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Introduction - Vision - Strategy - Process

Gujarat 2010: Goals, Strategies and Recommendations for Action

Fundamental Rights - Health and Hygiene - Institutional Processes - Policy Change - Sanitation - Economics - Technology Development - Gender - Schools

Fundamental Rights

Goal 2010

Access to hygienic conditions, safe water and sanitation as fundamental rights to be achieved for all citizens of Gujarat.

Strategies

Advocacy for the development of basic services and for priority toward investment in programmes, and capacity-building essential for their achievement. Coalitions and partnerships with those in India and elsewhere experienced in human rights advocacy toward campaigns for building and sustaining political will for water, hygiene and sanitation action. Specific attention provided to the urgent need to arrest and reverse deteriorat-ing trends in urban and peri-urban areas.

Action

Coalitions and partnerships toward recognition of these basic services as human rights at the state, national and international levels.

Working groups established to bring together experience and wisdom toward translating concepts of rights into improved and sustainable services.

Statewide campaigns initiated toward the advocacy of these rights, with media support.

Responsibilities that must accompany rights defined clearly, including new responsibilities for raising resources and for the design and implementation of maintenance services.

The need for adequate legislation to be reviewed.

Administrative structures reviewed toward improved accountability, transparency and involvement of stakeholders.

Special attention given to the urgent need to improve conditions in urban and peri-urban communities.

Health and Hygiene

Goal 2010

From 13,000 no-source villages in 1999 to almost no village without reliable, perennial drinking water source.

70% reduction in morbidity by water-borne diseases.

Child mortality rate reduced to 45 per thousand from 137 per thousand around the turn of the century.

80% reduction in fluorosis affected regions.

Salinity ingress halted completely.

A near foolproof drought plan evolved by the State with adequate emphasis on water-shed management, water harvesting and waste control.

Strategies

Awareness and control campaigns on water-borne diseases by NGO networks and State authorities.

Emphasis on health and hygiene training of rural/urban water committees and health workers and Panchayats.

Hygiene education programmes in every school. Hygiene awareness and training for school teachers.

Active monitoring of water quality and quantity and hygiene behaviour at block level by citizens’ groups.

Promotion of reverse osmosis and water harvesting technologies to meet the challenge of drought.

Action

Mobilisation of community health groups through existing networks, with special emphasis on community mobilisation toward behaviour change.

Training of health workers and teachers to be intensified through appropriate educational strategies and materials. State Health Dept strengthened toward these efforts.

Promotion of water-harvesting techniques throughout the state, in both rural and urban situations.

Initiate community action for monitoring water supply, both quantity and quality.

Base-line survey undertaken to provide data for monitoring and evaluation.

Active support by community group to the school latrine programme initiated under Gujarat Education Policy.

Institutional Processes

Goal 2010

Existing NGO networks for water and sanitation action replaced by similar networks of community-based organisations, empowered as initiators and implementers, linked together and to authorities through alternative networks.

State policies on water supply and sanitation evolved with community participation reflecting area-specific issues, designed for devolution of planning and implementation through communities.

The State’s role places emphasis on facilitating and encouraging peoples initiatives and as a resource provider. The state accepts its responsibilities for the provision of basic services while planning, management and implementation systems reflect genuine participation and decision making by communities and citizen groups. Community initatives are actively supported and encouraged by the state system.

Media resources in the state mobilised for awareness, Media acts as a monitor on goals.

Strategies

Rural sanitation in Gujarat reflects synergistic partnership between communities and the State, while urban sanitation shows the same between communities, the State and the corporate sector.

Members of every Panchayat as well as other community-based organisations given opportunities for training related to water supply, hygiene, sanitation and health.

Public awareness and support mobilised through sensitising mass media.

Use of all media opportunities, including local and folk media toward behavioural change.

Outreach to media persons through awareness and information opportunities.

Consultations with persons in the performing arts toward their support and action for goal achievement.

Action

NGOs mobilised for awareness and capacitation toward these goals. Information exchange systems established and used through networks with a better range of stake-holders.

Support systems innovated and positioned, drawing on the experience of the Area Resource Groups now identified to assist water-harvesting efforts through State-NGO partnerships.

Efforts at raising resources strengthened and extended.

Outreach to policy makers toward change, using networks and Gujarat 2010 and Vision 21 for advocacy.

Immediate documentation of the Vision effort as an awareness and training tool.

Seminars for media persons on the Vision and its implications.

Development of media alternatives (docu-dramas, Bhavai performances, songs, street dramas etc) through networking with stage/cinema/TV artists, folk performers.

Formulation of a media campaign, and resource-raising toward its implementation.

Policy Change

Goal 2010

Current centralised policies on decision-making and technology in water and sanitation as well as in maintenance and management issues shift to greater sharing of responsibili-ties with communities.

Hygiene given priority as a precondition for health.

In rural communities, the natural resource management committees become active partners. In urban areas, citizen committees take on this role.

Financial resources are diverted toward citizen groups with demonstrated capacity for good management. Experience in 1999/2000 with Pani Samitis is used as a foundation for such change.

In dry areas, all buildings have basic water-harvesting facilities through legislation on the Chennai pattern, with guidelines for rural and urban conditions.

Strategies

Advocacy and lobbying with decision-makers, and through public-opinion building.

Media support recruited for such awareness.

Water-harvesting techniques and hygiene behaviour actively promoted and training opportunities organised for NGOs and field workers.

Action

Advocacy campaigns planned and initiated through existing networks. Policy reviews encouraged through articulating and debating alternatives.

Financial implications worked out to assist application and demonstration of alternatives.

Opportunities developed for sensitising planners and decision-makers. Immediate attention given to institutional restructuring essential for change, with alternatives worked out in cooperation with authorities.

