West Africa Water Initiative (WAWI)
From TrustAfrica wiki - African Regional Organizations
Bismark Nerquaye-Tetteh
WAWI Coordinator
Based in Accra, Ghana
Website: http://www.waterforthepoor.org/default.htm
Description
WAWI was established in 2002 after the challenges posed by the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). This initiative brings together 13 organizations with complementary skills to maximize the impact of water-related investments on highly vulnerable rural and urban populations in West Africa. The initiative invests in small-scale potable water supply, sanitation, hygiene, and water resources management activities in Ghana, Mali, and Niger.
The resolve to create WAWI was accelerated by the efforts of the Hilton Foundation and its drive to expand its endeavors in Ghana, Mali, and Niger and to add a peri-urban as well as rural focus to its work. Though the core emphasis of the Hilton Foundation remains the link between water and human health, in particular diseases such as trachoma, guinea worm, as well as diarrhoea, the need for attention to a broader water management context was recognized and embraced.
To support the overall goal of improving the health and well being of rural and peri-urban families and communities in the three target countries of Ghana, Mali and Niger, WAWI’s has put in place a thematic focus encompassing access to safe water and environmental sanitation to poor and vulnerable communities in rural and peri-urban settings; reducing the prevalence of water-borne and sanitation-related diseases, particularly trachoma, guinea worm and diarrhoeal diseases through the promotion of personal hygiene and environmental sanitation practices among the most vulnerable sections of the population; ensuring ecologically, financially and socially sustainable management of water quantity and quality; and, fostering a new model of partnership and institutional synergy to ensure technical excellence, programmatic innovation and long-term financial, social and environmental sustainability in water resources management excellent enough to be replicated in other parts of the world.
At the field level, National Steering Committees have been established in each of the three target countries to coordinate field partners, develop coordinated work plans and interface with the government on behalf of WAWI. These committees have achieved varied levels of success with the strongest national level organization located in Mali. In recognition of the synergy and importance of incorporating stakeholders in implementing programs, one of the national WAWI coordinating committees is chaired by a government official. Also fashioned along similar lines are WAWI subcommittees in water, agriculture, health and sanitation. These committees ensure that regional WAWI meetings provide opportunity to share lessons.
The initial financial contribution from all Partners stood at about $45 million to be utilized over the first six years. They include: Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development (CIIFAD), Desert Research Institute (DRI), Helen Keller International (HKI), Lions Clubs International Foundation, UNICEF, U.S. Agency for International Development, UN Foundation, WaterAid, World Chlorine Council, Winrock International and World Vision. All the member organizations have broad international reach and significant strengths to bring to the table. Other collaborating institutions include, Helen Keller International, the Carter Center, and several USAID implementing organizations in the region. The Initiative also collaborates closely with governments and other local actors who are core participants at all stages of activity design and implementation to maximize the impact of water-related investments by public and private actors alike.
Track Record
In its quest to ensure safe water and sanitation, WAWI has constructed 55 boreholes that are in use to date. This project now guarantees that many rural households have access to adequate all year round supply of water through an increase in numbers of sustainable potable water sources. Additionally, 267 latrines and 75 waste pits have been constructed in rural areas as an undertaking to achieve good hygiene and sanitation. In conjunction with WATER AID, 9 water standpipes for a low-income community in Bamako have been completed. WATERAID has carried out a study on access to water for the poor in peri-urban areas. WAWI’s thrust is to avail water for agricultural purposes in rural areas and enhance their efficiency in the delivery of WATSAN services.
Having noted that the war against diseases is the fight against poverty, in its program on Disease Reduction, WAWI has increased community awareness and understanding of prevention of trachoma, guinea worm and diarrhoeal diseases. It has further carried out behavior study on hygiene and sanitation with communities now practicing appropriate behaviors. As part of comprehensive awareness enhancement, school teachers, Koranic teachers, students, communities and WATSAN groups have been trained in health and sanitation promotion. 12 school health clubs have been created as part of a system to engrain behavior change in the community, while IEC materials for school health education curriculum have been developed.
Water Management is one of the thrusts of WAWI. Through partnership with World Vision’s Area Development Points (ADPs) communities, especially women, have been mobilized, organized and empowered to own and manage water facilities for sustainability. They have also been trained and assisted to form enterprise development groups that manage water systems. In all these programs emphasis is placed on empowering women. In the process, Water quality testing is carried out on wells as part of a sound environmental management practice. In partnership with Winrock, micro irrigation demonstration sites have been crafted where farmers are trained.
