QUESTION
Query from Water and Sanitation Consultant, New Delhi : Need experiences and inputs on the issue of convergence in WES programmes

Original Query: Bhawna Vajpai, Water and Sanitation Consultant, New Delhi
Posted: 5 June 2006

Most of you will agree that although most social development programmes are designed sectorally, long-term sustainability and a wider outreach necessitates effective convergence with other Government and non-government actors from various sectors.

For instance, the success of a sanitation programme will require effective convergence with actors in water supply, health, education, gender and social empowerment, etc. My own experience of SWAJAL, an integrated programme for drinking water, showed that while drinking water and sanitation remained the major components, other supportive interventions needed to built in during implementation. Examples of these were catchment area development, promoting functional literacy, micro-finance, promotion of health and hygiene awareness, women’s empowerment, community resource mobilization and community based monitoring. However, convergence for these supportive interventions with players from other sectors was inadequate.

Another fallout of the above is that while some village communities get a large number of inputs from various agencies for similar activities, other village communities remain deprived, leading to wastage of scarce resources due to duplication of efforts.

In this context, I request members to please share experiences on the issue of convergence, especially as related to the Water and Environmental Sanitation Sector in the following areas:

  1. Examples of highly effective and successful experiences in convergence in India in the WES sector.
  2. Impediments in convergence between various actors in WES and suggestions on methods to foster better convergence.

Please see attachment below for the responses.

by
5 June 2006