MUS seminar summary

Published on: 30/08/2013

In the opening address, Pim dan der Male, senior policy office water and sanitation, DGIS, advised the MUS community to focus policy messages on the link between sustainability and MUS, good experiences of how to overcome hurdles of inter-sectoral collaboration, and evidence of cost effectiveness of applying a MUS approach.

Participants shared latest approaches, methodologies and experiences relating to multiple use water services.

The MUStRAIN Project shared documented cases on MUS from Ethiopia. These cases were introduced by Eline Boelee and included cases related to the reuse of waste water, presented by Eline Bakker and Self-supply, presented by John Butterworth.

In the block on 'Water from sand', the focus was on rainwater harvesting for multiple-use water services, through sand dams and sub-service dams in Ethiopia. Sean Patrick presented the experiences of RAIN Foundation in Ethiopia, while Harold de Ruiter focussed on the experiences of Waterboard Hollandse Delta.

In the block on 'pumping money', Tom de Veer (Connect International) presented on how businesses like smart centres can contribute to hand pump sustainability. Paul van Beers (Fairwater) presented the Blue Pump which, because of its high reliability, is often used for multiple-uses. He also presented the blue zone concept, with private sector actors having management contracts with communities in order to ensure sustaibale operation and maintenance of these pumps.

Barbara van Koppen (IWMI) presented potentials and barriers for scaling MUS, in India, Nepal, Ghana and Tanzania.

Finally joint policy messages on multiple-use water services and ways of further consolidating knowledge on MUS were discussed in groups.

Policy messages

Why Dutch government should care and invest in MUS?

• It is about operationalising policy: MUS is the way to put Dutch policy regarding contributing to self-reliance, food security, and economic growth into practice. MUS fits into the water development programme and the top-sector water policy.
• There is a clear business case for MUS
• MUS is already being supported: it is about making the cases explicit and sharing the experiences
• Show how other governments are doing it already.

Consolidating knowledge

How to consolidate knowledge around MUS?

A lot is already happening on consolidation of mus knowledge, e.g. through the MUS Group website and its newsletter. Additional ways for sharing and consolidating knowledge that were discussed, are:

• Link up with (inter)national sector dealing with irrigation & drainage (e.g. meetings of the International Commission on Irrigation & Drainage)
• Sharing of knowledge throughout webinars
• Share stories and document the experiences, repackage them in success stories
• Use the NWP –NGO platform to leverage the body of knowledge