Africasan4: Ngor declaration aims to eliminate open defecation by 2030

                                                            By Babatope Babalobi

Rising from the three day 4th African Sanitation and Hygiene Conference tagged “AfricaSan4″ African leaders  have  issued the “Ngor Declaration on Sanitation and Hygiene” which aims to achieve  universal access to adequate and sustainable sanitation,  safe hygiene services and eliminate open defecation by 2030.

They also reaffirmed their commitment to the human right to water and sanitation for all for all Africans, and pledged to work towards progressively  eliminating inequalities that currently deny about 547m people in Africa access to safe sanitation.

Another major highlight of the declaration is a commitment by countries to fund sanitation and hygiene budget to a minimum of  0.5% of GDP by 2020.

The triennial AfricaSan organised by the African MinistersCouncil on Water  (AMCOW) aims to address Africa’s sanitation challenge including helping agencies and governments shape strategies for action at many levels.  Mainly attended  by sanitation technical experts, it provides a forum to to exchange lessons, to identify approaches and technologies that work best in their local circumstances.  This 4th AfricaSan water held in Dakar, Senegal, this week.

Text of the Ngor Declaration on Sanitation and Hygiene” Adopted by the African Ministers responsible for sanitation and hygiene on 27 May 2015 at AficaSan4

Preamble
We, the Ministers and Head of Delegations responsible for sanitation and hygiene in Africa, together with senior civil servants, academics, civil society, development partners and private sector at the 4th African Conference on Sanitation and Hygiene (AfricaSan), convened by the Government of Senegal with support from the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) in Dakar, Senegal, May 25-27, 2015

1. Recognizing that while an estimated 133 million people living in Africa gained improved sanitation since 1990, the level of progress has not kept pace with demograpic change; many countries do not have adequate high-level leadership, financial and human resources to implement existing policies, fail to tackle equity, do not build, manage or maintain sanitation system and services, or create the large-scale hygiene behaviour change;
2. Mindful that an estimated 61% of people living in Africa do not have access to improve sanitation and that 21% still defecate in the open;
3. Noting that this lack pf access to improved sanitation together with poor hygiene practice result in a huge burden of disease and that the associated economic, human,social,health and environmental costs are a major burden on African countries;
4. Reaffirming the human right of safe drinking water and sanitation for all;
5. Welcoming the aspiration of the draft Sustainable Development Goals which include an explicit target to “By 2030, achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and an end to open defecation, paying special attention to the need of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations” committing to integrating these in national policies and plans;
6. And recognizing that the time has come to incorporate the lesson from the eThekwini commitments and replace them by the “Ngor Declaration on Sanitation and Hygiene”, setting out in particular clear indicator for monitoring progress;

The Vision articulated by African Ministers responsible for Sanitation and Hygiene at African 4, Dakar, Senegal, is summarized below:
Achieve universal access to adequate and sustainable sanitation and hygiene services and eliminate open defecation by 2030.
Commitments
To realise this vision, our governments commit to:-

1. Focus on the poorest, most marginalized and unserved aimed at progressively eliminating inequities in access and use and implement national and local strategies with emphasis on equity and sustainability;
2. Mobilise support and resources at the highest political level for sanitation and hygiene to disproportionately prioritize sanitation and hygiene in national development plans.
3. Establish and track sanitation and hygiene budget lines that consistently increase annually to reach a minimum of 0.5%GDP by 2020;
4. Ensure strong leadership and coordination at all levels to build and sustain governance for sanitation and hygiene across sectors especially water, health, nutrition, education, gender and the environment;
5. Develop and fund strategies to bridge the sanitation and hygiene human resource capacity gap at all levels;
6. Ensure inclusive, safely-managed sanitation services and function hand-washing facilities in public institutions and spaces;
7. Progressively eliminate untreated waste, encouraging its productive use;
8. Enable and engage the private sector in developing innovative sanitation and hygiene products and services especially for the marginalized and unserved;
9. Establish government-led monitoring, reporting, evaluating, learning and review systems;
10. Enable continued active engagement with AMCOW’s AfricaSan process.

