FIELD NOTES

Lessons from systems, communities and the work between them.

Professional reflections on practical WASH delivery, environmental programmes and training—written from field experience rather than theory alone.

AL HAOUZ · WASH PLANNING · 8 MIN READ

What 45 mountain villages taught me about WASH planning

A useful rural WASH plan begins with infrastructure, but it cannot stop there. The system’s users, seasonal conditions, access constraints and local management arrangements all influence whether a design will last.

During the Al Haouz earthquake operation, I supported Moroccan Red Crescent teams working across 45 villages in seven communes. The assignment involved assessing water sources, reservoirs, distribution networks, saguias, sanitation conditions and waste needs, then translating those findings into more than 120 potential microprojects.

The central lesson was that technical standardisation and local adaptation must work together. A reservoir or pipeline may look familiar on a drawing, yet elevation, access, source reliability and village management can change the right solution. Field verification, community consultation and clear prioritisation are therefore part of engineering—not additions to it.

For organisations planning similar portfolios, the strongest workflow connects assessment evidence, concept design, quantities, implementation risk and ownership. That traceability makes decisions easier to explain to authorities, partners and the communities expected to operate the assets.

TRAINING · WATER GOVERNANCE · 6 MIN READ

Infrastructure is only half the work

Training village water associations showed why operation, accountability and local decision-making belong in the design of every rural water project.

Through collaboration between IFRC, the Moroccan Red Crescent and SRM, I facilitated training for more than 15 local water-management associations and over 40 members. Sessions focused on the practical responsibilities that continue after construction: system oversight, basic maintenance, communication with users and coordination with service actors.

The most valuable training is concrete. Instead of treating governance as an abstract topic, it should be tied to the actual reservoir, network, source and user arrangements in each village. This makes roles visible and helps associations identify where they need procedures, records or external technical support.

For me, capacity strengthening is not a separate “soft” component. It is part of system performance. A technically sound asset is more resilient when the people managing it understand both its limits and their own responsibilities.

MUNICIPAL SERVICES · CIRCULAR SYSTEMS · 7 MIN READ

From waste collection to resource recovery

Municipal waste projects become more credible when planning brings together regulations, collection teams, informal workers and realistic recovery pathways.

At Le Partenariat, my work connected local waste-service planning with Morocco’s Law 28-00 and the operational realities of Laâounate. I helped document the programme, supported training for commune technical staff in the collection department and included informal-sector actors in capacity-building and awareness activities.

The biogas component offered a useful example of circular design. Organic and abattoir waste was considered not only as a collection problem, but as a possible feedstock for anaerobic digestion, with biogas and digestate as recoverable outputs. The project documentation planned two functional biodigesters and a manure-valorisation target of at least nine tonnes per week.

The broader lesson is that technology is only one layer of a waste system. Routes, responsibilities, working conditions, regulations, user behaviour and viable end uses for recovered materials all need to align. Good project design makes those dependencies explicit.