Triple-S – Water Services that Last
A multi-country learning initiative to improve sustainability of rural water services
Updated - October 2011
Although there has been progress over the last two to three decades in building and extending rural water infrastructure, there has to a large extent been a failure to achieve sustainability of the services provided by this infrastructure. For tens of millions of rural people who supposedly now enjoy an improved water supply, the reality is often that of poor continuity, poor quality and in the worst cases premature failure, leading to wasted resources and false expectations. The Rural Water Supply Network (2009) found 36% of hand pumps across 21 countries in sub-Saharan Africa were not functional. This level of failure represents a waste of between US$ 1.2 and 1.5 billion in investments over the last 20 years.
The Triple-S initiative 2009 to 2014
Triple-S (Sustainable Services at Scale) is a six year multi-country learning initiative that will contribute to addressing the challenge of sustainability of rural water supply. Aguaconsult is working with the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre on this Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded work.
The vision of Triple-S is: sustainable rural water services at scale. To achieve this is not so much a matter of financial or technical resources, as it is the approach to how we deploy resources and solutions.
- We need to shift our aim from building infrastructure to building services – with attention to long-term sustainability, which means better post-construction support, training, availability of spare parts and professionalised management.
- We need to shift our focus from projects at village level to strengthening institutions and policies at both national and local government levels to support service delivery.
- We need to improve coordination and harmonisation within government-led processes, so that everyone is following the same rules and working towards the same goals.
What is Triple-S doing?
Triple-S is promoting these shifts in approach by working with partners on the ground in Ghana and will start in Burkina Faso in late 2011. Lessons learned from work in these countries feed up to the international level where Triple-S is promoting a re-appraisal of how development assistance to rural water supply is designed and implemented.
Aguaconsult provides a part-time Content Director and one full-time Researcher for Triple-S, both of whom work closely with IRC colleagues and partner staff in the focus countries.
For further information please visit the new Triple-S website: www.waterservicesthatlast.org
If you have any enquiries regarding Triple-S please contact Anna Le Gouais.
Latest on Triple-S – Water Services that Last
New resources available:
‘Supporting Rural water Supply: Moving towards a Service Delivery Approach’ – A new book co-written by Aguaconsult’s Harold Lockwood, published by Practical Action
‘Monitoring and service delivery indicators’ briefing note published
Triple-S principles framework available online
Tell us a story!
Join the Triple-S story initiative – share a recent experience about international rural water policy or finance. We are using the innovative research method of Sensemaker® to make sense of changes in rural water supply. Please contribute here
