Third group of Indian officials in IRC for sustainable WASH training

Published on: 03/06/2013

 

The third group of Indian officials led by Saraswati Prasad IAS, Joint Secretary, and Government of India is in IRC for a two-week training course and exposure visit on sustainable services that last. IRC Director, Mr. Nico Terra officially opened the training programme for high level officials of Government of India on ‘’Providing sustainable services at scale and working towards a more vibrant sector” from 27^th May – 7^th June 2013, at IRC Head Quarters,  The Hague, The Netherlands.  In his address, Nico Terra has lauded the impressive achievement of the country in drinking water coverage. The focus of the training is on Sustainable WASH services which are perfectly in alignment with the serious national challenge of sustainability of investments.

As part of a collaborative agreement, UNICEF, IRC and the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS), Government of India (GoI) will partner for three training programmes for about 60 top- middle level WASH sector officials of government, with a potential to reach 121 million people in India.  

Joep Verhagen, manager of IRC’s South Asia and Latin America team welcomed the participants. He highlighted the opportunity for cross learning as the participants are highly qualified professionals with significant sector experience.

 

The first week on drinking water has been facilitated by Jean de la Harpe and Dr. Kurian Baby and dealt with topics such as sustainable services at scale, life-cycle costs, post-construction support and asset management. The second week will focus on sanitation and will be led by Joep Verhagen and Kathy Shordt. They will discuss sustainability challenges, creation of demand, social marketing and behaviour change, management of sanitation programmes and monitoring.

During the first week, the participants also shared their most enriching professional experience and produced high quality individual action plans for the water sector, which would be implemented by them in their respective roles in the next 6 months.

 

There are 20 participants in this third batch from national and state governments representing the huge diversity and varied challenges of India water sector.

For more details, contact Dr. Kurian Baby, India Country Director, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, The Hague, Netherlands