We further call on:

1. All people living in Africa, especially the youth, to utilize and maintain sanitation and hygiene services with propriety and dignity;
2. AMCOW to prioritize and facilitate adequate resourcing for sanitation and hygiene by mobilising dedicated, substantive new sources of financing;
3. AMCOW to facilitate the establishment and management of systems and processes for performance monitoring and accountability against the Ngor Declaration;
4. Training institutions in Africa to strengthen local capacity to deliver appropriate services in line with demand;
   research institutions in Africa to strengthen the evidence base and develop innovative locally appropriate solutions;
5. Civil society in Africa to forge a cohesive, coherent and transparent vision and strategy to work with all stakeholders to achieve the Ngor Declaration;
6. Traditional institutions, religious leaders and faith based organisations to strongly support equitable sanitation and hygiene activities in their communities;
7. The private sector to increase its engagement in the entire sanitation and hygiene value chain to improve innovation and efficiency;
8. Development banks, donors and partners to increase their support to government led efforts for universal access to sanitation and hygiene and to match this financial support with responsible accountable engagement.

And in recognition of this we make this declaration in Ngor, Dakar on 27th May, 2015,

Taux d’acccès à l’eau et à l’assainissement: Les raisons du décalage entre la réalité et les chiffres

             Les journalistes au cours des travaux

Idrissa SANE (Envoyé spécial à Accra)

Les outils utilisés par beaucoup de pays pour mesurer des performances en matière d’accès à l’eau et à l’assainissement comportent des biais. La conséquence, les taux ne reflètent pas toujours les réalités sur le terrain. Pourtant les experts ne sont pas clairs sur la promotion d’harmonisation des instruments de mesure.

Un décalage entre les chiffres et la réalité. Dans beaucoup de pays africains, les taux d’accès aux services d’eau et d’assainissement ne reflètent pas souvent les faits. Ce constat a été confirmé par des experts qui ont présenté une communication lors de l’atelier de formation sur les droits humains relatifs à l’eau et à l’assainissement au profit du Réseau ouest africain des journalistes pour l’ Eau, l’Hygiène et l’Assainissement  (Wash-Jn). En plus des données officielles ne sont pas conformes à celles générées par des organismes indépendants ou des organisations de la société civile.  « Il y a des contestations au niveau national, mais tout cela nous permet de voir si nous tendons vers l’accès universel et si nous respectons des droits humains liés à l’eau et à l’assainissement », tente de comprendre, Ouangré Landry Wendsomdé, Manager Droits Humains Eau et Assainissement  qui a invoqué plusieurs facteurs pouvant expliquer ces chiffres qui ne reflètent pas toujours la réalité. Il s’agit des instruments de mesure. Il y a des méthodes qui comportent plus de biais c’est-à-dire qui ne concourent pas à minimiser les marges d’erreurs. A cela s’ajoute, l’insuffisance de ressources financières pour conduire de manière régulière des enquêtes sur l’étendue du territoire.  « Ce décalage peut s’apprécier en fonction des outils et des indicateurs des pays. Il ne peut avoir aussi des problèmes de moyens car pour évaluer les progrès accomplis en matière de réalisation des Odd, il faut beaucoup de ressources financières », analyse l’expert, au cours d’un atelier organisé en collaboration par WaterAid et Speak Up Africa, à Accra, au Ghana. C’était au cours d’un atelier de formation en plaidoyer sur les droits humains relatifs à l’eau et l’assainissement à l’intention des journalistes de l’Afrique de l’Ouest notamment ceux membre du Réseau Wash.

