Business as Usual

World Water Day has come and gone, again. Sometimes we get caught up in the hype of World Water Day so much that the days following the Big Day can be a little anticlimactic. What did you do this weekend? I can tell you that I did almost nothing WASH-related; I took a hiatus. Today, there wasn't a sense of urgency like we felt in the last few weeks leading up to World Water Day, with all the social media outreach, the newsletters, the events celebrating the Day. It was business as usual.

Things have gone back to normal for us - but what about all those people we've been talking about and using for our speeches, advocacy, and pictures for World Water Day? What about the more than 783 million people that still don't have access to clean drinking water for themselves and their families? What about the 2.5 billion people (or 4.1 billion people, as a UNC study has now claimed) who don't have a place to use the toilet? What about the women and girls who have to leave the safety of their house at night to find a place to defecate? What about the millions of children under age five who we are losing each year? What about the girls who can't go to school because they don't have a place to use the bathroom once they start menstruating? What about the women who are stuck in a cycle of poverty because they spend hours and hours each day collecting contaminated water, instead of producing income? Unless a miracle happened over the weekend, they are still there and they still need WASH.

Just because the Big Day of the WASH sector has now passed does not mean that we can go back to business as usual. Matt Damon may be able to go to the bathroom again, but there are still billions of people who can't. The people without WASH don't get a break, and neither do we until the global WASH crisis is solved. Let's not let the awareness we raised and the inspirations we caused go to waste by waiting for next World Water Day. Take action now:

• Become a WASH Advocate. Sign the World Water Day Petition telling Congress and your Senators and Representatives to pass the Water for the World Act, which will soon be reintroduced. This legislation will help ensure that existing U.S. funds will be spent efficiently and effectively on WASH programs overseas.
• Donate. Donate your time; donate your money. Donate your resources and skills to the plethora of organizations doing great and sustainable work in the WASH sector. Find efforts near you and get involved.
• Talk to anyone and everyone who will listen (and even those who won't), all year long!

What good is it if it doesn't last?

In the weeks leading up to World Water Day, there has been a huge focus on sustainability of WASH projects and programs. Rightly so - if so much capital cost is invested in such programs, but the program is left to the community with no monitoring or evaluation, that money is wasted when the pump breaks, the treatment stops, or the equipment goes into disrepair. No one wants to waste money, especially in this economic climate, yet it so often happens anyway.

Why is that? Why, when everyone involved in the WASH sector wants it to succeed? While each situation is different, true change will come from a change in both implementing organizations and funding organizations. The two need to make clear to the other that sustainability is a priority and make the associated changes to contracts, budgets, grants, and reporting processes. Each WASH program must incorporate some sort of process to ensure sustainability of the program. An emerging paradigm is called MERL - monitoring, evaluation, resolution, and learning (championed by WASH Advocates and others). To sustain programs, you must monitor and evaluate the program periodically. But in order for this M&E to mean anything, you must also resolve the issues and learn from them, so as to avoid them in the future.

Sustainability takes time and it takes money, but it's worth it in the end. Let's not forget that there are people at the other end of what we do, and their lives depend on the implementation of good and lasting WASH services.

Here's what you can do:

• Check out the presentations and notes from the 2013 Sustainability Forum here.
• Endorse the Sustainability Charter and implement its guiding principles in your work.
• Take the self- and third-party assessments of your organization's adherence to the principles of the Sustainability Charter.

International Women's Day!

Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) impact all sectors of development, not the least those impacting women and girls. Around the world, women and girls collectively spend 200 billion hours fetching water and finding a place to use the bathroom. What could they do with this time, if they had water and a toilet? Girls could spend time in school, instead of missing at least 3 hours each day. Women could put time into income-producing activities. It's been shown that women reinvest 90% of their income back into their families, contributing to overall community development.

Women and girls are continuously used as the infrastructure for electricity, plumbing, and and childcare. They are the primary collectors of water and firewood in the developing world. Women and girls carry 40 pounds of water on their heads each time they fetch water, increasing their risk of back and hip pan, malnutrition, and anemia. In addition to missing at least 3 hours of school each day, women and girls walk an average of 6 kilometers to fetch water each day. A 15-minute decrease in collection time can increase girls' school attendance by 8-12%.

In searching for a place to use the bathroom, women and girls risk danger and sexual assault, especially because they are confined to leaving their houses in the dark to avoid shame of going in daylight. This waiting can cause serious illness like infection, chronic constipation, and mental stress. If schools don't offer single gender sanitation facilities with ways to dispose of menstrual waste, girls miss a week of school each month or drop out altogether.

The taboo of menstruation that even we in the United States feel is preventing the education of young girls throughout the world, and putting women at increased health risk. The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council has declared today, International Women's Day, to also be Menstrual Hygiene Management Day. Let's recognize the impact WASH has on women and girls, education, health, and economic growth, and work together across all sectors to improve the lives of women and girls around the world. Happy International Women's and Menstrual Hygiene Management Day - celebrate the women in your life and the blessings of access to clean water and adequate sanitation.