The JIRAMA III drinking water project, financed by the EIB and the European Union (EU), aims to improve the availability, quality, coverage and institutional framework of the current water system in urban Madagascar. The JIRAMA III project will upgrade and enlarge the water grid through the construction and renovation of water treatment plants and water pipes, the implementation of water tanks and water booster pumps, and the provision of 400 public water fountains and 5,000 private water connections. Complementary programmes, funded by the World Bank, foresee another 48,000 private and public water connections to the grid, to improve residents’ access to drinking water in unserved regions. WSUP, a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) NGO active in Madagascar, further enhances beneficial effects through water and sanitation training and institutional capacity building. Jointly these interventions are expected to substantially improve Antananarivo inhabitants’ access to safe water, through (i) private connections to the grid, (ii) water kiosks closer to home, (iii) better water quality, and (iv) more regular availability through higher pressure and higher water volume flow rates in the water network.
Access to clean water is a desirable outcome in itself but it also has direct implications for health outcomes of children and adults, and a great range of indirect benefits. This includes not only educational attainment or productivity gains but also gender equality. Particularly in developing country contexts, women are often in charge of fetching water. Adequate access to water would therefore particularly benefit women through various channels, including the reduction of time spent on fetching water that could be spent on income-generating activities, improvements in mental health due to greater water security, and better physical health outcomes potentially affected by the water fetching burden.
The aim of this phase of the study, funded by a European Investment Bank University Research Scholarship (EIBURS), is to (i) develop a rigorous methodology to assess the impact of improved access to drinking water on the beneficiary population, in particular women and children; (ii) expanding the guidance for assigning a gender tag to water infrastructure interventions; (iii) collect baseline data for the impact assessment and write the baseline report, and (iv) prepare EIB and other stakeholders for the subsequent phases of the impact assessment and policy learning.