Africa: AMCOW gets US$ 2 million Gates grant to build national sanitation capacities

The African Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW) has been awarded a US$ 2 million grant [1] from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help countries build capacities for sanitation policy development, monitoring and advocacy.

AMCOW will use the 3-year grant for:

• technical guidance and training to four fragile counties to develop and adopt national sanitation and hygiene policies and plans
• organising the 4th AfricaSan conference and awards to boost implementation of the AfricaSan Action Plan and eThekwini ministerial commitments [2]
• country support in using the African mechanism for water and sanitation monitoring, evaluation and reporting.

“Across the globe, about 2.6 billion do not have access to safe sanitation. Africa accounts for almost 40 percent of these figures.” said Bai Mass Taal, AMCOW Executive Secretary.

AMCOW is an initiative of African Ministers responsible for water and a Specialized Technical Committee on water and sanitation for the African Union.

In 2011, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched [3] its Reinvent the Toilet initiative at AfricaSan 3 in Kigali, Rwanda.

[1] Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Oct 2012

[2] WSP, 2008. The eThekwini declaration and AfricaSan action plan. Nairobi, Kenya: Water and Sanitation Program – African Region.
Available at: <www.wsp.org/UserFiles/file/eThekwiniAfricaSan.pdf>

[3] Reinventing the toilet: Gates Foundation launches new sanitation strategy and grants, Sanitation Updates, 19 Jul 2011

Source: AMCOW, 18 Dec 2012

Liberia: dirty little secret – the loo that saves lives

Villagers in Nyonken, Liberia, collect water from the river for cooking, washing and drinking, even though they know human waste from villages upstream may have contaminated it. Photo: Aubrey Wade / Guardian

Diarrhoea kills more children than HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria combined – and its main cause is food and water contaminated with human waste. Liberia’s president is trying to change all that, writes Rose George in The Guardian.

The author of the sanitation best seller “The Big Necessity” gets to interview to Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, ” the only serving head of state to have written in a major newspaper about the need for toilets”.

Sirleaf took a while to understand the place of good sanitation. Like countless Liberians, she grew up on the family farm, where the only toilet was the bush. “It came naturally,” she says, when I double-check that the president has just admitted to open defecation – or, as Liberians say, doing poo-poo in the bush. “That was what it was.”

Like the six out of seven Liberians who still do the same thing, or the 2.6 billion worldwide who have no toilet, Sirleaf didn’t see what was wrong with it. All that forest: what harm can a little poo-poo do? Now she knows better. She knows that diarrhoea – caused largely by people ingesting water or food contaminated by human waste – kills more children worldwide than HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria combined.

[...]

Only when she looked into why so many Liberian women were dying in childbirth, and why children were dying of something as banal as the squits, did she realise “there is a relationship with water and sanitation. I needed to understand why that was so, and partly it’s because people don’t have access to clean water. That was an eye-opener for us.”

Rose George asks Sirleaf why sanitation, compared to water supply, is receiving so little attention from both donors and communities. The Liberian president answers:

“People say they want health clinics,” she says, “but they don’t ask for sanitation. They say their children get malaria or dysentery, but they don’t ask for sanitation. We have to bring to their consciousness that sanitation is linked to health.”

Read the full Guardian article published on 3 February 2012.

Liberia: President Sirleaf finally signs WASH Compact

After a delay of more than half a year, the President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, finally signed the Liberia WASH Compact in January 2012. The signing follows almost two months of lobbying by the WASH Working Group, an alliance of civil society organisations (CSOs). The group organised a series of WASH Crisis Talks around the country to promote the Compact.

The Liberia WASH Compact was developed at the Multi Donor Conference on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) held in Paynesville, outside Monrovia in May 2011. It is a product of the Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) Partnership aimed at ensuring that the Liberian population can have adequate access to safe water and improved sanitation facilities. The Compact identifies four priority areas for sector stakeholders:  institutional capacity; service provision priorities and equity; data and monitoring and evaluation gaps; and financing mechanisms.

President Johnson-Sirleaf promised to share the learning and successes of the Compact with the nations in the Mano River Union and ECOWAS.

Read the Liberia WASH Compact

Related news: Liberian President and WASH Ambassador Ellen Johnson Sirleaf awarded Nobel Peace Prize, E-Source, 05 Dec 2011

Related web sites:

• Liberia WASH Portal
• Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) Partnership – Country Info

Source: Augustine N. Myers, Shout-Africa, 24 Jan 2012

Kenya: translating research into national-scale change: a WASH in schools case study

Translating Research into National-Scale Change: A Case Study from Kenya of WASH in Schools, 2011. SWASH Project.

