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Water and Sanitation
for Low Income Communities Phase II Project (WSLIC II)
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| We all know how important water is in our daily lives. Did you know the human body is over 70% water. Our blood is more than 80% water and our brain is over 75%. The human liver is an amazing 96% water! We need good, clean water to have a healthy body. Drinking lots of healthy water allows our body to perform all the healing processes that it is naturally capable of. Polluted water can cause serious illnesses and disease. Children are especially in danger. This does not just mean clean drinking water but also clean water for washing and cleaning. |
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WSLIC stands for Water Supply and Sanitation for Low Income Communities. WSLIC is funded by the World Bank with substantial co-financing support from AusAID in the technical assistance area (i.e. providing management advice to an Indonesian government unit, which is responsible for overall project management, training needs for facilitators in the villages, monitoring and evaluation activities.) WSLIC, a 5-year project, has a budget of US$100 million and provides support for improvement in water supply and sanitation for approximately 2000 villages across seven provinces of Indonesia. They include South Sumatra, West Sumatra, Bangka Belitung, West Java, East Java, Nusa Tenggara Barat and South Sulawesi.
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Alhafiz Saputra (right in photograph) has worked at
DINAS Kesehatan in Solok Regency for about ten years. Since 2004 he
has had the responsibility of assisting the WSLIC 2 project in Solok.
WSLIC 2 carries activities in 42 locations in 13 kecamatan in Sumatra.
The WSLIC 2 project in Solok is supported by 3 teams of facilitators
undertaking monitoring and consultancy tasks. 'Based on the data and data reports from the Health office, Solok is an endemic place for diarrhea. So one way to overcome the problem is by implementing the WSLIC program and it is hoped that will help to reduce the incidence of diarrhea. The WSLIC project is very helpful in reducing the diarrhea rate and improving health conditions although the impact cannot be seen directly. Maybe the impact can be measured in the next 3 or 4 years. So the advantage of
WSLIC is on capacity building in the community. WSLIC provides the
facilities such as consultants in the technical field, health and
human development. So with WSLIC, it is the community who does the
work - the community does the planning, then the implementation
as well as the maintenance. So the pattern is from the community
for community. The WSLIC project provides
assistance and guidance to the community to be able to plan and
implement and maintain the work they are doing with this important
health issue' |
How were the provinces chosen?
The first criterion was the health status of the province and particularly the incidence of diarrhoeal diseases. Diarrhoeal disease, mainly caused by poor water and sanitation, is one of the biggest killers of children under 5 years of age worldwide. Secondly, the economic situation of the villages in the various regions, as the project focuses on poor communities. The third was the level of water supply and sanitation coverage in those provinces.
The project is a community-based project providing grants to communities. The overall aim of the project is to increase the health conditions in those communities and to increase the productivity and quality of life through improved water and sanitation and associated hygiene improvements. Actual facilities are selected by the community as part of the community planning process and subsequently designed and constructed by them with 80% of the funding coming from the project and 20% from the community. An excellent example is this very simple and inexpensive washstand from Pakel village, Lumajang, East Java. It was designed by the local Village Implementation Team using locally available components. Its key features include places to store soap and a towel, closed water container with a simple tap and a bucket for collecting wastewater.
| As Country Program Manager, Mike Ponsonby says, "The risk reduction for diarrhoeal diseases from hand washing with soap is something like 45 to 50 percent which compares with figures around 15 percent for clean water supply and about 20 to 25 percent for improved sanitation. So there's huge gains to make by very simple changes in behaviour". |  |
| Hand wash stand: WSLIC- provides both water supply and sanitation infrastructure and training for teachers and students in environmental health. The actual facilities are selected by the community as part of the community planning process and subsequently designed and constructed by them with 80% of the funding coming from the project (20% from the community). This particular washstand is from Pakel Village, Lumajang, East java and is one of the best examples I have seen in the project. It was designed by the local Village Implementation Team using locally available components. Its key features include places to store soap and a towel, a closed water contained with a simple tap, and a bucket for collecting wastewater (which is used on the garden). |
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Krupuk Production: In the nearly village of Wonokerto, the village water supply was being used to facilitate the production of krupuk from cassava. One particular household has been producing krupuk for several years but the availability of water for washing the cassava was a limiting factor on production. Since the water supply was completed production has increased several fold and krupuk is exported to Bali on a regular basis. The operation employs a number of villagers. The photo shows krupuk packed ready for transport to market. |
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