Enabling environment
Poor people in developing countries need water for many purposes: for drinking, bathing, irrigating vegetable gardens, and watering livestock. However, responsibility for water services is divided between different government agencies, the WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) and irrigation sub-sectors, with the result that people's holistic needs are not met. Multiple use water services (MUS) is a participatory water services approach that takes account of poor people's multiple water needs as a starting point of planning, and the approach has been implemented in at least 22 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Scaling up Multiple Use Water Services argues that by designing cost-effective multi-purpose infrastructure MUS can have a positive impact on people's health and livelihoods. It analyses and explains the success factors of MUS, using a framework of accountability for public service delivery, and it also examines why there has been resistance against scaling up MUS. A stronger service delivery approach can overcome this resistance, by rewarding more livelihood outcomes, by fostering discretionary decision-making power of local-level staff and by allowing horizontal coordination.This book should be read by government and aid agency policy makers in the WASH and agriculture sectors, by development field workers, and by academics, researchers and students of international development.
This report synthesizes the results of a scoping study into MUS in five countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania, India and Nepal. It analyses the potential for a MUS approach for four different entry points for scaling pathways: domestic-plus, irrigation-plus, self-supply and community-based MUS, for each of the five countries. It then identifies a number of common barriers across the countries and potential manners of overcoming those.
There is reasonably wide recognition of the potential merits of multiple use water services (MUS) in Ethiopia as a result of innovation by NGOs and advocacy by research institutes. The acronym ‘MUS’ is itself increasingly a part of the sector discourse and interest in MUS is on the rise given the growing awareness that food insecurity and water insecurity are related. However, MUS interventions and modalities have generally not been scaled up widely in the country. This seems largely due to the same barriers that MUS faces elsewhere: the conventional institutional structuring of water policies, water services implementation programs, and professional disciplines into fragmented, parallel operating ‘vertical’ sectors of single water uses such as rural water supply and agriculture. Three best-bet opportunity areas are identifed for taking MUS forward. In addition, there is an opportunity for a learning network on MUS focusing on policy and practice in Ethiopia to learn from and leverage the activities of various partners.
This scoping study offers implementable recommendations for investment opportunities in multiple use water services in Ghana. The report is based on an assessment of existing MUS modalities and innovations, potential for implementation and possible barriers. The study shows that MUS is a de facto practice both in formal domestic and irrigation service delivery, complemented by self-supply initiatives. Moving from de facto multiple use practices to a more planned and structured MUS approach can be done from various entry-points. Based on risk assessments, this study concludes that domestic-plus, rehabilitation of small reservoirs and self-supply for irrigation present the best direct investment opportunities for maximum impact.
Global MUS innovation is most advanced in Nepal. In the middle hills, two robust MUS modalities have been conceptualized and implemented at certain scale. Two other potentials for scaling MUS were identified that need to be explored in further depth. Opportunities and barriers for each of these four entry points are identified and discussed. Scaling pathways to overcome these are also described in this report.
This study assesses the barriers and potentials for scaling MUS in Tanzania. It identifies pathways to overcome the water sector’s compartmentalization according to single water uses. Interviews with key stakeholders and literature review identified significant potentials for scaling MUS in Tanzania from five entry points. As MUS is about cross-sectoral dialogue and gradual change from many entry points that all contribute to an overall vision, it is proposed to implement these changes through a national MUS learning alliance of key stakeholders, including development partners.
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of the Government of India provides a legal guarantee for 100 days of employment per year to adult members of any rural household willing to undertake public works at the prescribed minimum wages. Studies suggest that well over half of the assets created under Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MG-NREGS) are water-related and that while a significant proportion among these were possibly designed for single-use but de facto multiple use structures. Given its emphasis on decentralized, participatory planning processes, MG-NREGS may be viewed as the world’s largest laboratory for community-based MUS. This country-report focuses on exploring investment opportunities for the Rockefeller Foundation in the context of scaling up community-based MUS through MG-NREGS.
A presentation given by Barbara van Koppen (IWMI) and Stef Smits (IRC) on MUS-scoping studies on potentials, barriers and scaling pathways in India, Nepal, Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania on the 2012 MUS-group meeting in Washington, DC.
A presentation by Robert Marten of the Rockefeller Foundation on the foundation's multiple use services search, given at the 2012 MUS-group meeting in Washington, DC.
A presentation by Mary Renwick of Winrock International on multiple use water services for the poor: an overview of Winrock activities and key learnings; the presentation was given at the 2012 MUS-group meeting in Washington, DC.