Pleased to have been working on the ‘Alternatives for non-tariff pro-poor subsidies & support’ policy paper for GVWC. Suggesting that a key role of a public water utility is to safeguard public health by ensuring disadvantaged communities, particularly the poor, can access basic water supply. Health benefits are maximised through delivering ‘piped on premises’ services. Women benefit most from at-home piped on premises water supply. ‘Piped on premises’ services are embedded in the SDG 6.1 target that the Government of Sierra Leone has committed to.
Emphasising that extending piped networks into lower-income communities in Freetown is feasible. Unlike many other lower-income cities, Freetown has relatively small pockets of low-income, informal housing sited within the conventional city-scape. This makes building ‘piped on premises’ direct connections cheaper and more straightforward.
Quite a long way to turn such policy into practice ……the present plans are for a grand new kiosk, permanently manned (who pays the opex? surely not the poorest?) to be constructed at the end of this street - in sight of the two previous not so-successful attempts at delivering water to poor communities through the pictured standposts. So why oh why didn't the previous project attempt to rehabilitate the first standpost? And why is the new project building a third?
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