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Abstract

Several countries have recently completed national inventories of water points to generate comprehensive statistics on access to water and to support better resource allocation, long-term planning, and improve maintenance at the local level. However, most of these efforts have resulted in static databases that tend to be housed in proprietary systems and formats that are not comparable between countries or regions. Furthermore, the updating of water points is difficult, both due to the lack of technologies that facilitate collaboration and the lack of resources for monitoring and software maintenance. In this presentation, we describe a free and open-access water point database that is designed to meet the needs of governments and NGOs who must ensure reliable data while simultaneously allowing local organizations and the general public to also provide updates. Built on the mWater Surveyor platform and accessed using the open-source mWater mobile app, this database borrows concepts from technology sector firms such as Wikipedia and Yelp to create public water point pages, with properties that can be updated by anyone through the app, web portal, or an open-access Application Programming Interface (API). The result is a platform with standardized measures and indicators that encourages collaboration between the public, private, and NGO sectors. We will describe how several different organizations in the water sector, including WaterAid, Water.org, and the World Bank, are using the system to share water point data and collaborate with local governments and institutions on monitoring efforts.

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