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From Guinea Pigs

and White Elephants

Pay Drechsel

Learning from #Fails in Water and Energy; Stockholm 2014

ANYTHING IN COMMON ?

• Despite its size not easy to spot

• Lazy character, • Hardly in any statistics

Elephas fiasco

Cavia experimenta

• Moves in herds, but seldom in the same direction

• Very noisy, can bite• If they misbehave, hardly

in any statistics

Click to add Title and Presenter

White Elephant Safari, Ghana

MY FAVORITE WHITE ELEPHANT

Compost Station1980-2010Fully mechanized mismatch: lack of electricity, water, and trained staff resulted in an early breakdown.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Business (e.g., hotel, airport)

Hospital

Military

School

Municipal/Township

Community-level

Region

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WASTEWATER AND FAECAL SLUDGE TREATMENT PLANTS

IN GHANA

Operational Status

How many of them work ?

LESSONS: REASONS FOR THE RUN-TO-FAILURE TRAJECTORY

• Frequent and long power cuts affecting pumps• Decentralization of responsibility but not capacity• Institutional ownerships with other priorities

(Ministries of Health, Defense, Education, …)• No qualified O&M staff and low institutional

incentives for good maintenance• Big budget gaps & slow cash flow• Etc.

Murray, A. and Drechsel, P. 2011. Why do some wastewater treatment facilities work when the majority fail? Case study from the sanitation sector in Ghana. Waterlines 30 (2): 135-149

2012

Are we learning?

Korle Lagoon

Photo: Rebecca Tharme/IWMI

BEFORE: Korle Lagoon Ecological Restoration Project (KLERP) 1995-2005 ($89m)

Photo: Rebecca Tharme/IWMI

AFTER: Korle Lagoon Ecological Restoration Project (KLERP) 1995-2005 ($89m)

... so much about ecological restoration

Ca. 1000 m3/day

Lavender Hill

20102013

2000

2001

1990-1996

Alternative treatment plants are under construction and already partially up!

current

Welcome to Labadi Beach

You won’t forget it

Photo by Stig Nygaard

• Participatory action research• Implementation, roll-out, …

Something about Guinea Pigs

Examples• Farmers should adopt safer wastewater

irrigation practices.• Communities should stop open defecation.• Households should adopt dry toilets etc.

‘Failure’The target group does not implement the idea. (internal/external reasons, like different values, missing risk awareness, high opportunity costs, …..)

Failure or Success ?

ERDOS ECO-TOWN PROJECTN = 3000

OPEN DEFECATION FREE COMMUNITIES

www.communityledtotalsanitation.org/sites/communityledtotalsanitation.org/files/Factors_ODF_EastJava.pdf

N= 2,000 communities (700,000 people)

Only 35 percent of all ‘triggered communities’had become ODF

10,000 scientists and staff in 15 CGIAR centers

CGIAR Reform TowardsStrongerOutcomeDelivery

REFORM NEEDED TO AVOID

CGIAR

THANK YOU VERY MUCH

• Guinea pig: A person or thing used as a subject for experiment.

• White elephant: A possession that is/got useless, especially one that is expensive to maintain or difficult to dispose of.