Lessons Learned – proyectoLineaGeneral

What did we learn?

Programs like ours fill us with hope to unite and join forces. Seeing the results that have been achieved so far generates satisfaction, but also challenges us to continue working for the territories that have not yet been reached.

It is important to prioritize resources efficiently and ensure the improvement of the quality of life of people who do not have sustainable access to water, sanitation and hygiene.

We still have a long way to go but there is still time, We can all do our bit; using valuable tools such as social art, forming trained and empathetic leaders with the communities, acquiring sustainable practices and being replicators of these practices in our environment.

Many of the lessons learned
over the years:

Transferring technical and practical knowledge to the people and community entities involved in all stages of the project provides greater possibilities of achieving sustainability. This active involvement in the development of solutions to current needs generates greater ownership of the solutions and responsibility for the systems into the future.

Clearly understanding the set of skills, competencies and responsibilities of each actor in the ASH value chain models allows for a correct definition of the roles to be played, as well as their correlation and collaboration. This allows the application of inclusive strategies that can enhance implementation results.

In rural communities, public-private-community partnerships are of utmost importance for program development and sustainability. The work that integrates and involves all stakeholders in the creation or adaptation of quality financial products and credits with favorable conditions for the communities, makes it possible to maintain lower delinquency rates (e.g., in the case of the Caja Rural Mano a Mano in Nicaragua, it is less than 1%).

A perceived difficulty regarding the integration of the elements and the synchrony between the parties occurred when the implementation of the marketing strategy was not in sync with the delivery of the solutions work. The promotion of financial products for ASH connection yields better results and greater acceptance if it is deployed towards the final stage of the work processes, in order to keep the community informed.

The use of the SABC Approach in ASH programs allows the creation of collective tools and strategies that strengthen and shine by giving more importance to the process than to the results. A collective design of common goals and objectives, which places people at the center of the solutions, allows for a more organic and conscious appropriation of natural, human, technological and economic resources, favoring sustainability with the active mobilization of communities.

All members of the implementation team, regardless of their role, should be familiar with the SABC Approach and the ABC Model for Sustainability, and take ownership of both, for better integration and use of tools to design, create and maintain projects over time.

Ongoing monitoring of interventions facilitates a constant evaluation of the impact of the projects, their strengths and weaknesses, allowing increasingly accurate decisions to be made based on the information and data collected.

The diagnosis (Formative Research) and design (Designing for Behavior Change) of the projects must be approached in a comprehensive manner and in line with the A-B-C Model for Sustainability™ to ensure the development of interventions with a systemic approach.

Sustainability is the part of the equation that marks the time of effectiveness of a resource, product or service; in societies where the new is soon trash, it is difficult to value resources, natural resources are taken for granted, indifference assumes the consequences, executed projects are lost. However, if the experiences of Lazos de Agua leave multiple lessons about the relationship that people and communities assume when systemic, integral, inclusive, democratic, dignified, quality models are applied, but it is the agents of change, that is, all those who participate, who take responsibility for the processes, establish clear rules, share their knowledge, attend to their differences, build with collective intelligence, who make the difference.

The integration of civil society and government is a precedent that facilitates planning and therefore program development. This alliance generates trust among stakeholders, allows direct control of the committees and promotes social and institutional management. Active leaders and decision makers mobilize mental, emotional and physical strength toward common achievement and group goals.

A multisectoral process, from the design of the projects, contributes to the early identification of roles and responsibilities of the actors, ensures synergic alliances, establishes social norms that add up to behavioral change and add considerably to the results. ASH access programs have long-term objectives that depend on the will and human organization of local communities, so the contribution to the change of development models and programs must be aimed at collaborative work among all actors and sectors to make sustainability possible.

Conceiving ASH access programs with a systemic approach makes it possible to understand that interventions can facilitate favorable environments to develop solutions from, with and for local actors. A program that goes so far as to implement “default solutions” is leaving out of the design the fundamental elements for sustainability: the local context and its communities.

In-depth stakeholder mapping in the design process allows to identify the different elements for a better cohesion of the solutions. This clarity allows us to build a network of relationships and alliances with the capacity to lay the foundations and activities for the development of ASH markets and the sustainability of the solutions.

Comprehensive social development programs should be recognized as facilitators and participants that nurture the process. Being horizontal with local communities and stakeholders opens the door to breaking paradigms and discovering new ways of facing challenges. Sustainable solutions are not created from one front or one sector, they are co-created by integrating actors and making use of collective intelligence.

Each intervention area presents its own conditions and challenges. Social development programs must arrive at new interventions strengthened by past experiences, but open and humble to continue learning with each new community.