Presentation by Sean Furey (RWSN) at the Dgroups Peer Exchange - 15 November 2012

1. Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN)
&
Dgroups
Sean Furey
Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN) Secretariat
Skat Foundation
Dgroups Online Peer Exchange
15 November 2012
Secretariat hosted by Skat Foundation Phone: +41 (0)71 228 54 54
Vadianstrasse 42 Fax: +41 (0) 71 228 54 55
9000 St. Gallen, Switzerland E-mail: ruralwater@skat.ch
1 Rural Water Supply Network

2. What is ?
• Established in 1992 as the
Handpump Technology Network
• Over 2,400 members in 94
countries
• Four themes:
– Sustainable Groundwater
Development
– Equity and Inclusion
– Management and Support
– Accelerating Self Supply
Rural Water Supply Network

3. Who we are
RWSN Partners
Rural Water Supply Network
3

4. 1.Why did we choose Dgroups?
• We needed a self-managing
membership database
• We needed a mechanism to
distribute our quarterly newsletter
• We wanted to develop greater
interaction and discussion
between RWSN members
• Accessible to those with
limited/low-bandwith internet
Rural Water Supply Network

5. 2. What the Dgroups does
• Structured e-discussions:
– Human Right to Water & Sanitation (April 2012)
– Cost Effective Boreholes (Sep/Oct 2012)
– Accelerating Self Supply (Nov 2012)
– Management & Support (Dec 2012)
• Ad hoc discussions
– Water point mapping and mobile phone
technology
• Technical queries
– Knowledge sharing between members on
technical topics like solar water pumping or
manual drilling
Rural Water Supply Network

6. Rural Water Supply Network Online Map
2,429 members
(9 Nov 2012)
RWSN RWSN RWSN
website dgroups dgroups sub
www.rural-water-supply.net
www.rwsn.ch (to link to above by end
dgroups.org/rwsn
o Membership database
communities
of 2012) http://dgroups.org/rwsn
o Hub o Newsletter Distribution o E-discussions
o Official announcements o Secretariat o Member discussions and
o Online Library/Resource Area announcements sharing
o Member-led technical query
response
394 346 followers
members (9 Nov 2012)
(9 Nov 2012)
RWSN blog RWSN LinkedIn RWSN twitter
rwsnblog.wordpress.com @thewatercyclist (unofficial)
o Member opinion pieces o Raising profile among o Directing traffic to RWSN sites
o Raising awareness of professionals o Real-time event reporting
topics, e-discussions or o Directing traffic to RWSN sites o Building links to new partners
new RWSN publications o Rural water supply discussions and strengthening links to
and sharing existing partners
RWSN facebook
Rural Water Supply Network (low priority) 16 likes
www.facebook.com/pages/Rural-Water-Supply-Network-RWSN/240912672618419 2012)
(9 Nov

7. 3. How is the Group managed
• Managed by Secretariat at
Skat
• Moderated by Theme Co-
ordinators
• English is dominant, but
aiming to become more
bilingual (En/Fr) - challenging
Rural Water Supply Network

8. 4. Reflections
• Because members have opted-
in to dgroups we know they are
there and active.
• E-discussions have created
tangible outputs and
strengthened relationships
• Our challenge is to manage
and disseminate knowledge
with active practitioners
Rural Water Supply Network

9. 5. Take away message/
the 1 lesson learnt
Thanks to Dgroups, the Networking
has been put into Rural Water Supply
Network
Rural Water Supply Network

10. 6.One question you have for
others
• How do we make interactions more multi-
lingual?
Rural Water Supply Network