After a 14-year history of working in Iraq, Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) began phasing out its operations there in 2011. This evaluation looks at the impact of water supply and desalination units they installed in schools, hospitals, cities and rural villages starting in 2005. Hygiene promotion and sanitation became a focus in the last few years of the period, and these activities are assessed as well, with all components being evaluated along the three main criteria of technical issues, sustainability, and gender equity. Overall, NCA's work has directly impacted drinking water supplies of 1 million beneficiaries, with the best results for sustainability coming from reverse osmosis units in hospitals and purification or compact units in cities and villages.
- Kind of study: assessments based on site visits, including checklists, interviews, and photo documentation
- Sample size: 20 WASH installations
- Timing of study: March-July, 2011
- The assessment finds no positive outcomes resulting from the hygiene campaign.
- Reverse osmosis (RO) units installed in hospitals effectively supplied clean water, with operations and maintenance well taken care of by engineers and technicians. However, these units were generally vulnerable to equipment failure and often lacked spare parts.
- RO and UV filtration units did not operate as well in schools as they did in hospitals. School administrations lacked technical competence to maintain units, and unreliable electricity and booster pumps caused problems.
- Sustainability of services in schools was low: only one RO / UV filtration unit was still in operation of the six assessed. Most schools lack the financial means for the upkeep of the units, and water is not a priority in the Educational Department.
- Hospital units were assessed to be sustainable. Because clean water is essential to their operations, hospitals allocated funds in their budgets and full-time staff as technicians to units.
- In cities and villages, the Water Directory had taken over responsibility of water units, but maintenance sometimes suffered from bureaucracy and corruption.
- The main obstacle to sustainability in rural villages is the lack of electricity and resulting high cost of diesel.
- Both genders had equal access to water installations, with the exception being tap stations located just outside a mosque where women cannot enter.
- Maintaining water units is especially difficult in all-girls schools; it seemed to be more difficult for a female headmaster to get support from the local council.
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- Copyright 2011 Norwegian Church Aid.
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