Stakeholders launch knowledge platform for WASH sector
THE Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Coordination Project (WCP) has launched a Community of Practice (COP), Nigeria’s first learning platform to boost knowledge exchange within the country’s WASH sector.
To ensure that the platform is as informative and useful as possible, the WCP Team discussed its design with donors, government officials, development practitioners, utility management, civil society organization representatives, and interested stakeholders across the country over the span of a year.
At the public presentation of Urban WASH Community Practice platform in Lagos, the WCP Chief of Party, Mr. Timeyin Uwejamomere, expressed hopes the COP will serve as a learning platform for WASH practitioners to help Nigerian water utilities fast-track the implementation of needed reforms.
He noted that some utilities have successfully implemented reforms and, as a result, are closer to offering sustainable services partly attribute this achievement to peer-to-peer learning and knowledge development support.
WASH Manager, USAID Nigeria programme, Dr. Joachim Ezeji said WASH programming at USAID amongst other targets, aims to assist with the provision, availability and reliability of data. According to him, available data are often conflicting due to divergent definitions, indicators and methodologies applied by the various agencies and donors active in the sector, contributing to weak sector monitoring and performance improvement. He stressed that when a large segments of Nigeria’s urban population suffer from inadequate access to core service especially WASH, there are economic and environmental consequences.
According to him, inadequate service provision undermines people’s ability to be economically productive and challenge them to fend for themselves in inefficient and costly ways that risk harming the environment. The USAID community of Practice, he said, is a welcome innovation in Nigeria’s water subsector as it provides a great opportunity for learning and knowledge sharing.
Last year, the Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu introduced the Community of Practice at the National Council of Water Resources, in Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria and inaugurated a 10-person Steering Committee comprising of sector professionals in various relevant field of expertise and an adviser to the Committee.
With the support of the Steering Committee, the WCP in November 2017, made the COP Online Learning Platform publicly available.
The COP is focused on trig- gering improvements in four critical domains of utility operations: commercial viability; governance and social accountability; citizens’ engagement; and urban sanitation and hygiene.
The website, includes a research centre with relevant WASH documents; a Practitioner’s Toolkit with a variety of tools for individuals involved in the provision of WASH services; and an Opportunities page with information on available jobs, tenders, as well as grants within the urban WASH sector in Nigeria; among numerous other resources on urban WASH.
In his speech, the chairperson of the COP Steering Committee, Dajan Hossana, an engineer noted that the primary purpose of the web- site is to provide readily available and accessible information on best practices in the WASH sector though the framework of a self-sustaining, demanddriven, and locally appropriate platform to foster dialogue among practitioners to accelerate reforms in the sector.
“The website serves as a resource centre for Nigerian urban WASH stakeholders by providing a platform for disseminating practical and relevant information on WASH development, tools, and best practices,” he said. The WCP is a two-year project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Nigeria. The project seeks to achieve the dual benefits of improved health and well-being for Nigerians through increased and more financially sustainable access to WASH services, and to build the confidence of the public in the government’s ability to deliver basic services in Bauchi and Kaduna states.
The Development Innovations Group, a U.S.based firm with offices in Kaduna and Bauchi is the prime implementer of the WCP.
The WCP will support the maintenance of the website until the project ends on October 31, 2018, at which time, a Nigerian entity will become responsible for maintaining the online Community of Practice (COP), while the Steering Committee(sc) continues to provide oversight on operations.