ADB sheds light on how to commit to improving delivery of water supply and sanitation services in Nepal

The seminar hosted by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) discussed learnings from their recent evaluation of water supply and sanitation sectors. These evaluations conducted by ADB’s Independent Evaluation Department, with the objective of learning from the success and failure of its projects, provide evidence on the potential to scale up its model in Nepal and other countries in the region.

The Small Towns Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project, which started in 2000 and is now in its fourth phase, is showing that small towns using this model are delivering better water services than towns that are not part of the project. Indeed, the benefits and viability of the cost-shared, community-managed approach, which is coupled with training programs for water service providers, are such that the government has now adopted it for its water supply and sanitation program for small towns.

“Nepal’s small towns are rapidly expanding along its east-west highways and near the border with India, and playing an important role in linking the country’s rural and urban economies,” says Deputy Director General of Independent Evaluation at ADB Ms. Véronique Salze-Lozac’h. “Because of this, small towns can make a strong contribution to advancing economic development and reducing poverty.”

“But that potential is being undermined by the increasing pressure these towns are under to provide basic public services. Improving those for water and sanitation is being made harder by low water tariffs that put maintenance and sustainability at risk, insufficient investment, and the sometimes weak technical knowledge of water providers—these were the foremost challenges that the project tackled,” said Ms. Salze-Lozac’h.

The project was piloted nationwide in 29 pilot small towns across Nepal, with populations of 5,000–50,000, and covered 593,000 beneficiaries.

Households reported the duration of water supply in project towns was on average 12 hours a day, compared with 7.5 hours in nonproject towns. And 72% percent of households in project towns reported that major supply disruptions were fixed in two days, compared with 26% in the comparison towns.

The project—which also had a household sanitation and hygiene awareness component—resulted in a lower incidence of diarrhea than in the comparison towns. Other benefits included reducing the burden on women collecting water in the project towns, which gave them more free time for other occupations.

Spending by governments and their development partners on water supply and sanitation is set to rise across Asia’s emerging economies to meet the Sustainable Development Goal 6 for ensuring the availability of safe and sustainable management of both.

Original source: ADB
Published on 6 December 2018