2. Impact Background
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- 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
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3. !3
Avina Background
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.
Water Boards (OCSAS)
80K
People Served
40M
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
4. !4
Modules: The Diagnostic
- 140 questions on 8 different categories
- Organization, Administration, Operation & Maintenance, Sanitation System, Sanitation
Education, Water Resource Management, Communication
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
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5. !5
User 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
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6. !6
What’s out there?
Survey Diagnostics
- 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
Capacity Building Tools
- 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....
7. Our Proposal: The Diagnostic
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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)
8. Goals of Project
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- 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
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21. Future Direction: Capacity Building
How can we leverage digital tools to advance education
and capacity building and improve access to existing
resources?
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- 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
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