RWSN • Rural Water supply network - Rural Water Supply Network

A Global Pledge to Protect Drinking Water from Lead

World Water Day / UN Water Conference 2023

Events

02.05.2023 - 04.05.2023

All Systems Connect 2023 IRC Global Symposium • The Hague, Netherlands

Connecting people and ideas, systems and solutions to achieve justice for all Connecter les personnes et les idées, les systèmes et les solutions afin de parvenir à la justice pour tous | »

News • Announcements

13.01.2023

WORLD WATER DAY 2023: ACCELERATING CHANGE JOURNÉE MONDIALE DE L’EAU – ACCÉLERER LE CHANGEMENT

World Water Day 2023 is about accelerating change to solve the water and sanitation crisis. Dysfunction throughout the water cycle is undermining progress on all major global issues, from health to hunger, gender equality to jobs, education to industry, disasters to peace. Back in 2015, the world committed to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 as part of the 2030 Agenda – the promise that everyone would have safely managed water and sanitation by 2030. Right now, we are seriously off-track. Billions of people and countless schools, businesses, healthcare centres, farms and factories are being held back because their human rights to water and sanitation have not yet been fulfilled. | »

22.09.2022

The Call for contributions for #AllSystemsConnect2023 is now open Partagez votre expérience, votre apprentissage et votre sagesse

Co-design the programme with us by developing sessions and/or inputting into the content as a speaker or facilitator. Help spark the thinking and action that will mobilise the power of water and sanitation to act as a gateway to achieving the SDGs. Submit your contribution by 15 October 2022. Si nous voulons progresser plus rapidement et avec plus d'impact vers tous nos objectifs, nous devons regarder au-delà de nos propres secteurs et disciplines. C'est pourquoi nous vous invitons à organiser une session à l'ASC23 ou à y participer en tant que contributeur pour susciter la réflexion et l'action qui mobiliseront le pouvoir de l'eau et de l'assainissement pour agir comme une passerelle vers la réalisation des ODD. Que recherchons-nous ? Propositions explorant les corrélations entre l'eau et l'assainissement avec la santé, le climat, le développement économique, l'éducation et la justice sociale, ainsi que des contributions individuelles qui seront combinées en sessions pour compiler le programme de l'ASC23. | »

21.09.2022

From Tractors to the Tara pump 30 Years of HTN/RWSN

This year we are celebrating 30 years since the Rural Water Supply Network was formally founded. From very technical beginnings as a group of (mostly male) experts – the Handpump Technology Network- we have evolved to be a diverse and vibrant network of over 13,000 people and 100 organisations working on a wide range of topics. Along the way, we have earned a reputation for impartiality, and become a global convener in the rural water sector. RWSN would not be what it is today without the contributions and tireless efforts of many our members, organisations and people. As part of RWSN’s 30th anniversary celebration, we are running a blog series on rwsn.blog, inviting our friends and experts in the sector to share their thoughts and experiences in the rural water sector. This is a guest blog by RWSN co-founder Erich Baumann, based in Ireland. | »

17.03.2022

Groundwater and self-supply: more to it than meets the eye Les eaux souterraines et l'auto-approvisionnement : plus qu'il n'y paraît

“Groundwater may be out of sight, but it must not be out of mind.” This year’s tag line of the World Water Day points to the fact that despite its size and importance, groundwater is often overlooked and “out of our minds”. Right below our feet there are vast amounts of water, but most of the time we do not think about them. As society we tend to overlook it as a potential source of water for different purposes, and we also forget how fragile it is to be contaminated. In low-income settings, the use groundwater is often limited by lack of resources (technology for drilling, energy for pumping, and supply chains to keep these systems operational). Nevertheless, several hundred million people across the globe have been providing water for themselves (“self-supply”), mostly from groundwater: - In South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific, more than 760 million — or 31% of the population —rely on self-supply for their drinking water. - In Sub-Saharan Africa, some 46 million rural people and 125 million urban people rely on private groundwater sources, equivalent to 7% and 33% of the rural and urban population, respectively. These people tapped into groundwater sources by their own means, usually without support by governments, donors, NGOs or development banks. For more than a billion people worldwide self-supply is the best (and often the only) option to access water – and with coordinated efforts and stronger support structures, many more people may benefit. On the occasion of World Water Day 2022, Skat Foundation and a group of like-minded organizations (WaterAid, SIWI, IRC, Ask-for-Water, University of Sydney) jointly developed a fact sheet on groundwater and self-supply, and how the two topics are related. We invite you to read the document, share it widely, and – most importantly – act on it. Here is the list of actions we are proposing: • WASH professionals: Recognize the role of individual households in upgrading WASH service levels, support the collection of evidence on the multiple impact of self-supply, support initiatives of market intelligence, capacity building, exchange, and learning. • Government entities: Recognize the role and importance of self-supply (e.g., include self-supply in monitoring efforts, recognize it in policies and standards), build expertise in institutions, establish an enabling environment for local private sector actors to thrive, and build capacities. • Academia: Include technologies and approaches adequate for individual household supply (or small groups) in research projects, include self-supply as an approach, investigate enabling and hindering factors for WASH entrepreneurs to establish a business and thrive, look into the multiple benefits generated by self-supply. • Funding agencies: Include self-supply components in projects, focusing on kickstarting market-based mechanisms, promotion, capacity building, market intelligence, research and evaluations. • Implementing agencies (NGOs, UN agencies, etc.): Integrate self-supply components in projects of WASH, rural development, market development and livelihood improvement; pilot and showcase technologies that can be taken up by individual households and small groups. For more information, please check out the fact sheet on groundwater and self-supply or the RWSN website on self-supply. | »

14.03.2022

Short-term consultancy: RWSN Governance

The Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN) is a global network with over 13,000 members in 168 countries. It is an informal organisation that does not exist legally. The Secretariat is hosted by Skat Foundation, in Switzerland, which collaborates with volunteer Theme Leaders, who lead networking and knowledge exchange activities around six thematic areas. The network is governed by an Executive Steering Committee (ExecSC), which comprises representatives from the African Development Bank, IRC, SDC, Skat Foundation, UNICEF, WaterAid and the World Bank. RWSN is currently reviewing and revising its governance. The objective is that by the end of 2022, RWSN has a clear governance document that sets out the rules and protocols of how the network operates. We are looking for a consultant or consultants to undertake a short assignment to find answers to the following questions: 1. How can Regional RWSN “chapters” or “hubs” be incorporated into RWSN’s overall global governance? 2. How can the structure and processes of the RWSN Executive Steering Committee be more reflective of the key principles? Please follow the link below to download the full call | »

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