There are More Important Issues than Concrete
Six weeks in Honduras
I arrived in Honduras with the overarching goal of asking questions. I’ve been interested in the positive and negative, successes and challenges and main takeaways of actors in the water and sanitation sector. Not being a technical person myself, I assumed that the lion’s share of the challenges would surround infrastructure and funding. I was surprised to learn that the best practices and lessons learned surrounded activities far more intangible and far more important. Every actor/organization I have approached, without any exception, has stressed the importance of prioritizing community education and engagement and, difficult though it may be, to focus on sustainability in all its forms as opposed to immediate gains.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND BUY-IN ARE CRITICAL
The experiences of various NGOs and government organizations who have worked all throughout the country emphasize the critical importance of being integrated into the community throughout the process of designing and developing a project. Given Honduras’ diverse topography and the government’s move toward decentralization, it’s more important than ever that interventions are designed to suit the needs of the target population and that they are included throughout the process. Issues related to water, sanitation and hygiene can often be very difficult to discuss openly — the more a community is acquainted with an actor, the more information and insight can flow freely.
Building relationships and partnerships with local government, leaders, schools allows the organization to establish trust. Trust in the viability, quality and sustainability of the water service is particularly important in contexts where a cultural shift/change is necessary. In particularly vulnerable communities, for example, program beneficiaries need to be assured and convinced that clean water is worthy of the associated costs and tariffs (as opposed to consuming untreated water from a river, which is largely free). An intervention cannot be successful if the target community is not willing to invest time and resources to it: 1) treatment plants need to be supervised and treated; 2) biosand filters need to be tested and calibrated; 3) some form of payment (usually tariffs) is required to keep operations solvent and open. Pure Water for the World’s program in the Trojes region of Honduras prioritizes community engagement and education before, during and after the completion of a project. Pure Water for the World has a standing presence in Trojes as well as an ongoing beneficiary volunteering program.
EDUCATION IS A KEY COMPONENT — THOUGH DIFFICULT TO SELL
Education is a key component of every successful project, though it may be difficult to quantify and “sell” to donors. When we speak of culture change/shift towards a community that values clean water and is willing to pay for it, ongoing education is the most important step. Oftentimes, the greatest limitation is not lack of resources, but rather that a community: 1) doesn’t think that clean water is necessary; 2) doesn’t know of the connection between untreated water and diarrheal diseases; 3) doesn’t compute the opportunity cost of consuming untreated water. Intensive trainings and workshops are required to instruct beneficiaries who may well be reticent or skeptical of an organization’s value added.
“ Donors are interested in things they can easily quantify — number of filters, number of tanks, metric cubes of water — but often fail to realize that these need to be supplemented with rigorous community education initiatives.”
Securing funding for initiatives that heavily focus on education can be challenging. In a country like Honduras, where both education and equipment are needed, it is easier to make the funding case of the latter. Donors are interested in things they can easily quantify — number of filters, number of tanks, metric cubes of water — but often fail to realize that these need to be supplemented with rigorous community education initiatives. If a family does not learn how to treat and maintain its own biosand filter, it will soon be rendered useless. If a community does not learn how to safely dispose of waste, a washable latrine is also soon rendered useless. Educational initiatives enable the success of other infrastructure and empower beneficiaries to become aware, informed and successful. Several organizations, in particular the SANAA and the InterAmerican Development Bank supplement water infrastructure with community using UNICEF’s Escuela y Casa Saludable model which focuses on water and sanitation education in schools for propagation in homes.
SUSTAINABILITY- MULTI-YEAR FUNDING
The topic of sustainability was discussed broadly with each respondent and the general consensus is that good, solid programming with the requisite educational supporting components takes time. The ultimate goal of all projects is that a community become self-sufficient and eventually take ownership and control of the water source/water system. The goal is that the community have time to develop competency/mastery in managing water provision — collecting tariffs and taxes, maintaining infrastructure in good physical condition, continue educational campaigns to accommodate population growth, etc. Empowering and educating a community enough to get to this point is often longer than a one-year commitment. The most successful projects actually prefer to apply for multi-year funding that allows a substantial period for supervision and follow-up. Programs without sufficient resources for follow-up often do not have longevity.
A participating organization mentioned that “Honduras is littered with the corpses of failed projects” that created great initial impact but had no longevity. In the worst case scenarios, an installed water system only ran properly for two to three months and by the time issues became apparent, the NGO responsible was no longer operating in-country. Projects that fail to deliver on promises and objectives severely damage relationships between NGOs and other actors and their target communities. They contribute to the erosion of trust that is necessary to establish and maintain successful projects. Good work and positive change are attainable, but not overnight.
Further, when we speak about sustainability it’s also important to include financial and environmental sustainability. Organizations need to make sure that an initiative is financially viable with tariffs (if any) within the payment capacity of beneficiaries, a fund that builds on interest and replenishes itself, etc. and not depend on external cooperation and/or loans. In line with the UN’s sustainability goals and plans, programming needs to have a strong component of environmental sustainability such that the integrity of water basins, watersheds, soil, animal and plant life, etc. is respected.
The experiences of organizations tackling the behemothic challenges in the water and sanitation sector in Honduras have made clear to me that this is a dynamic sector that requires participation from all communities and long-term investment, financial and otherwise. In order to truly effect positive change both in coverage and in the culture surrounding water, organizations need to listen to host communities more than they speak. These lessons that might be considered soft or qualitative are actually the most crucial — we have had the infrastructural know-how for years and challenges persist; I think it’s precisely because efforts that are much harder to quantify and take longer to pursue are ignored for the sake of laying concrete.
Jennifer Vargas is the Archimedes Project 2017 Frontier Social Entrepreneur Fellow. The Frontier Fellowship is a 12-week program during which the fellows examine the water and sanitation market, needs and customer attitudes, build local partnerships and may even begin micro-testing business ideas. archgrp.org/fellow