• Full-text (pdf)

Over the past 5 years CARE, Emory University’s Center for Global Safe Water, and Water.org, through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded Sustaining and Scaling School Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Plus Community Impact (SWASH+) project, have worked to achieve sustainable and national-scale school WASH services in Kenya through applied research and advocacy. The project tested a multi-armed school WASH intervention through a randomized, controlled trial with multiple policy-relevant sub-studies. Research results were then used to advocate for policy change to bring about sustainable school WASH services nationally. These efforts have focused on improving budgeting for operations and maintenance costs, improving accountability systems with a focus on monitoring and evaluation, and more effectively promoting knowledge of WASH through teacher training and the national curriculum.

Advocacy objectives were developed through a problem-tree analysis and stakeholder analyses. SWASH+ used Outcome Mapping to track progress against these objectives. Specific advocacy goals were to identify important policy intervention areas, work with policymakers to update knowledge and identify learning gaps and then act as a learning adviser to the relevant ministries.

Though the project has not achieved all advocacy objectives, it can claim some advances. Lessons for effective school WASH advocacy gained from the program successes and mistakes are as follows:
1) Having a rigorous evidence base creates large amounts of credibility with policymakers.
2) Significant time and follow-up are needed as well as having staff with appropriate skills.
3) The “ripeness” of the external policy environment is crucial and can make or break efforts to affect national-scale change. Successful advocacy initiatives avoid being insular, focus on the external policy environment at the outset, assess data needs and stakeholder roles and responsibilities, and set reasonable objectives.

Ghana: donors urged to help prevent corruption in the water sector

The Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) has appealed to donor agencies to introduce anti-corruption policies and tools in all their water sector activities. This was one of the recommendations of Ghana’s National Water Supply Integrity Study [1] undertaken by GII as part of the Transparency and Integrity in Service Delivery in Africa (TISDA) programme funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The GII study mentions not only petty corrupt practices like illegal connections and illegal payments to meter readers, but also instances where a single contractor bought and priced all bidding documents.

Central African Republic: picture of children at water pump wins MDG 7 category of UNDP photo competition

Liquid Gold - Children in the Central African Republic pump clean water from underground. Photo: Marielle van Uitert

This photo won the first prize for professional photographers in the MDG Goal 7 (Ensure environmental sustainability) category of UNDP’s Second Annual Picture This photo contest. This year’s competition drew attention to the quickly approaching deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Marielle van Uitert. Photo: EO

Dutch photographer Marielle van Uitert (36) took her prize-winning photo in the Central African Republic in March 2010, on behalf of the Dutch aid organization Cordaid. The children in the photo live near an orphanage there.

“These children were so happy to finally get some clean water,” Marielle says. “They sometimes do competitions to see who can be the first one to fill the bucket with water.”

Africa: WASH United introduces the World Toilet Cup game

Footballer Jonathan Pitroipa in Burkina Faso. Photo: WASH United

Hamburger SV football player Jonathan Pitroipa played the “World Toilet Cup” game in his home country of Burkina Faso where he launched the WASH United campaign on 4 June 2010. First introduced in November 2009 during the second Africa Water Week in Johannesburg, South Africa, the “World Toilet Cup” game makes a symbolic effort at tackling the sanitation crisis in Africa by trying to kick as many brown “poo balls” as possible into latrines and toilets.

WASH United is an initiative set up by German NGO Brot für die Welt linking international organisations with football stars like Didier Drogba and Arjen Robben to promote safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene. In the campaign, leading up to the 2010 World Cup, WASH United focuses on promoting safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene for all in eight countries in Sub-Saharan Africa: Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Mali, Lesotho, Uganda and Tanzania.

In addition to activities in the WASH United target countries, there are also targeted activities taking place in Europe to raise awareness for the importance of water and sanitation among the general public and political decision makers.

Besides WASH related games like the “World Toilet Cup”, WASH United has developed promotional posters and Public Service Announcements (PSAs) for radio and TV. There are briefing papers for each target country aimed at decision makers, and there is a curriculum (consisting both of classroom materials and football-based games) that uses the power of football and the role model status of the football stars.

WASH United’s international partners include not only sector organisations like WaterAid, Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) and the World Toilet Organizations but also football clubs like FC Bayern München (strategic partner), Hamburger SV and Juventus Turin. WASH United is financially supported by the German Federal Foreign Office, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

To join WASH United, either as an individual or an organisation go to www.wash-united.org

Africa: agreement reached to plan “Women for Water Decade”

UN-HABITAT hosted a meeting of women’s networks from 20-21 February 2010 to develop a strategy for a “Women for Water Decade” in Africa—a new platform for advocacy to promote women’s involvement in solving the region’s water and sanitation problems.

