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Regional Partners are one of four organizations along with AguaClara-Cornell, Donorsdonors, and communities that are involved in any AguaClara project.
Drinking water supply infrastructure, whether implemented at the community or household scale, requires a commitment to building both physical infrastructure and , community capacity, and expectations of success. The construction phase is approximately 4 months and is only a small fraction portion of the project calendar. Regional Partners take the lead role in choosing communities, based on water quality deficiencies and, equally important, on community assets such as organization and , ability to maintain qualified operators, and financing chlorine and finance the aluminum sulfate and chlorine.
Initial sites for new New regional partners should be choose initial communities located within very close proximity to the regional partner's offices to simplify logistics and reduce mobilization costs. Cost savings can also be realized if the regional partner builds clusters of water treatment plants in neighboring communities to enable a single structural engineer to supervise multiple construction sites. The regional partners develop funding streams to finance implementation of all aspects and stages of the water treatment plants from community assessment to plant performance monitoring and oversight, and to facilitate training of and knowledge sharing between plant operators.
The responsibilities of the regional partners are to:A -
- Assess community match with the technology
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- Design the structure using local materials
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- , strictly adhering to the AguaClara reactor and hydraulic design
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- Supervise the construction of the water treatment plant
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- Operate the plant for 3-6 months to prove to the community that the technology is effective
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- Train plant operators from the community
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- to operate, maintain, problem solve, keep records, and publicly display water quality data for accountability
- Transfer ownership of the plant to the local municipality or water board
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- Monitor and review plant operating records and follow up on any performance issues
Build, operate, transfer is a well know infrastructure implementation strategy. The AguaClara model draws on that model, but recognizes the need for greater emphasis on community assessment, capacity building, and a low level of oversight after the project has been fully transferred to the municipality or local water board.