Prepared by Ó. Flores, R.Giné, A. Jiménez, A. Pérez-Foguet for the Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium, 9 - 11 April 2013, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

1. PILOTING NEW INDICATORS AND METHODOLOGIES TO MEASURE THE HUMAN
RIGHT TO WATER IN NICARAGUA
Ó. Flores, R.Giné, A. Jiménez, A. Pérez-Foguet
Research Group on Cooperation and Human Development_Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
Barcelona, Spain
10_04_13_IRC Symposium. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

2. OUTLINE
One/////Introduction. HRtW & monitoring
Two/////Context: case study
Three///Research design and methodology
Four////Results
Five/////Some implications for a country-wide monitoring
Six///// Conclusions & challenges

3. One// Introduction
INTRODUCTION
“States Parties have a core obligation to include methods, such as right to water indicators and
benchmarks, by which progress (of the human right to water) can be closely monitored” (GC15,
2002)
1_Developing indicators to measure access to water (in rural areas) based on the human right to
water (Flores et al, 2013)
PURPOSE OF THE PAPER:
2_Preliminary ideas about… how to integrate new methodologies to measure and better
understand the situation of marginalized members of society (United Nations, 2012)

4. Two// Case study
CONTEXT
San Sebastián de Yalí Municipality
 Jinotega Department (North-central
region)
 6 districts // 75 rural communities
(22500 people)
 402 km2.
 Access to water (CAPS as service
provider vs. self provision)

5. Three// Sample design (1/3)
METHODOLOGY
1_Discriminated people is hard to find: -> Methodology to find and characterize people not served
by communitarian systems: Each of the 75 communities was divided into two subgroups of
households
A_One subgroup is served by the water supply systems that are managed by the CAPS
B_Self-provision, which is not managed by the CAPS.
2_Sample size determination for small populations (communities) is challenging -precision of
achieved results vs simplicity and costs- -> approach that produces estimates with sufficient
precision for use in local level decision-making (based on exact confidence limits of binomial
distribution corrected for finite populations) Gine and Foguet (2013)

6. Three// Field work(2/3)
METHODOLOGY
How?
1_UMAS – Minsa – NGDO - University
2_Community census “in situ” (if possible) and community map
3_Questionaires
 Households surveys (CAPS vs NO CAPS)
 Interview: members of the CAPS board
 Mapping and audit systems managed by CAPS
 Water Point Mapping (systems not managed by CAPS)

7. Three// Indicators (3/3)
METHODOLOGY
Source (Flores et al., 2013). Improvements based on *Rietveld et al (2009) **Jiménez and Pérez-Foguet (2012).

8. Four// Visualizing inequalities (1/2)
RESULTS
The target (“JMP on track”) may be achieved but access to water as guaranteed by human
rights remains unequally enjoyed by many. The focus on aggregate outcomes provides no
particular incentive to reach marginalized groups. (United Nations, 2012)
When we consider the average in a But when we separate results,
community, the situation (problems) of we can observe inequalities in
those not connected to systems access to water
managed by CAPS is not “visualized”

9. Four// Inequality and discrimination causes
RESULTS
Evidence
Explanation
(of those self provided)
Sometimes it is hard to get a new
New community-dwellers
conection (2000c$  Affordability?)
Sometimes technical aspects of systems
Because of distance or
discriminate some areas (and condenms
altitude
them without too many options)
They couldn’t pay or work Projects and/or community not always
for the project think about equity
But also…
People that have their own sources in
Not interested in the project
which they trust

10. Five// SIASAR_a country-led monitoring
IMPLICATIONS
1. Joint iniciative launched by governments of Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama
2. Supported by WSP-WB
3. Mainly focused on post-construction support / Coverage
4. 4 questionaries:
 Community (general data about community + coverage WASH
 The system: physical status of the system + something about service
delivery
 The service provider: performance
 The support agent (UMAS)
1_According to the HRtWS, it is important to
SIASAR could be combined with other
know about people (right holders’), and even
more important those people that are sources of information for adressing
discriminated)
equality and non-discrimination:
2_When you go to a community -> (t, $) SIASAR + a statistically representative
number of HH (CAPS / self provision) ??

11. Six// Conclusions
CONCLUSIONS
1. If we don’t think about minorities in the first step of monitoring cycle (Initiation
and planning), they won’t appear in the rest (data collection, analysis &
interpretation, communication, reflection & decision making, taking action –Danert
& Narkevic, 2013-)
2. Methodology is practical to locate those minority sectors within rural communities
that often do not benefit from the same services than the others
 Usefulness when identifying and characterizing them  for equity-oriented
policies (human right to water)

12. Six// Challenges
CHALLENGES
A_Indicators and methodologies (equity and others)
It is necessary to develop research to cope with intra-household bias as
information obtained at household level can differ depending on which
member of the family is polled
 It is necessary to know more about inequality and discrimination causes to
propose remedial actions
 To improve access to water indicators based on HRtWS (post-2015)
B_Governance
 From data to decision making (is always a challenge)
 Most of actors don’t know what HRtWS means (UMAS, Central Government?)

13. Thanks for your attention
oscar.flores.baquero@upc.edu
ricard.gine@upc.edu
alejandrojfp @gmail.com
agusti.perez@upc.edu
https://grecdh.upc.edu
10_04_13_IRC Symposium. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

14. Four// The importance of self provision (2/2)
RESULTS
Self provision is not always worse than using systems managed by CAPS for all criteria
Physical accessibility is considerably higher for self-providers
Self-providers Systems managed by CAPS
A lot of unprotected springs in the region
Those not using systems (CAPS) have their own sources Water is distributed by a system of public
standpipes in Las Lagunetas
They carry water from springs to their homes through hosepipes