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(Journal Article) Back to basics: urban households’ perspective on free water supply in Ghana in the COVID-19 pandemic
01.04.2022
Water supply is a basic human right and governments have sought to fulfil this right through free supply of water. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed governments, including the Government of Ghana, to return to supply of free water as a measure of enhancing personal hygiene in fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic. This study sought to analyse the reliability of water supply before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and the state of households’ water consumption during the pandemic. The paper is based on an online survey of 4,257 urban households across the 16 administrative regions of Ghana. The study found that flow reliability has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic free water delivery. We also established that correlation between consumption before and during the pandemic was r = 0.659, p < 0.01. Therefore, use of the ‘stay home campaign’ as a strategy to contain the disease in addition to social connection and sharing free water, have increased domestic water consumption. Although the pandemic necessitated the return to water being delivered as a basic necessity to fight against the pandemic, the emphasis on ‘back to basics’ was not fully implemented. This is because some urban households that could not pay water bills prior to the free water supply were denied the COVID-19 pandemic free water package and rural households who relied on point sources also did not benefit from the package. -
(Journal Article) Freshwater lens assessment of karst island water resources: towards an interdisciplinary protocol
01.04.2022
Fresh groundwater lenses on karstic oceanic islands form a vital resource sustaining local populations. However, this resource is susceptible to saltwater intrusion through human drivers (over-abstraction) and natural processes (variable precipitation and storm surges). There is a paucity of means to assess the risks that freshwater lenses are exposed to. This is partly driven by a poor understanding of the root causes of saltwater intrusion, which leads to potentially inappropriate freshwater management strategies. Thus, effective management of these freshwater lenses requires a baseline understanding of the processes that drive saltwater intrusion and the degradation of freshwater lenses, and the temporal and spatial variability of these processes. Dynamics of such freshwater lenses involve an interplay between physical, chemical, and socio-economic processes; therefore, finding a solution necessitates an interdisciplinary approach and a range of data collection strategies. This approach was formalized in a Freshwater Lens Assessment Protocol (FLAP). Results from the research developed and tested on Bantayan Island in the Philippines reveals a sufficient freshwater lens to support the current and projected population; however, local officials are operating abstraction wells from the wrong locations on the island. Such locations are utilized due to ease of access to existing infrastructure and government boundaries, but do not consider technical factors that influence saltwater intrusion. FLAP is an appropriate, cost-effective, interdisciplinary tool that uses a pragmatic approach to data collection, interpretation, and integration into an observational model. Continuous adjustments are possible through ongoing monitoring of the model, offering opportunities to evaluate the efficacy of resource management strategies. -
(Book) Gestion de nos dechets 2021
La gestion des déchets que nous produisons tous constitue un défi grandissant dans le monde entier. Les problèmes de gestion des déchets sont habituellement décrits et mesurés en termes de flux de matières et d’incidences environnementales. Cependant, il s’agit d’un problème humain ayant d’important...
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(Book) Rethink, Retool, Reboot
Technology underpins human development. We need it to provide the very basics of a minimum standard of life – food, water, shelter, health and education. But a significant proportion of the world’s population do not have these basics today. And whilst a fifth of the world’s population lacks access t...
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(Book) The Barefoot Guide to Working with Organisations and Social Change
This is a practical, do-it-yourself guide for leaders and facilitators wanting to help organisations to function and to develop in more healthy, human and effective ways as they strive to make their contributions to a more humane society. It has been developed by the Barefoot Collective. The guide,...
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(Book) Can We Know Better?
This book is intended for all who are committed to human wellbeing and who want to make our world fairer, safer and more fulfilling for everyone, especially those who are ‘last’. It argues that to do better we need to know better. It provides evidence that what we believe we know in international d...
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(Book) Living with Uncertainty
The last few years have seen a major rethinking of some of the hallowed assumptions of range ecology and range management practice. This book examines the management of policy implications of this new ecological thinking for pastoral development in dryland areas. With examples drawn from all over Af...
