Pro-poor Governance
New investments in water and sanitation often do not always reach the poor. Many cities’ water and sanitation infrastructure covers only the affluent sections of society leaving the poor outside the reach of municipal services. The goal is to support change in governance, so that low-income peoples are given a voice in collective decision-making that leads to improved access to good quality drinking water and basic sanitation
The programme aims to increase policy makers’ commitment to implement policies that favor the poor by building the institutional and human resource capacity of key actors in the water and sanitation sector and thus enhance their ability to implement pro-poor policies and programmes. Critical to the success of these activities will be the participation of beneficiary communities in the planning, provision and management of water and sanitation services on the one hand and improving the accountability of service provider agencies at the local level, on the other.
The Water for African Cities programme has an action plan in each of the selected cities. Multi-stakeholder consultations are held in these cities to determine the needs of poorest of the poor with the aim of improving their access to water and sanitation services within 3 to 5 years.
Key elements of governance framework are:
- Assessing the effective demand of communities for services
- Building concrete, project-oriented, partnerships between local governments and other service providers and community groups
- Developing innovative financing mechanisms that can be accessed by poor communities
- Developing toolkits for use to train and build the capacity of policy makers so that they are able to effectively implement action plans and outline specific investment proposals for African cities
Improved Sanitation for the urban poor
Approximately, 40 per cent of African’s population has no organised system of sanitation, relying on unhygienic facilities. Access to improved sanitation has multiple benefits to humanity including environmental protection and clean water. The Water for African Cities programme is paying special attention to active community involvement in the ownership of the delivery and management of sanitation services. The main aim is to increase and leverage the funding available for sanitation services. This entails forging partnerships and developing innovative financial mechanisms for the mobilisation of local funds. UN-HABITAT is providing support through capacity building efforts, including assistance in the development of institutional frameworks, identification of revenue streams (for cost recovery purposes), training of utility staff, and empowering leaders in urban low-income communities.
Urban Catchment Management
Over the years, the pressure on the limited freshwater resources has considerably increased due to growing demand and abuse of the catchment areas. Urban catchment management seeks to protect and secure water resources by offering an integrated approach, linking water management, land-use, the environment and human activities and involving cooperative governance by local authorities and other stakeholders
Urban Catchment management covers water quality and quantity as well as the socio-economic development and ecological integrity aspects of water usage. WAC II is developing and implementing strategies, including livelihood programs, which will directly improve the living conditions of the poor. This will involves working with local utility companies where necessary to improve drainage and solid waste to local catchment areas.
Water Demand Management
In many African cities, large quantities of water are wasted through leakages and illegal connections. Water Demand Management involves a coordinated set of measures to improve water service delivery by introducing changes at the point of consumption and by meeting water demand without increasing water supply by increasing end-user efficiency and reducing waste.
WAC II is working on a three level approach (city, national and regional) with phased activities to introduce demand responsive and demand management strategies that improve efficiency and equity in water supply.
At the regional level, the strategy is to advocate water demand management at the country policy level. At the national level, the approach is to build on the regional advocacy initiative, directly with technical and other administrative staff. At the city level, water demand management will be scaled up and expanded within various water utilities.
Water Education in Schools and Communities
The goal is to create a new ethic among children and in the community-at-large, through water, sanitation and hygiene education to empower all groups to participate in WAC from the very young. The water education initiative focuses on three key areas, the establishment of water classrooms, setting up a water curriculum in selected schools, and helping raise awareness in the local community.
Advocacy, Awareness-raising and Information Exchange
In the cities where advocacy, awareness and information exchange campaigns were organised in the first phase of the programme, there was a consensus that it had played a pivotal role in changing peoples perceptions and attitudes towards water issues.
An overarching advocacy, awareness raising, and information exchange campaign in WAC II will support implementation of the other thematic priorities. The aim is to engage and mobilise policy level functionaries, garner political will and support for the programme, and increase commitment at city, national and regional levels to addressing the thematic priorities. National and city level activities include capacity building for sustainable campaigns, community outreach programs, benchmarking of awareness campaigns, and implementation of participatory awareness information, education and communications initiatives for attitudinal change. UN-HABITAT is developing a participatory process to boost awareness, promote information exchange and engender a water friendly ethic amongst consumers, sector professionals and policy makers
Gender Mainstreaming
In many developing countries, women bear the burden of water, having to travel long distances to fetch and carry heavy loads of water. Women are also under represented in the political decision making process where issues of water demand management, catchments areas and cross border agreements are discussed and determined. Men and women use water in different ways and it is important that women are integrated at all levels and in different categories into all dimensions of water and sanitation provision for their needs to be met on a sustainable basis.
In order to ensure the systematic mainstreaming of gender in the Water for African Cities Programme, UN-HABITAT, in partnership with the Gender Water Alliance is supporting the implementation of the Gender Mainstreaming Strategy Initiative. The objective of the Gender Mainstreaming Strategy Initiative (GMSI) is to facilitate the “genderisation” of water and sanitation utilities through the development of gender sensitive norms and standards to enable the poorest urban families to benefit from improved access to safe water and dignified sanitation facilities.
The gender mainstreaming strategy initiative will use rapid gender assessments to identify, gather, and analyze baseline data relevant to the WAC II programmatic and thematic foci. A Gender Mainstreaming Strategy Framework will provide a summary analysis of the key priority themes which will effectively advance gender mainstreaming within the WAC II programme. It will encompass an integrated capacity building program, and will provide recommendations for short and longer term. Gender Mainstreaming Action Plans which were developed at the first Expert Group Meeting, held in Mombasa, Kenya in June 2005, will be adopted by stakeholders at city level. Finally Gender Mainstreaming Policy Consultations will be held after the city level action plans have been finalised and concrete activities encompassed within the action plans implemented. The main objectives of the consultations will be to inform and influence national economic and development policies and processes such as poverty reduction strategy papers and water and sanitation sector reform through local gender integrated, pro-poor analysis.
Training and Capacity Building
Africa is a rapidly urbanising continent, and it is facing the most severe challenges in provision of basic urban services including water and sanitation among all regions of the world. Providing the urban poor with safe water and sanitation is a critical challenge. In Africa, over half of the urban population are without these basic human needs and they are compelled to make unacceptable compromises of their time, money, safety, dignity and personal development, simply to meet these needs.
The training and capacity building component of the Water for African Cities Programme has been addressing the need for improved management of urban water and sanitation resources in urban areas of Africa since 1999. The programme targets utility managers in three specific groups - middle level managers, senior managers and policy and decision makers. Separate and sequential training is carried out at the three levels, with the aim of enabling the individual trainee an understanding of the subject area and his/her own contribution in realising an appropriate strategy to address it.
The Program was designed to train professionals in the utilities with the main objective of strengthening the skills of urban water and sanitation managers in core water and sanitation themes of water demand management, pollution prevention and control in catchment areas, and public awareness. Secondly, the programme seeks to institutionalise the training process through a capacity building effort that includes a training-of-trainers programme and technical support to existing regional training and resource centres.
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