Building the WASH Ethiopia Movement

Published on: 13/08/2013

From 6-8 August 2013, the WASH Ethiopia Movement (WEM) held a strategy development workshop in Adama to discuss the outcomes of a review and to plan how it can best support the sector. The gaps identified in the sector review aimed to give direction to the three-year strategic action plan for WEM.

Some people are of the opinion that the private sector companies engaged at the moment are key monopoly actors with products priced too high for the lower end consumers.

The workshop was attended by members of the Movement including WSSCC, ENDA, MWA, CARE, UNICEF, World Vision, CRS, HOAREC, PSI, JICA and a number of faith-based organisations, with Basic Water Needs (Tulip water filter) directly representing the private sector, and a journalist representing the media. WEM nowadays is 90 members strong.

The sector review highlighted a number of encouraging achievements, including better facilitation of sector coordination and an increased and engaged media. The latter was achieved in part through the WASH Media Forum’s recent journalism competition (link below). WEM’s contribution to the development of relevant policies, strategies and programs, such as through the most recent GDP for GDP campaign (Great Dignity Practice for Gross Domestic Product), was recognised.

The review was undertaken in a context of slow progress towards achieving the GTP/UAP targets. NGOs need to reflect on the role they play, and inadequate funding to the sector is a key problem. Additionally, sector actors noted a lack of evidence-based advocacy, and the limited involvement of the private sector. And while there are good policies in place, these do not yet run down to the implementation level.

The strategy development workshop aimed to identify those sector gaps that can be addressed by WEM in the next three years.  Through a series of group tasks, the following strategic issues were identified:

• The need for resource mobilisation and dedicated sanitation financing with the aim to encourage the Ethiopian government to commit 0.5% of the GDP to sanitation, as according to the eThekwini  Declaration and AfricaSan Action Plan (download below).
• Partnerships, networking and harmonisation aiming for better coordination in the sector, and reaching out to MFIs to create WASH products and services and to increase the number of WASH credit officers. 
• Knowledge management aiming for (even) better evidence-based learning and sharing, and continued engagement of the media in sector discourse.
• Equity and inclusion aiming for inclusion of those socially and geographically excluded.
• Community awareness and community mobilisation through members, including creating awareness on household-led investments and access to finance products and services.
• Private sector engagement with the aim of contributing to an enabling environment through, for example, creating access to finance.

Why the private sector role is very limited was a discussion I was very interested in. There are some people of the opinion that the private sector companies engaged at the moment are key monopoly actors with products priced too high for the lower end consumers. There are some who criticise the private sector for poor construction and slow extension of services. There are those who believe the private sector has not yet grasped the potential in the sector.  And then there are a multitude of other factors. The private sector discussion was held with the Government’s Self Supply Acceleration Programme and Sanitation Marketing programme in mind. How to engage the private sector in the WASH sector is a debate that we need to take further.