Susan Davis

By Susan Davis, Executive Director, Improve International

At Stockholm World Water Week, I learned a lot from my colleagues, but I was most inspired by a visit to an unusual museum.  It was built around the remains of an ornately carved 1600s-era ship called the Vasa.  The story about it goes something like this:  King Gustavus of Sweden wanted a new war boat, fast.  Various problems occurred during the construction, but the King pushed to have it built as fast as possible.

On its maiden voyage, the top-heavy, weapon-loaded ship made it less than a nautical mile before it sank. As they say in Stockholm, “Blüb.*” Epic fail.

Centuries later it was pulled up from the bottom of the harbor, mostly intact, and made into its own museum.

At the museum I learned that after the Vasa sank, there was an inquest.  In fact the ship is a standard for evaluating the historical importance of shipwrecks. However, the person mostly to blame – perhaps – was the King, who was conveniently out of the country. But really, who was going to blame the King? Ultimately, no one was punished, except for the poor sailors who drowned.

Not least because of the water connection, this story reminded me of how many water and sanitation programs in developing countries operate.  A development organization receives a grant from a foundation or a development agency and is required to spend the funds within one to three years.  This doesn’t account for rainy seasons, school schedules, or agricultural requirements; nor does it allow for adequate building of relationships, working in culture and context, nor establishing trust with communities, never mind listening to what they need or want.  It is often difficult for the development organizations to negotiate with donors, who in this scenario, have the same power as King Gustavus.

So we hurry up. And the water systems, launched to great fanfare, fail, sometimes within the first year.  There are many statistics on this; it’s not just an anecdote. But there is no museum for failed water systems that I know of; no single museum could hold all these failed systems.

Instead of putting them in museums, we put failed water systems into the rehabilitation cycle.  In one large program in Central America, 80% of the funds went to rehabilitation of broken water systems.  Rehabilitations of water points are fairly common, but understanding the root causes of the problems and addressing systemic changes are rare.  So we keep rebuilding our Vasas, knowing deep down that they are likely to sink again.

*Probably not a real Swedish word.