World Vision Australia

Established in 1966, World Vision Australia (WVA) is part of the World Vision international federated network, housing decades of development experience. Working with country offices, WVA draws upon strong grassroots connections and collaborates with stakeholders to improve lives of the most vulnerable in target communities. In 2015 WVA supported a $286 million project portfolio, implemented across 55 countries, including $12.7 million for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programs. WVA?s expertise in water management has been applied across subsectors including water supply, irrigation, watershed management, and hydropower, with consistent emphasis on institutional capacity building. For example, in Sri Lanka and Solomon Islands, WVA has supported improved performance of water councils through building capacity in the use of technology for mapping water supply networks. This has improved operational and financial decision-making, leading to optimised maintenance schedules, improved customer communications, and increased council revenue. In Zimbabwe and Indonesia, WVA has supported local councils on water policy, planning, regulation, infrastructure, and investment to improve water utility performance, infrastructure planning, and ground water management. This has resulted in better management of water supply demands, water rationing, and revenue collection. In Solomon Islands, WVA has collaborated with national and local bodies on a legislative framework covering water availability and quality issues in an effort to resolve issues in Honiara. WVA’s work across water management draws upon expertise in gender, disability, and social accountability to ensure equitable participation and benefit by vulnerable groups, and capability in natural resource management and disaster risk reduction to ensure environmental sustainability.

Organisational Capability

• Community development: enhancing community capacity and linkages with relevant stakeholders.
• Integrated WASH: building capacity for service delivery and behaviour change.
• Natural resource management: covering use of water, land, and trees.
• Urban programming: ensuring equitable and sustainable services and undertaking research.
• Gender: ensuring equitable participation and program outcomes for women and men.
• Disaster risk reduction: increasing community and institutional preparedness and capacity.
• Governance and social accountability: facilitating engagement between citizens and government.
• Disability inclusion: ensuring participation, access, and equitable outcomes.
• Monitoring & Evaluation: for quality assurance, program improvement, and learning.
• Project management: ensuring effective, efficient and timely delivery of outputs.

Projects

Rural Integrated Water Sanitation and Hygiene Project – 3 (RIWASH 3)
This project aims to improve access to, and use of, safe water and improved sanitation in targeted peri-urban and rural areas in Northern Province. The project approach focuses on enhancing coordination, capacity and governance amongst WASH actors in order to improve service delivery and sustainability of systems. The approach also emphasises community participation, focusing on the most vulnerable groups, including female headed households and people with disability, to ensure equity in the design, implementation and management of services. Activities include constructing 10 smallscale water supply projects, and advocacy to government for provision of new affordable sanitation facility design options.
Honiara Urban WASH Project, Solomon Islands
This project targets three urban and two peri-urban communities around Honiara. The project will create functional linkages between households in these areas with services providers covering water supply and rubbish collection. Communities will be trained on their rights and responsibilities regarding water and sanitation services, and will be reconnected to these services. Access to services will be ensured through prompt payment of user fees. At the same time, the project will build the capacity of government staff involved in urban water management to improve the quality and efficiency of water services.
Delta Drinking Water Project, Myanmar
This project was implemented in villages across Thabaung and Einme, where water sources are contaminated with nitrates, human waste, and arsenic. To improve access to clean water, the project supported 136 villages to devise community water action plans to mitigate arsenic contamination. Inclusive WASH designs were developed in all villages, and water quality testing and monitoring was also initiated across all villages. The project collaborated with a private sector company for the distribution of 13,000 household water filters.
Learning from the past, leading into the future – saving lives through inclusive WASH , Zimbabwe
This project addresses equitable access to safe water and sanitation in high density urban and peri-urban areas of Gwanda and Bulawayo. Through partnerships with municipalities, ministries, civil society groups and the private sector, the project supports rehabilitation and extension of water and sanitation infrastructure. Revenue collection for sustainable service delivery will be improved by installation or replacement of water meters at residential and communal water points, together with establishing an accessible user feedback system to improve satisfaction and willingness to pay. Road shows will help raise awareness of the importance of water conservation practices and paying for water.
Mirpur Urban WASH Program, Bangladesh
This project was implemented in Mirpur informal (slum) communities in Dhaka city. The project focused on improving water security through formalising previously informal water connections in slum communities. Urban waterways were protected through decreasing the quantities of faecal sludge and wastewater entering the drainage system and local water-bodies. Water governance was strengthened through facilitating increased collaboration between community, water utilities and local government. The project also addressed water demand management through decreasing non-revenue water and assisting informal communities to pay for use and decrease water losses.
Ethiopia Urban WASH project
WVA in partnership with UNICEF and Open University (UK) is implementing a urban water and sanitation programme in eight small urban centres in Ethiopia. The project includes urban water resource assessments and demand predictions to cater for both growing populations and climate change impacts, and focuses on strengthening local institutions through partnership and collaboration with local councils.