Video 6.7: Wrap-up and Reflections

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From the course by University of Manchester

Water Supply and Sanitation Policy in Developing Countries Part 1: Understanding Complex Problems

78 ratings

University of Manchester

Water Supply and Sanitation Policy in Developing Countries Part 1: Understanding Complex Problems

78 ratings

Our course explores what can be done to solve the complex problem that half a billion people worldwide do not have improved water supplies and two billion do not have improved sanitation. We look forward to you joining us. We want to help you develop the skills you need to address this major global challenge of the 21st century. Our course has informative video lectures and guest interviews with leading water policy scholars and practitioners. We will provide you with discussion forum topic prompts, which will invite you to engage with other learners from around the globe. Our MOOC will also ask you to attempt weekly quizzes and a challenging assignment that tackles a real water and sanitation problem in a difficult setting. Please watch this trailer: https://youtu.be/Q-HmaCZNd0k

From the lesson

Development Paths for Water and Sanitation Services

Video 6.0: Possible Solutions to the Water Development Paths Exercise5:26

Video 6.1: A Historical Development Path – UK, London and Manchester25:56

Video 6.2: Changing Knowledge, Practices and Perceptions15:04

Video 6.3: Path Dependency15:11

Video 6.4: Changing Course27:40

Video 6.5: Capital intensity (England and Wales)11:49

Video 6.6: Conversation with Marie Hart28:08

Video 6.7: Wrap-up and Reflections4:50

Meet the Instructors

Prof Dale Whittington
Professor
Manchester Business School
Dr Duncan Thomas
Lecturer
Alliance Manchester Business School

We've reached the end of the six week MOOC.

Thank you so much for watching.

In this video we're going to offer some

reflections on some of the things that we've covered.

In module one we focused on the policy analyses task of problem diagnosis.

We looked at baseline conditions in developing

countries in the water and sanitation sector.

We ask the question of: What's going on now?

And then we looked to dynamic baseline,

to see where status quo conditions are headed.

In module two we're going to be looking at policy interventions.

And we're going to try to answer the question.

What works and what should be done?

So, to recap in the six weeks of this MOOC, we

started off in week one looking at some basic water facts.

And infrastructure coverage for water and sanitation services around the world.

Then in week two we look at private water markets.

And also the issue of corruption in the water center.

In week three, we looked at some supply side issues.

By looking at technologies and their associated costs.

Then in week four we looked at household water demand behavior.

And in week five we looked at two topics.

Firstly health and non-health outcomes, and secondly

climate changes, and its impact, impacts, on health.

And it's impacts on the activities of water utilities.

And then in week six we looked at water

development paths and some of the history of the U.

K.

water system.

So Dale, what do you think are the take away messages from this MOOC?

>> Well, let's say one thing is there are

good and bad things going on in the dynamic baseline.

The good things are that economic growth

is increasing coverage around the world and water.

And sanitation's problems are going to be largely solved in many cities soon.

On the other hand, we've got climate change coming with

some adverse effects on health and impacts on water utilities.

Of course, another good thing is that

household mortality, children's mortality rates are falling.

So that's, that's great news.

I guess the other thing that I would

would emphasize is how uncertain status quo conditions are.

I mean, we spent the, the six weeks

of this MOOC study status quote, base line conditions.

And one of the take-away messages in my mind is, that it's really hard.

To figure out what's going on in a lot of places.

We don't have good burden of disease, or

base line incidents for diarrhea in many places.

We don't have good cost data in many places.

Water problems are local, and it's just not possible to

get all the information that we need, to understand water problems.

>> So it's, I mean, it's, you know, from a

research point of view, it's challenging to get the data.

It's expensive to get it.

And then even when you've got it, it might

not even apply to a local area and, you know.

You have to understand how local the conditions are.

You I think we need more research, but we also need to make decisions.

I don't think we can say we can't we act until we get more data.

I mean I, I think that we have the, the

date we need to make a lot of the important decisions.

It's just that we have to do it in the face of uncertainty.

>> Yeah.

>> We have to be aware of the uncertainty.

And I guess the other thing I would say is in, in my mind, is to take away messages.

It's basic puzzle that we have.

Households want piped water supplies, sewer systems but they can't afford them.

And we had these other technologies, non pipe solutions.

That are cheap but effective, but demand for them is so low.

>> Hm, hm.

So, that's something that we're really have to deal with.,

As we move ahead to the second module in terms of policy interventions.

We, we really have a, a puzzle here in terms

of how to deal with this situation and, of affordability.

And low demand for non pipe systems.

>> Mm-hm.

>> And I guess the, the research to find out,

you know, why these, there's these strange puzzles around demand.

It's not the same kind of research to find that out as it

is to just get basic coverage information, or some of the cost information.

It's a different.

You know there's lots of different things that you need to

find out, when your looking at this work and sanitation situation.

>> Well I think that's been of the lessons of

the course that we need inputs from all these different disciplines.

It's sort of like pieces of a puzzle we need

health, public health information, engineering

information, economic information, finance information.

Sociological information, anthropological information.

We need to put all this together to try to solve these problems.

There's no one discipline who can really do it for us.

>> Now that we've reached the end of the MOOC, we'd

be very interested to hear from you on the discussion forums.

About the questions that the material we've covered has raised for you.

And how it might have affected your work.

And we like to thank the University of Manchester and the

Manchester Business School, for their help in putting this MOOC together.

We'd like to thank our team here at the production facilities.

We'd like to thank you for watching.

And we hope to see you in the next half of the course.

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