Next steps in Scaling Up

Background

In December 2001, IRC organised a mini conference under the title: “ From System to Service; Scaling Up Community Management of Rural Water Supply”. One of its outcomes was the formation of a Thematic Group (TG) to advocate for scaling up, to increase the understanding of scaling up issues and to do joint action research on scaling up. Staff of the following organisations participate in the TG: IRC, Plan, RCAP, SKAT, Streams, Umgeni Water, UNICEF, UNDP, WaterAid, WEDC and the WSSCC as well as some 10 individuals with a special interest and expertise in scaling up. The TG considers the following issues to be key issues under the banner of ‘scaling up’:

• Identify ways to increase coverage from current “islands” of community success to reach entire populations.
• Ensure that community water services are sustainable in the long term, which means that adequate institutional arrangements are in place to support community management.

One of the group outputs has been a framework for achieving sustainable universal coverage through community management. The framework is available on the website of the TG: http://www.scalingup.watsan.net/

Another mini conference was planned to develop the next version of the framework and invite sector staff from different countries to share their experiences with scaling up and use these for the improvement of the framework.

Presentations

The presentations elaborated on scaling up issues from different perspectives, from improved planning to behaviour change to learning platforms. They showed examples of scaling up from Nigeria, South Africa, Ethiopia, Jordan and Egypt and Ghana. The presentations started off discussions and deliberations in plenary and groups and addressed the following issues:

• What are the key elements of a programme to go to scale?
• What needs to be done, by whom and at which levels to scale up rural water services i.e. to achieve indefinite sustainability and universal coverage?
• What are the challenges at any level that need to be overcome?

The full presentations can be downloaded from http://www.scalingup.watsan.net/page/214.

Programme design

The discussions on designing a programme for scaling up, delivered excellent outcomes. The programme design will be a consolidation of the work that has been built up over the last five years. Implementation from the district, strengthening local government and institutional support are all essential elements of the programme. The programme design will be put into a concept note which will be discussed with potential funders and partners. Elements of the programme can already be found in the RiPPLE project, the UNICEF Zimbabwe project, EMPOWERS and the Plan Ethiopia project. All projects in which IRC is involved in one way or another.