Sustainable services: making sense of rural water supply stories

IRC’s Triple-S project is using an innovative research method to analyse stories and make sense of the current changes in rural water supply. The outcomes will be used to help bring about sustained tangible improvements for rural people.

Anyone can share a recent experience with rural water supply, either hopeful or discouraging, on the  Understanding changes in rural water supply web page . Submissions are anonymous and will take about 20 minutes to complete.

Cognitive Edge’s SenseMaker^TM, software suite is being used to collect and analyse the stories. For a recent example of an application in the development sector see the SenseMaker^TM, case study of the GlobalGiving narrative pilot project in Kenya.

So far 371 stories have been submitted, to the Understanding changes in rural water supply web page. Triple-S will conduct a first analysis of these stories by the end  of May 2011. The web page will remain open for contributions.

 Launched in December 2008, Sustainable Services at Scale (Triple-S) is six-year multi-country learning initiative that seeks to identify sustainable approaches to water delivery and access by departing from project-based, one-off and stand-alone implementation of water systems.