CAPACITY ASSESSMENT – A KEY STEP IN THE PROCESS OF IMPROVING MUNICIPAL PERFORMANCE

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The USAID-funded Municipal Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Project in West Africa (MuniWASH) is providing technical support to improve the governance and management of municipal water and sanitation services in 16 target municipalities in Benin and Côte d’Ivoire . To serve as a reference framework for the municipal capacity building program, the USAID MuniWASH project provides these target municipalities with a governance tool called the Institutional Strengthening Index (ISI). This tool is deployed in a three-step process as follow:
1. The municipalities self-assess their performance in providing Water and Sanitation services to their constituents.
2. Based on the findings of these self-assessments, the municipalities develop strategic Institutional Strengthening Plans (ISPs) to fill the capacity gaps identified.
3. Finally, the municipalities implement the ISPs for improved service performance.
During the assessment phase conducted in FY2021, the ISI identified deficiencies at the organizational and regulatory levels and in planning, citizen engagement, data management, and others. This learning note presents lessons learned during the initial application of the ISI in partner municipalities.

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CAN BRANDED KIOSKS IMPROVE REVENUE COLLECTION AT WATER POINTS IN GHANA?

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In Ghana, most water point revenues are consistently below their estimated potential because vendors do not fully enforce pay-as-you-fetch tariffs. Low revenue collection undermines the ability of water systems to cover all maintenance and operating expenses. Aquaya evaluated whether installing branded kiosks at rural water points could increase revenue collection. In the five months following kiosk installation, daily water point revenues increased by a median of 51% or 1.1 GHS (0.2 USD). Revenue increases were very variable across sites, indicating that this intervention is not equally effective in all settings.

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Achieving universal coverage through Africa Sanitation Policy Guidelines

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On the 10th of June, 2021, the African Council of Ministers on Water (AMCOW) launched the African Sanitation Policy Guidelines (ASPG), a new initiative to help improve national and subnational sanitation and hygiene policy across the continent.
The ASPG aim to ease the process of resolving country-level enabling environment bottlenecks that stand in the way of African governments in meeting their national, regional, and global sanitation and hygiene obligations. They provide direction in functional policy drafting, broad stakeholder engagement, monitoring, and generic technical content specific to sanitation and hygiene service provision. They are applied for review, revision, and development of sanitation policies and implementation strategies.

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SHARE WATER 11

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This eleventh issue of the African Water Association’s semi-annual bilingual Technical Journal “SHARE WATER” explores innovative and good practice solutions to build resilient and sustainable African cities. Thus, the various articles proposed, including a brilliant case study on sludge recovery practices for a circular economy in Senegal, focus on the steps to be taken to achieve inclusive sanitation at the scale of cities in Africa. In addition, alternative solutions to water stress are proposed for better management of water resources: the Windhoek wastewater reuse model, the intercommunality underpinned by the ATPC (Community-Led Total Sanitation) approach which leads to the establishment of a water and sanitation technical service in a municipality in Niger, Molecular Bi-Orientation for high-quality PVC pipes that comply with international standards, the production of drinking water from ambient air or the treatment of water with solar energy in four West African countries.

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Chlorination and safety : Overview

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Water borne disease has been a major global killer since time inmemorial. In 2019 an estimated 3.4 million people died of PREVENTABLE water borne infection. It’s why disinfection is so important. Chlorine Gas, Calcium Hypochlorite 65% HTH, On Site Electrolytic Chlorination, Chlorine Solution Mixing, Analysers, Ozone Disinfection, Ultra Violet Disinfection are various solutions delivered by EVOQUA for disinfecting large reservoirs or sterilizing large water supply.

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Innovative smart metering system for water

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The using of traditional water meters often leads to difficulties like long collection period, low collection ratio and high Non Revenue Water. Smart Water Meters is a brilliant system to overcome these difficulties. For example, in Zambia the performance increased to 65% after pre-paid meters installation by National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC). Benefits of smart metering system are : compatibility with Africa Water Utilities, no more historical debt, cash flow improvement, automatic data collection, customer persona, efficiency improvement.

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Planning for a water secure city: A case study of Kampala, Uganda

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The management of water resources is a big challenge in Uganda. Then, it’s important to ensure water security. This document gives details on Water Security Action and Investment Plan Project (WSAIP) for Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area, in order to support sustainable social and economic development in Uganda.

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BILAN ANNUEL 2020 DE LA COOPERATION DECENTRALISEE ET NON GOUVERNEMENTALE – BURKINA-FASO

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Chaque année le pS-Eau référence les projets portés par la coopération décentralisée et non gouvernementale française intervenant sur le secteur de l’Eau, de l’Assainissement et de l’Hygiène. Ce document fait le bilan annuel 2020 du Burkina Faso des projets ayant bénéficié d’un financement de la part de collectivités territoriales et agences de l’Eau françaises durant l’année 2020. Depuis 2006, environ 480 projets de coopération ont été recensés au Burkina Faso, représentant un total de plus de 56 millions d’euros.

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Climate adaptation knowledge sharing with local communities.

