Community Water Project

Gerardo Capiel & Adam Bernstein

Benetech and Avina

!22Impact Background

- 1 billion globally lack access to safe drinking water - 2 billion globally lack access to sanitation facilities - Poor sanitation and water supply and resulting illnesses

are the leading cause of death in children under 5 years old

- Connection between water, sanitation, hygiene, and disease are a key focus of Millennium Development Goals

- Water systems face long term sustainability threats from climate change, urbanization, over-extraction

!

!33Avina Background

Water Boards (OCSAS)

People Served

80K

40M

Background:

Avina Americas is leading an effort to strengthen the organizational capacity and sustainability of community based organizations involved in the provision of potable water and sewage treatment services.

Current Efforts:

- Focus on OCSAS that serve communities between 50-2,000 families - Diagnostic training program across 6 Latin America Countries

- Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador - Diagnostic and educational modules in 10 parts

!44Modules: The Diagnostic

Areas for Improvement

- Too many questions - No personalization/

localization based on region or OCSA

- Rigid and oversimplified, point based system

- No data analysis, manual diagnostic stays on paper

- Diagnostic doesn’t inform subsequent modules !

!

- 140 questions on 8 different categories - Organization, Administration, Operation & Maintenance, Sanitation System, Sanitation

Education, Water Resource Management, Communication

!5User Needs

Diagnostic Related Other!- Digital diagnostic tool that

helps gather data for analysis - Shorter more accessible

diagnostic and education tools

- Personalized education based on region and needs of OCSAS

- Necessity to prove effectiveness of initiatives to Federal Government for funding

!

- Social network to connect OCSAS and help them share best practices

- Water meter data collection and billing platform

!6What’s out there?

Survey Diagnostics Capacity Building Tools

- SIGAP in Ecuador - Android tablets to collect data on OCSA infrastructure

- Water for People: AKVO FLOW - open source water data collection tool

- Pacific Institute: mWASH SMS - SMS tool for information intervention and flow - Community Choices: simple survey and advice tool

- Paraguay Tablet Project - used tablets to collect data, stopped because of change of administration

- Huduma - SMS platform as a channel for citizens to give feedback

- Avina Modules - paper based modules and certificate programs

- WASH Institute - capacity building tools guides, and videos

- SSWM - Sustainable Sanitation and Water Management Toolbox -workshops and certificate programs

- AKVOPEDIA - web-based resource for water and sanitation education

- and many more....

!7Our Proposal: The Diagnostic

Pilot project in Costa Rica - diagnostic survey for organization capacity using Android devices - collection, analysis, and mapping of data - key partners: Paula Burt (Avina), Lil Soto (Avina), and Ismael Martinez

(UNAGUAS in Costa Rica)

!8Goals of Project

- use the power of data to help inform Avina as well as the government about the challenges and current capacity of OCSAS

- develop using agile methods to gather more needs from users and better design the diagnostic

- make diagnostic highly accessible and usable to get as much data as possible

- transparency of data to all stakeholders - take our first step toward understanding our users - foster trust from our partners and users !!!

!99Data InputAndroid Tablet/Phone Web Browser

ODK Collect http://opendatakit.org/use/collect/

formhub https://formhub.org

!1010formhub login

adamb

benetechavina

!1111formhub diagnostic upload

AVINA_Prototype_Full.xls

!12formhub web/mobile

!13formhub selection https://e882s.enketo.formhub.org/webform

!14formhub completion

!https://formhub.org

!15formhub download

!16Excel AnalysisAVINA_template.XLS

!17Excel Analysis

!18Excel Analysis

!19Excel Analysis

!20Extras - Map

!21Future Direction: Capacity Building

How can we leverage digital tools to advance education and capacity building and improve access to existing resources?

!- Aggregate resources and help Avina create an educational

platform built off of modules to help broaden the impact of their efforts

- Partner with existing organizations who are running educational programs

- Localization based on requirements of each participant country - Add rewards to completion of program, possible incentive

structure for infrastructure improvements - Integrate with social network, to help spread best practices and

network OCSAS