Press releases

June 23, 2008
Atlas of change

A recent report looks at how WaterAid is leading the way with mapping innovations, ensuring that access to water and sanitation reaches those most in need.

Inthe Afram Plains in Ghana, citizens started to voice their demands atdistrict assembly meetings based on their increased awareness about theinequality of service coverage that this type of mapping exposed.

In many developing countries, there is little information about thestate of access to water and sanitation at the local level. This meansthat any water points or latrines that are built are often allocatedwithout looking at the bigger picture and those most in need are notnecessarily prioritized.

But when information about access to water and sanitation isdisplayed in a map, the distribution is clearly conveyed and areas ofneed are starkly highlighted.

In general, water and sanitation mapping captures information in three areas:

• theavailability and quality of water resources, including variation underdry season, drought and extreme climate conditions (e.g. groundwateravailability or levels of fluoride or arsenic);
  
  
• accessto water and sanitation services (e.g. analyzing which parts of thepopulation are underserved, or which water schemes do not function andwhy)
  
  
• demand and use of water supply and sanitationservices for domestic, agricultural and productive purposes (such asirrigation, beer brewing, brick making, mining etc.)
  

WaterAidfirst began mapping in Malawi where it employed teams of mobileresearchers to map the distribution of Malawi's existing water pointsin 90% of the country using handheld GPS devices. This information wasthen compared to information on population so that the ratio of waterpoints to people could be accurately calculated.

Other WaterAidcountry programs, as well as other aid agencies, have also started touse similar mapping systems, resulting in far-reaching impacts.

Inthe Afram Plains in Ghana, citizens started to voice their demands atdistrict assembly meetings based on their increased awareness about theinequality of service coverage that this type of mapping exposed.

Thesame data also led to a competition between sub-district councils toimprove water supply and sanitation services for their constituencies.The district assembly, for its part, acted upon results by allocating,for the first time, funds for sanitation services.

The assemblystarted using data about coverage levels to redistribute funding forwater points between sub-districts and to request additional financialresources from the national government.

WaterAid is now building on its successes so far and scaling up this innovative tool to create a true atlas for change.

Read the full briefing paper, Mapping for better accountability in service delivery (PDF 189.08KB)

Read more of WaterAid's research on mapping

Find out more with our mapping resources

WaterAid awareness layer on Google Earth
Mapping in Malawi film
Mapping in Pakistan audio interview (MP3 2192.32KB)