The Guardian: When it comes to water access we keep doing the same thing. And failing
Ajay Paul, thematic ​coordinator for the sustainable services initiative at Welthungerhilfe

“…[T]oo many water and sanitation services in developing countries are still unreliable, sub-standard, and need major repairs after three to five years. … We falsely attribute the breakdown of a pump to poor government policies, corrupt local officials, or weak management by the water-user committee. So we put ourselves in opposition to the government, we ignore policies, and we do not work with local government officials. We run our projects in parallel to theirs, and we do not link up to or support local government plans. When the project is finished, we hand over the management of the pump to the water-user committee and walk away. But we haven’t worked with the local government, so it has no incentive to support the local community when the pump breaks down. … We know that achieving [Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6)] — clean water and sanitation for all by 2030 — will require monitoring, reporting, and greater transparency about failures and success after projects are over…” (4/7).

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