L’expert se garde de recommander une harmonisation des méthodes de mesure. Le plus important, c’est de disposer des outils appropriés permettant d’apprécier de manière plus fiable les  performances au regard des engagements pris par les Etats au niveau international. « Pour arriver à l’accès universel en 2030, il faudrait trouver des indicateurs adéquats qui nous permettent de mesurer  le chemin parcouru. Au niveau international, il y a des indicateurs des Odd qui peuvent être appropriés. Notre manière de mesurer doit pouvoir renseigner des indicateurs », propose Ourange Landry Wendsomdé, le manager droits humains relatifs à l’eau et à l’assainissement de WaterAid Burkina Faso.

Tout compte faits plusieurs enjeux se cachent derrière la diffusion des chiffres. Les gouvernements et les organisations de la société civile n’ont pas les mêmes motivations. Au fond, les autorités étatiques cherchent souvent à montrer à l’opinion nationale et internationale qu’elles accomplissent des progrès, qu’elles s’occupent de la prise en charge des besoins des populations  alors que la société civile veut inciter le pouvoir public à faire davantage d’efforts. « Ce qui est derrière ces meilleurs chiffres, c’est de montrer que l’Etat travaille, qu’il réalise les droits des citoyens. Les gouvernements veulent montrer que leurs performances correspondent aux engagements  pris », observe l’expert. Lui comme son prédécesseur, Al-Hassan Adam, de WaterAid  sont convaincus que des journalistes ont un rôle à jouer en assurant un rôle de veille, d’interpellation des autorités étatiques sur les engagements pris au niveau international.  « Le journaliste a besoin de données fiables, il doit parvenir à faire de la triangulation en montrant ce qui existe et en amenant les politiques à revoir leurs stratégies », pense Ouangre Landry Wendsomdé.

 

 

Exchange workshop for the actors of the WASH component of OmiDelta Fund: A real moment of knowledge sharing and mutual learning

By Alain TOSSOUNON (Cotonou/Benin)

     Photo de famille des participants aux travaux

On May 28 and 29, 2019, SNV, the Netherlands Development Organisation, which manages the Non State Actors Fund (NSA) of the OmiDelta Programme organized an exchange workshop for the Implementing Organisations (IOs) of the Water Supply, Hygiene and Sanitation (WASH) component projects financed by the Fund. This workshop aimed to promote the sharing of experiences and knowledge as well as mutual learning between NSA Fund actors. Thus, it was an opportunity for participants, composed mainly of representatives of the IOs (AERAMR, Oxfam, SIA N’SON, Helvetas, Protos, ANAP, AProDESE), to discuss results and lessons, as well as on good practices resulting from the implementation of their different projects. In addition to the IOs, the representatives of the key actors in the sector were present, including the General Directorate of Water (DGEau), the National Agency for the Drinking Water Supply in Rural Areas (ANAEP-MR), the National Association of Municipalities of Benin (ANCB), OmiDelta Technical Assistant and GIZ.

With the aim of strengthening the exchange of experiences and knowledge among the implementing organisations on the main progress, and to propose practical arrangement to improve the performance of the projects, the meeting was also an opportunity to capitalize the results and best practices. Faced with the representatives of the various organisations involved and recipients, the Coordinator of the NSA Fund indicated that now time is up to results sounding the mobilization of all. Therefore, he invited each IO to a critical analysis of the progress of its project in order to highlight progress made, difficulties and challenges to be met. It is therefore in this friendly vibe and an atmosphere of mutual learning that the workshop took off with three key highlights: sharing results obtained by each organisation with the challenges identified (or to be raised) and encountered difficulties; research and identification of best practices that are staining; actions to be undertaken to improve project performance.