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(Book) Measuring Energy Access in India
This briefing paper reports on the largest energy access survey ever conducted in India, covering a representative sample of the rural poor across six states with interviews in 8,566 households. It adapts the World Bank’s multi-tier framework to measure access to household electricity and clean cook...
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(Book) Sustainable Sanitation for All
Petra Bongartz, Naomi Vernon, John Fox
Great strides have been made in improving sanitation in many developing countries. Yet, 2.4 billion people worldwide still lack access to adequate sanitation facilities and the poorest and most vulnerable members of society are often not reached and their specific needs are not met. Moreover, sustai...
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(Book) Constructing Low-rise Confined Masonry Buildings
The Construction Guide for Low-Rise Confined Masonry Buildings addresses the needs of small-scale contractors, technicians, government staff, architects as well as non-governmental organizations involved in post-disaster reconstruction. The guide has been written with users with various professional...
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(Book) The Sphere Handbook
The Sphere Handbook presents a principled approach to quality and accountability in humanitarian response. It is a practical translation of Sphere’s core belief that all people affected by disaster or conflict have a right to life with dignity and the right to receive humanitarian assistance. The...
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(Book) Donner plus de sens à l’atténuation du changement climatique
Le système énergétique mondial est le facteur le plus important du changement climatique. Ainsi, réduire la consommation énergétique ainsi que les émissions de gaz à effet de serre a une importance primordiale dans le monde pour éviter des changements climatiques catastrophiques. Toutefois, améliore...
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(Book) The Sphere Handbook Arabic
The Sphere Handbook presents a principled approach to quality and accountability in humanitarian response. It is a practical translation of Sphere’s core belief that all people affected by disaster or conflict have a right to life with dignity and the right to receive humanitarian assistance. The...
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(Book) Value Chain Development and the Poor
Jason Donovan, Dietmar Stoian, Jon Hellin
Since the early 2000s, value chain development (VCD) has figured prominently on the agendas of donors, governments, and NGOs in pursuit of market-based options to poverty reduction, food security, gender equity, and other goals. Researchers have shown interest in value chains as a theoretical con...
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(Book) Mukanda Wa Sphere Tshiluba
The Sphere Handbook presents a principled approach to quality and accountability in humanitarian response. It is a practical translation of Sphere’s core belief that all people affected by disaster or conflict have a right to life with dignity and the right to receive humanitarian assistance. The...
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(Book) Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action
The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, Save the Children
The 2019 edition of the Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action (CPMS) is a ‘one-stop shop’ for all the latest resources on child protection. The CPMS aims to strengthen quality and accountability in child protection programming and improve multi-sectoral approaches to children...
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(Book) Perspectives énergétiques des populations pauvres 2017
L’accès à l’énergie est au coeur du développement durable car il favorise, entre autres, les progrès en matière de santé, d’éducation et d’émancipation des femmes. Forte de ce constat, la communauté mondiale s’est engagée à faire de l’accès à l’énergie l’un des objectifs de développement durable pou...
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(Book) Farmer First Revisited
Agriculture is an urgent global priority and farmers find themselves in the front line of some of the world's most pressing issues- climate change, globalization and food security. Twenty years ago, the Farmer First workshop held at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK, lau...
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(Book) Maneno ya utangulizi ya Kitabu Sphere Congo Swahili
The Sphere Handbook presents a principled approach to quality and accountability in humanitarian response. It is a practical translation of Sphere’s core belief that all people affected by disaster or conflict have a right to life with dignity and the right to receive humanitarian assistance. The...
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(Book) Solar Pumping for Water Supply
Alberto Ibáñez Llario, Asenath W. Kiprono
Solar power for pumping groundwater has a vast potential for improving the sustainability of water supply schemes. However experience also shows that a lack of knowledge, capacity and expertise to design and implement such schemes is holding back their adoption. This book bridges this gap to equip e...