“We want to see women of Africa as agents of change as opposed to being victims,” said Mary Rusmbi, Chair of the meeting, and a steering committee member of the Women for Water Partnership. The Partnership is an alliance of women’s networks and development partners working on water and sanitation issues.

Women’s advocates identified a need for the Women for Water Decade as part of a new advocacy campaign to maintain focus on gender issues in the development of African water and sanitation programmes. Although the United Nations declared the “Decade on Water,” it will end in 2015, while it is predicted that millions of Africans will still have inadequate access to clean water and basic sanitation.

Lucia Kiwala, Chief of UN-HABITAT’s Gender Mainstreaming Unit, emphasized the importance of the campaign on women in slums, since more and more Africans are residing in unhygienic living conditions within poor urban areas. In sub-Saharan Africa, 62 per cent of the urban population live in slums.

“Although as we speak, most of the population in Africa is rural, the world is not standing still. Africa is the fastest urbanizing region.” About 40 per cent of the population currently live in urban areas, but at the current rate of urbanization, half of Africans will be living in town and cities by 2023.

Over the coming months, the Women for Water Partnership will continue to elaborate on plans for the Women for Water Decade.

Source: UN-HABITAT, 22 Feb 2010

Zimbabwe: Advocating for sustainable hygiene behaviour through television

The Institute of Water and Sanitation Development as a key capacity building organisation in Zimbabwe has been educating communities on issues around the cholera pandemic through television programmes and is embarking on a long standing partnership with the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holding, writes the editorial team of Water Voice, IWSD Newsletter 1st Issue, 2009. Of note have been discussions on how sanitation problems have affected the girl child in relation to school attendance, her security, privacy and dignity in view of the challenges of not only the water borne sanitation technology but also availability and proximity of such facilities. To curb the effects of cholera and other such outbreaks there is need for all stakeholders to ensure communities are equipped with coping skills and sustainable hygiene practices. Ensure our young are taught proper hygiene behaviour even in a decaying environment the benefits are life long and will save generations after us.
….
The current economic decline, coupled with food insecurity and declining levels of access to safe water call for concerted efforts to avoid the devastating impacts of the cholera outbreak to the nation, FS Makoni Manager Research and Implementation adds. The epidemic continues to spread, with total cumulative cases being 67945 with 3371 recorded deaths and the Case Fatality Rate of 5% as of 5 February 2009. So far most cases have been reported in Mashonaland West and Harare.

Web site http://www.iwsd.co.zw/index.cfm  

Source: Water Voice, IWSD Newsletter 1st Issue, 2009, PDF by e-mail, 21 Feb 2009

Lake Victoria Region Water and Sanitation Initiative

Supporting Secondary Urban Centers in the Lake Victoria Region in order to contribute to the Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

Starting in February 2009, UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education (Delft, The Netherlands) will participate in the Lake Victoria Region Water and Sanitation Initiative (LVWATSAN).

SNV, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the Gender and Water Alliance and UNESCO-IHE have entered into a partnership arrangement with UN-Habitat for the implementation of the capacity building component of this programme that is funded by multiple bilateral and multilateral donors.

The capacity building programme has been initiated to support pro-poor water and sanitation investments in the secondary urban centers in the Lake Victoria Region.

[...]

In the first phase ten towns will be involved, among which are Homa Bay and Kisii in Kenya, Bukoba and Muleba in Tanzania and Masaka and Kyotera in Uganda. Mutukula, on the Uganda-Tanzania border, will be the seventh town in the first phase. In all, a total of 24 towns will be involved.

[...] A stakeholder workshop on capacity-building, held in October 2006, elaborated on six thematic areas in which capacity should be built:

• Pro-Poor Governance
• Local Economic Development
• Utility Management
• Urban Catchment Management
• Advocacy and Awareness Raising
• Gender Mainstreaming and inclusion of Vulnerable Groups

[...] UNESCO-IHE will take up the subjects of utility management and urban catchment management, and has formed a five-member team to implement the work that will consist of situational analysis, training needs assessment, preparation of generic training materials, training of trainers, coaching and capacity enhancement for knowledge development and management.

The team consists of Marco Schouten, Mariska Ronteltap, Hans van Bruggen, Saroj Sharma and Maarten Blokland (project manager) and the time input by UNESCO-IHE will be about 370 days over about one and a half year, starting in February 2009.

The value of the contract is about US$ 500,000.

Source: UNESCO-IHE, 10 Dec 2008