Challenges
The importance of providing safe water and sanitation cannot be overemphasized and WAWI has helped achieve a comprehensive supply of safe water and sanitation in the target areas. Consequently, for them to deliver on their desirables, they face the task of increasing piped water in targeted peri-urban areas as well as water for irrigation purposes in rural areas.
Noting the difficulties associated with behavioral change in hygiene and sanitation, WAWI also faces a daunting awareness task among both the old members of the targeted communities and the school going children. So far, though on a small scale, awareness raising among teachers and school children is taking place. The challenge still remains regarding replicating good hygiene and sanitation approaches that result in reduced disease infections in target areas. For effectiveness, information relating to safe water and hygiene needs to be widely disseminated. WAWI’s other challenge at the moment is the dissemination of information to all schools and communities that are threatened by unhygienic conditions and lack safe water.
The concept of Water Management though not entirely new in urban areas is relatively new in rural areas. In many parts of Africa, West Africa included, rural folks have regarded water provision as a natural occurrence. The emerging challenges are on how they can pool resources to effectively manage water. In addition, given the prevalent patriarchal cultures women are the worst affected whenever water acquisition is a problem. Fast-tracking women involvement will be an important prerequisite for success on water management. Enhancing the capacity for water quality testing at the village level also presents significant challenges.
Though WAWI has established reputable partners interested in providing safe water and sanitation, its target area is significantly large and warrants increased funding. The problem of peri-urban and rural poor is hardly the concern of WAWI alone but rather all who prescribe to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
Opportunities
Today many organizations are increasingly seeking opportunities for supporting underprivileged communities especially those that are poor and vulnerable. WAWI has so far successfully supplied piped water in targeted settlements. Nevertheless, cross-institutional capacity offers great opportunities for synergy. This stems from the fact that much institutional growth is possible when several organizations with different strengths come together in a common task. This includes mutual learning, information exchange and the sharing of materials and equipment. Synergies could successfully be derived from joint trainings in areas such as GIS, gender mainstreaming, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and IWRM. WAWI needs to start consolidating lessons learned as part of its expansion program. Increasing awareness about hygiene and sanitation to a critical mass offers opportunities for dissemination of information to teachers, school children and rural communities.
Advocacy: A number of multiple experienced organizations has a potentially much greater voice and leadership role within the water sector than would any one individual organization acting independently. WAWI might consider helping community-based NGO partners become more centrally involved in lobbying environmental reform and advocacy around larger water sector issues in each country while ensuring that sector advocacy is well-rooted in the realities of the field. Some of key issues to be addressed could include: costs of service provision (reducing drilling costs, enhancing sustainability and maintenance), hygiene promotion (including demand creation, and consistent policy and approaches across partners and the sector); data and information management (including hydrologic information sharing and consistent data protocols); the role of private partnership (developing and disseminating partnership models); and, gender mainstreaming (facilitating ongoing sector-specific national gender working groups).
The enhanced cross-learning and sharing of experience achieved under a partnership model like WAWI leads to creative thinking at the field level. In specific areas such as hygiene promotion, the Initiative is actively looking to capture the best of what each partner has to contribute, integrate it with the current leading edge of practice in the field and develop a shared methodology and Information/Education/Communication (IEC) materials that will maximize behavior change effectiveness. Over time, the refinement and dissemination of this technical approaches as well as the partnership management model itself has the potential to influence development across institutions and countries, thereby offering great opportunities for replication. Information needs to reach the targeted population to guarantee adoption of hygiene and sanitation ideals.
Although WAWI has built some effective partnerships to champion its goals, its undertakings derived from its core objectives seem to suggest that they have grand opportunities in resource mobilization sustainability. Leveraging resources is another area in which the WAWI partnership can yield benefits. The direct leveraging of each other’s funding, staff and constituencies as well as external resource mobilization are all potentially greater under a successful partnership. WAWI might have to deliberately pursue further extensive resource mobilization as well as direct capacity building and technical assistance to governments, which can eventually help to make more effective use of internal public resources for water supply, sanitation and water resources management.
