineering
association, will say, "The answer is water-borne sewerage.
Now what's the question?" I think what the developing community
needs is a much more graded and much more refined concept with
a whole range of different technical options associated with all
of the socio- cultural institutional issues that can be deployed.
If we can start to get consultants and planning officers and engineers
to start thinking more than just water-borne sewerage then I think
we have got an opportunity to build a much more sustainable response
to the growth of the urban population in the next generation.
Range of technologies is the thing I would focus on.
Q129 Chairman: In your submission
to us you, first of all, do call on the UK Government to recognise
water as a human right, which DFID has now done and we are happy
with that. In a situation where the sanitation situation is the
most off-track and has the most devastating consequences, what
is your organisation's view as to how well DFID is actually cooperating
with yourselves and other organisations to deliver practical action
on the ground to address MDGs? Again in your submission, given
that we are going to Ethiopia, the Government of Finland you single
out as a partner which seems to be building something worthwhile.
Does that imply you do not have a partnership with DFID in Ethiopia;
but, more generally how do you and other organisations like yourselves
feel DFID works with you, and how can you engage with them?
Ms Webster: I think speaking,
firstly, as Tearfund and then bringing in other experiences of
other NGOs, to be honest we tend to work with small, grass-root,
faith-based organisations working in rural communities and, given
DFID's pressure of spending large amounts of money in a cost-effective
way, our sorts of partners are not the ones who would generally
have a direct relationship with DFID. But I think DFID can play
a role in setting a framework in countries in which they work.
Q130 Chairman: Can I stop you. Quite
a lot of people here today and other witnesses have said if we
are going to solve this problem it will be at the community level
from the bottom-up. What you have just said is that is what you
are doing. Your faith-based organisations need to be replicated
on a large scale but unfortunately you cannot work with DFID because
they have got too much money?
Ms Webster: I am not saying too
much money. They have done some great work supporting community-led
sanitation, for example, pioneering a new approach in Bangladesh
which can then be applied elsewhere. I think what they would see
as their role is more working with government. I disagree with
the point made previously about direct budget support. Initially,
yes, there are problems with sanitation in particular because
there is no demand for it and it is not appearing in PRSPs. Donors
like DFID do have a crucial role to play, in giving technical
advice in-country, so they can have that policy dialogue with
governments to make sure the needs of the poorest, particularly
women, are reflected in PRSPs and can support that approach. As
well as pioneering new approaches, that is a role which DFID can
play.
Q131 Chairman: Is there potential
for a partnership between what DFID is trying to do, strengthening
institutions on the ground, and organisations like yourselves?
For example, in the projects you are involved with are you working
with local government on the ground or areas where institutions
are non-existent or weak?
Ms Webster: In some countries
there is not an institutional framework to work with. I think
our partners would see themselves doing service provision in almost
an emergency situation. They can fill the gaps a state cannot
fill. Where there is a state, and this can be a weakness of NGOs,
that there is a reluctance to work with local governments. We
encourage partners to build capacity of local government and to
work with them wherever they can. That was shown as an improvement
of the Community Led Sanitation project. When there was a good
relationship with local government that did improve the community
level approach.
Q132 Chairman: You do not feel with
what you are doing that DFID and other organisations are working
in separate boxes? The scale of the problem is such that anybody
and everybody who is engaged in it should surely be trying to
add value and finding areas where they can reinforce each other,
rather than doing their own thing?
Ms Webster: The only thing I would
say, there has been a lot of talk about public/private partnerships
but maybe there should be more talk about public/civil society
partnerships, public/public partnerships. There is such a lack
of capacity but where there is capacity, whatever that capacity
is, let us work together as much as we can.
Q133 Joan Ruddock: In a way we are
getting to the answer. I was going to go back to what Professor
Cairncross said about UNICEF and ask, in the context of NGOs such
as Tearfund, how is it possible to scale up because without scaling
up you just do not get there. I do not know if you are familiar
with the Orangi Project in Karachi which we understand is a project
where, starting from a small base, they have been able to scale
up. I wonder what other experience you may offer us about NGOs
that can actually make that progression?
Ms Webster: I think scaling up
is important, but whether NGOs would see it as their role to become
a large service provider I am not sure. I think their strength
is that they can be innovative and try out new ideas; and they
are often very good at including the community in what they do,
looking at issues like gender and that kind of thing. I think
it is then how they partner with organisations like UNICEF, or
the government, or donors to help those other people scale up,
rather than NGOs doing it themselves. I think that is a crucially
important question. I think there is probably an optimum size
of every project—and then the lessons learnt, the community
participation, the actual context does change.
Q134 Joan Ruddock: Does that mean
innovation goes out of the window?
Ms Webster: No, I do not think
it has to, but I think there is a danger that it can.
Chairman: Can I thank you. From what
you have heard from us you can appreciate what we are groping
for are recommendations we can put to our own Department as to
how they could not only spend more money but spend it effectively
in ways that are going to deliver the MDGs, especially in sanitation.
I think you have identified some gaps. On reflection from what
you have heard here and other evidence, if you have suggestions
or further ideas while we are conducting this report we would
be very happy to hear them. The value of any report like this
is the extent to which we can push the Department down practical
steps further than it might otherwise go if we had not done what
we are trying to do. Your contribution is really helpful and we
appreciate it. Thank you for your answers and for keeping within
our rather constrained time. I appreciate that very much indeed.
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