TAPP-BDP: a participatory tool towards end-user inclusive implementation of safe water supply

By Annemarie Mink

The TAPP-BDP project aims to develop a smart phone application to improve operation and maintenance, water quality and hygiene awareness, trust, and acceptance of piped water supply (PWS) systems within the Bangladesh Delta Plan (BDP). As sustainable and long-term operation of water-related solutions heavily depend on active end-user involvement and responsive service delivery, Mobile Crowd Participation (MCP) will be used to involve end-users in monitoring their own PWS and to improve the interaction between the water supplier and the end-users. As part of the UDW-DELTAP project the application’s desired functionalities have been investigated, which include water quality monitoring, service delivery, payment, interaction, and a knowledge package on water quality, preventive measures and health consequences. This project will focus on the actual development of an application for Bangladesh and its implementation in three different areas by three local organizations. TAPP-BDP will contribute to BDP’s drinking water goals through a demand-based bottom-up approach. The learnings from this development will be described and mapped in a water app design blueprint. This outcome intends to lead to large-scale deployment of water MCP and in this way improve accessibility, acceptability, availability and applicability of both water supply systems as well as app services.