The presentation of the progress made was one of the highlights of the meeting. It allowed different organisations to present their salient results recorded. In terms of intermediate progress, we mainly note in terms of water supply the construction and rehabilitation of structures, the installation of water meters on boreholes equipped with human motricity pump (FPM) and the rehabilitation of water kiosks in the peripheral zone especially in Parakou municipality by AProDESE ONG. We also note as progress, the reinforcement of the capacities of the municipal actors (elected representatives, managers and agents) to guarantee the good management and the sustainability of the works, the promotion of accountability and the citizen watch through the support to the Association of the Drinking Water Consumers (ACEP) in many localities. In terms of hygiene and basic sanitation, the results are equally edifying with the evolution of the number of localities maintaining their Open Defecation Free (ODF) status with the interventions of AERAMR in the sanitary zone of Djidja, Abomey, Agbangnizoun. The situation is similar in the municipalities of Karimama, Malanville and Kandi with SIA N’SON’s actions for consolidating the achievements of Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS). In terms of results, we can also highlight the training of masons for the construction of latrines and in particular pit latrines, as well as the launch of the process of building a sewage sludge treatment plant with Oxfam in its area of intervention (Ouidah, Kpomassè and Tori-Bossito). Meanwhile, the InnEAUVASSion project carried out by Protos is focusing on Sanimarketing in 5 municipalities of the departments of Collines, Mono and Couffo (Lokossa, Athiémé, Dogbo, Dassa-Zoumé and Savalou).

Variety of exchanges around results and experiences in progress

Beyond a simple review of progress, the exchange workshop has mainly enabled the implementing organisations, to confide their challenges and sometimes common fears in order to reflect together on how to deal with them. The challenges are mainly : respect of contractual deadlines, commitment of municipal actors to follow up, sustainability of technologies promoted and mechanisms put in place, evaluate the number of people affected by Behavior Change Communication (BCC), risks associated with the “Tontines latrines” device to encourage communities to equip themselves with latrines, maintenance of the ODF status, the difficulties linked to the ongoing reforms in the sector and which influence the proper execution of interventions at local level, etc. From discussions and lively exchanges to better understand the contours of the approaches and strategies used by each organisation, it is essential to retain that, overall, the actors are concerned by the sustainability of the devices and mechanisms put in place. Thus, in terms of the involvement of municipal stakeholders in the appropriation of their roles and responsibilities, if the signing of the protocols with each municipality constitutes a strategy for the engagement of the elected representatives, it is necessary to go further to ensure the sustainable management of the structures and the continuity of the public water service. In addition to accountability and citizen watch by the ACEP, it is important to boost managerial staff concertation and consultation frameworks at the municipal level to better monitor and control the commitments of each actor and therefore sustainability.

Otherwise, in order to better monitor the progress and the achievement of the objectives set, the participants attended an overall presentation of the baseline study results based on the data collected in the intervention areas of the 7 WASH projects. Various tools were used, such as different questionnaires and interview guides according to the nature of the project, in order to insure data reliability and facilitate data collection through the Akvo Flow application. The 2018 projects’ results are all aggregated and available on the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) platform. For the future, it is expected from each organisation, a better definition of indicators and a particular attention to the good quality and reliability of data collected, as well as evidence on the reported results.

Great moment of sharing of best practices unearthed

The sharing of best practices was the second highlight of the workshop, during which the different organisations were divided into two groups, namely those which are active in the drinking water supply subsectorn (Helvetas, ANAP, Protos, AProDESE) and those whose fields of action are hygiene and basic sanitation (Oxfam, AERAMR, SIA N’SON) to identify and share their best practices. This exercise on school experiences proved to be exciting for participants who shared several best practices. For example, for water services we can report the installation of meters on boreholes equipped with human motricity pump (FPM) of AProDESE allowing to follow the management of the delegates and beyond, the royalties but also the quantity of water consumed by the people. In addition, this innovative practice could provide sustainable jobs for young people and women in charge of monitoring and managing the water points.

In concerning the hygiene and sanitation, the case of the “latrine tontines” caught the participants’ attention as it allows the pooling of resources by households and promotes the scaling up in ODF villages. The experience of Helvetas in terms of transparency and accountability to improve the fee collection at the level of water structures, and the traceability of the revenue from the sale of water was also interesting. At the end of this exercise, which turned out to be interested not only for the implementing organisations, but also for SNV and the sector as a whole, the participants were invited to continue the search for best practices and more particularly to document them.