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USAID WA-WASH conducted a series of workshops to strengthen the capacity of policy makers on integrating climate risks and adaptation into water resource planning and management in Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Niger.  The main objective was to ensure the mainstreaming of climate change into WASH policies and practices.  Over 246 decision makers benefited from these trainings.  Mr. Maliki Ouédraogo, one of participants, respectively participated as a representative of SOS Sahel International to an initial training in June 2013, and a refresher training in February 2015, on integrating climate change adaptation into development strategies. He is the Coordinator of the decentralized cooperation project between Dédougou (Burkina Faso) and the city of Douai (France).  Based on the knowledge gained through the climate change trainings, Mr. Ouédraogo convinced the Special Delegation members (former municipality) of the commune of Dédougou to implement two reforestation projects.  As a follow-up to the climate change trainings, Mr. Ouédraogo intends to help the population of the commune of Dédougou integrate climate change adaptation into their development actions and strategies.  He organized a meeting with the members of the Special Delegation of the commune of Dédougou (see Photo 1). “The content of the training on climate change was the discussion topic with the members of the Special Delegation and village development committees (VDC) during the elaboration of the development plan of the municipality of Dédougou“.  The presentation made by Mr. Ouédraogo, to the Special Delegation members and the leaders of various village development committees, brought awareness of the downside risks of climate change to their environment.

With soils conducive to the practice of agriculture and livestock, the Boucle du Mouhoun is one of the regions that benefit from a good rainfall in Burkina Faso.  However there is an increased pressure on the environment in order to increase farmlands for agricultural production.  This situation contributes to degrade the environment and compromise the living conditions of people.  In some villages like Zéoulé and Kamendena, people do not hesitate to make a link between the gradual disappearance of orchard trees and the phenomenon of climate change.  To cope with the effects of these changes, people from these villages initiated some micro reforestation projects.

At Kamendena, the village development committee (with the collaboration of teachers), implemented the “reforestation project at the primary school of Kamendena”.  This project aims to plant 1,350 trees (fruit and medicinal trees) around the primary school.  According to the executive members of the village development committee, this initiative has the advantage of also educating students about environemental protection and especially tree protection.  As added benefit, selling the fruits collected from these trees will increase the income of the school management committee (COGES, in french).  For the sustainability of this project, the village development committee organized the people into small groups that ensure the maintenance and monitoring of trees planted until the pupils take over at the beginning of the academic year.  In the dry season, the presence of well-borehole in the school will facilitate the watering of plants.  The village development committee of Zéoulé dug garden wells to ensure that plants are watered during the dry season due to the absence of such infrastructure in the vicinity of the project intervention area in this village (see Photo 2).  Both village development committees have plans to replace the plants that will not survived beyond the first year.

To ensure the success of these two initiatives, the local authorities have committed to monitor its implementation.  SOS Sahel International assured the management of the project and the municipality officer in charge of environmental matters conducted regular monitoring visits.  To encourage emulation by other stakeholders, prizes will be granted by SOS Sahel International to the best reforestation sites according to its principle of “reforestation by contract”.  The NGO introduced this practice in its climate chance adaptation strategies.  This helps to improve plant survival rate which is over 70%.  These two initiatives are funded by the project for decentralized cooperation between Dédougou (Burkina Faso) and the city of Douai (France) with a total budget of 900,000 CFA francs for the village of Zéoulé and 630,000 CFA francs for the village of Kamendena.  The approach developed by Mr. Ouédraogo, based on the training he received from USAID WA-WASH, illustrates that from awareness campaigns supported by local authorities, communities can give more importance to climate change issues.  This awarness raising is also a guarantee to the success of initiatives that could be developed in order to adapt to the effects of climate change.

At Barago (Zinder region in Niger), the chief of village made the commitment to maintain the ODF status of his community

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The rate of access to improved sanitation in Niger was only at 4% in rural areas, against 9% for the national level in 2012.  During its Phase I in this country, the efforts of the USAID WA-WASH Program contributed to increase the sanitation access rate through the promotion of Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach.

Barago (in Zinder region) is one of the villages that benefited from the Program’s CLTS activities. Through this approach, USAID WA-WASH intended to improve the living conditions of people in its intervention areas. Before the USAID WA-WASH Program activities, most of the population in the village used nature for their natural needs.  The chief of the village remembers this situation which created many diarrheal diseases especially among children.  “These diseases had bad consequences on the life of our community members.  In addition to children, women were very affected by the problem. When their children were sick, they were obliged to give up on some income generating activities to take care of them”, affirm chief of the village.

Nowadays, things have positively changed at Barago thanks to the awareness activities, the construction and the use of 36 CLTS latrines, and the support of the USAID WA-WASH Program.  The chief of the village played an important role in the building of latrines by supporting awareness activities.  According to him: “Since the USAID WA-WASH Program has started working with us, our village has become clean.  Nowadays, everyone uses latrine for his natural needs.  The village has a water and sanitation management committee.”  He also supports the management committee to encourage the community members maintaining a good sanitation status in the village.  The effort done by all the community members of Barago has helped to certified open defecation free.  “Thanks to USAID WA-WASH Program, we have less disease and fewer problems related to sanitation and hygiene” as told by the village chief Barago.