Responsibilities for planning, decision-making and action at each level clearly spelled out. Such changes discussed and promoted through citizen groups. Advocacy with donors initiated for active support.

Sanitation

Goal 2010

Ninety percent coverage and usage achieved.

A range of technology alternatives provided to suit the variety of rural and urban needs.

Households identified and accepted as the catalysts for behavior change and action.

Households, authorities and industries capacitated for water and waste recycling.

Urban alternatives innovated and promoted.

Private initiative mobilised for service provision and maintenance.

Payment structures developed to encourage ownership and responsibility while protect-ing the poor.

Ban on manual handling of human excreta strictly applied through awareness, monitoring and rehabilitation efforts.

Strategies

Technology options promoted actively, with financial options/alternatives clearly commu-nicated.

Financial resources mobilised through incentives for private initiative and through user-friendly schemes as incentive.

Strong awareness and hygiene education efforts coupled to the mobilisation of women as beneficiaries and as pressure groups.

Training facilities strengthened and promoted.

Building legislation directed at improved sanitation facilities.

Education sector mobilised as partners and current efforts for school toilets supported and extended.

Promotion of stronger male involvement in sanitation management responsibilities.

Human rights approach aggressively used to protect sanitation workers and to enforce laws prohibiting human handling of excreta. Networking with other macro issues to strengthen this human rights advocacy.

Action

Training and information aids developed for accessing technology options, coupled with strong campaigns for awareness and action.

Contribution schemes developed and tested by existing networks toward minimum contributions, ranging from 10 to 20 percent of basic costs.

Village committees, managed by women, organised and mobilised with training facilities extended at each level of need.

Alternative models developed and communicated for urban needs, reflecting both technology and financial options. The ‘pay-and-use’ model actively promoted.

Particular attention given to the special needs of women and the disabled, including action to cover such needs through legislative action.

School programme accepted as an immediate priority by all water and sanitation net-works in the state.

Economics

Goal 2010

Per capita capital cost investment in the state reduced from Rs 2000-2500 to Rs1000-1500 through the promotion of lower-cost rural technologies and resource raising at the commu-nity level.

Maintenance costs in rural areas reduced to Re1 per litre, through user-friendly, lower cost technologies and community participation.

The bulk of maintenance costs accepted as a community responsibility.

Equity in the distribution of water resources between urban and rural needs, and within cities between household/industrial, rich/poor consumption.

Latrine finance schemes for households that are user-friendly and reflect ability-to-pay aspects.

Strategies

Developing and articulating the economic alternatives through existing partnerships.

Special attention paid to commercial-use pricing systems for industrial usage of water.

Promoting these options for the understanding of planners and communities.

Advocacy for policy change with authorities and public, stressing water as a scarce, often non-renewable resource.

Building community capacity for resource mobilisation and management, both for water and for sanitation.

Promotion of user-friendly schemes with households and communities.

Action

Advocacy of alternative economic models with state authorities, particularly politicians and engineers.

Introduction of alternative schemes through demonstration projects.

Advocacy at the community level to prepare citizens toward new attitudes and responsi-bilities.

Capacity-building of community organisations for the new economic roles/responsibili-ties.

Rational pricing policies introduced for commercial uses of water, including cross-subsidy schemes on ability-to-pay basis. Development of alternative, user-friendly finance schemes for sanitation.

Promotion of such schemes with households and communities.

Technology Development

Goals 2010

State to accept and encourage appropriate and area specific technological options for both water supply and sanitation in each of the geo-agro-climatic regions of the state.

A cadre of professionals is trained for operation and maintenance (O&M) aspects of water supply and sanitation delivery systems.

Technical Support Centre established at district level to back up the efforts of professionals.

Strategy

R&D functioning through appropriate and area-specific technological options.

Training for sector professionals in technology options intensified.

Funding partners to lay as much emphasis upon technical research as on other aspect of water supply and sanitation delivery systems.

State and corporate sector to evolve an action plan to set up district level technology back-up centres.

Action

Academic and research organisations as well as corporate sector to encourage vigorous research in appropriate technological options for water and sanitation.

NGOs to start training of para-professionals and facilitate them for application of their skills.

NGOs to mobilise international, national and corporate partnerships for achieving these goals.

Gender

Goal 2010

Women in the forefront as initiators and managers.

Natural resource management groups with adequate representation of local women operative in all villages of Gujarat.

District and State-level planning for drinking water, sanitation and health education formulated, operated and monitored through citizen groups with adequate representation of women.

Strategy

Gender-sensitive natural resource committees in every village.

Citizen/women-led water committees in urban areas of need.

Mobilising women in the state as stakeholders.

Action

NGOs to work on ensuring women's participation in natural resource groups, organised at village levels.

Training of natural resource groups members in the areas of gender sensitive micro-planning towards sustainable water supply and sanitation delivery systems. Male responsibilty for maintenance of water sources to be actively promoted.

NGOs to work on advocating policies and programmes geared towards strengthening women's participation in water supply and sanitation delivery systems.

Schools

Goal 2010

A target of one toilet per 300 children, with separate facilities for boys and girls, achieved in all schools.

Hygiene awareness and training reaches every teacher in the state.

Strategy

Active support by community-based organisations to current school latrine programme introduced under Gujarat Education Policy.

Child-to-parent hygiene awareness and education encouraged.

Supplementary efforts through mobilising women's committees and social service organisations in towns and villages, toward generating resources and training efforts.

Donor support mobilised.

Action

School programme accepted as an immediate priority by all water and sanitation net-works in the state.

NGOs take the lead for public awareness campaign, teacher training, resource mobilisation and monitoring.

An initial three-year project drafted for donor support.

The Process