On the sidelines of the presentation of these experiences, several communications have helped to nurture knowledge, particularly in terms of youth employment promotion in the WASH sector with Plan Benin, the involvement of women with GIZ through the ProSEHA Programme, sustainability with Oxfam and the OmiDelta Technical Assistant. The communication on the sustainability of investments, showed the importance of the measures to be implemented to guarantee the continuity of the service beyond the project life. To this end, the experience of supporting the municipalities in terms of staff to strengthen the work of the Responsibles for water, hygiene and sanitation (REHA) at the level of the State Actors (AE) Fund has been shared. Moreover, best practices and experiences sharing from Mali has helped highlight the importance of putting sustainability at the center of IO projects. “This is a responsibility of all, institutions and communities,” concluded the NSA Fund Coordinator, calling on all to document any measures or actions undertaken to ensure sustainability.

Vue partielle des participants au cours des travaux de groupe

A roadmap and recommendations to perform

Participants looked to the future during the third and final highlight of the workshop. Starting from the observation on the delay in the implementation of the projects, each organisation drew up a roadmap to improve the performance of the implementation of its activities taking into account the achievements of the workshop. The aim is not to take over the annual work plan (PTA) (without excluding modifications where necessary), but on the one hand to identify the factors of success and especially the bottlenecks to the good execution of the PTA, and on the other hand to identify actions to be taken to improve the implementation of interventions. The participants also recommended the need for a synergy of action between the organisations for boosting the ACEPs, and maintaining the ODF status.

At the end of the workshop, the participants did not hide their satisfaction for the quality of the exchanges. “We really learned. The exchanges were very rewarding and will definitely boost the implementation of our projects or even the initiation of new projects” according to Emmanuel ADJERAN from ANAP when representing NGOs that implement small projects. As large projects are concerned, it was Edouard AKPINFA from Oxfam who took the floor to emphasize that sharing experiences could reveal a new positive face of projects. “We are leaving with another energy for the implementation of our projects. We are refreshed and remotivated,” he said. The ANCB representative, Euménique ALLADATIN, who was also delighted to have participated in this meeting reassured the recipient organisations about the availability of local authorities which all have at heart the promotion of water and sanitation sector. For the representative of the Agency for the Drinking Water Supply in Rural Areas, Joseph OKE, “The SNV team did well to have not waited until the end of the project to capitalize”.

Welcoming the smooth running of the workshop while thanking the participants for their participation and contribution, the Coordinator of the NSA Fund reiterated the availability of SNV to “continue to provide the necessary support to the implementing organisations for the effective and efficient implementation of their projects”.

The workshop ended on a note of satisfaction with the commitment made by the implementing organisations to work on performance improvement in the implementation of projects’ activities, and on sustainability, because both are major concerns for the sector as well as a contractual obligation.

The cap is now set for peer-to-peer exchange visits and an appointment is made for an annual learning session based on the experience of IOs to reinforce the knowledge acquisition process.

 

Some recommendations of the workshop

• Strengthen synergies and complementarities between implementing organisations as well as with other ongoing programmes / projects or initiatives;
• Pursue reflections and sharing of ideas and experiences on sustainability of achievements and document them;
• Use the National Association of Municipalities of Benin (ANCB) in case of difficulties within municipalities;
• Improve integration of cross-cutting themes (Governance / Gender / Innovations / Youth Employment / Climate Change ) in the interventions;
• Improve project performance;
• Effective and efficient use of monitoring tools and mechanisms to support the collection of reliable data;
• Take steps to better informing the recipient organisations about the content of ongoing reforms in the sector and especially of AN AEP-MR’s interventions;
• Increase the visibility of the OmiDelta programme in the field.