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IRC's work in Africa

The focus of IRC's work in Africa outside the focus countries is on strengthening regional institutions and platforms to support government leadership towards achieving nationally defined sector priorities and targets; advocate for policies and practices that adopt a government-led service delivery approach; and support adaptive and coordinated sector learning.

Published on: 30/09/2014

Activities focus on advocacy and policy influencing through participation in regional platforms and events and direct engagement with influential regional actors. IRC’s work in non-focus countries in Africa aims to build evidence and experience towards the goals of the programme. A selection from IRC’s involvement in Africa is presented below.

IRC’s involvement in regional platforms and events in Africa

  • IRC is a member of the International Task Force for AfricaSan 4 and is leading the monitoring and finance theme.

  • At the 5th Africa Water Week, IRC convened a session on the Role of Local Governments in Providing Sustainable WASH Services.

Sector Learning - Sierra Leone

In 2013, IRC was asked by the Water Facility of Sierra Leone on behalf of the Ministry of Water Resources to lead the operationalisation of the WASH Sector Learning Policy. The main tasks were to engage sector stakeholders in the process and support the development of the institutional framework for sector learning. In addition a common resource base was set up to enable easy access to sector knowledge and to provide guidance on joint learning. IRC carried out this work under leadership of the Sector Policy Coordination Team and in partnership with WaterAid, WASH-Net Sierra Leone and Resource Centre Network (RCN) - Ghana.

Arid Lands Disaster Risk Reduction-WASH Program Kenya

The Kenya Arid Land Disaster Risk Reduction (KALDRR) WASH project is a two-year project (2012 till 2014) led by the Millennium Water Alliance (MWA) with support from USAID. It aims to improve access to water, sanitation, hygiene (WASH) and resilience to droughts for 160,000 people in five arid counties of Kenya: Turkana, Marsabit, Moyale, Wajir and Garissa. The overall objective of the KALDRR-WASH project is to increase water storage capacity in arid lands and availability of water for multiple uses, while at the same time use of water resource is optimized through better knowledge of the ground capacity and better planning. As part of this project, IRC has:

  • Conducted an in-depth evaluation of usages of water for a pilot area in each of the four counties throughout 2013;
  • Developed a Water Master Plan for each of the pilot areas.

Life cycle cost approach in the refugee context – Ethiopia and Chad

In April 2014 IRC started a pilot study in two camps in Ethiopia and Chad where Sudanese refugees live, to measure the life-cycle costs of water services and support their better planning and effective management. The study builds upon the Life-Cycle Cost Approach (LCCA) developed by IRC during its 5-year WASHCost project, which collected and disaggregated expenditure data over the full life-cycle of WASH services. The approach has been widely applied already in “regular settlements”. It was originally created and implemented in rural and peri-urban settings in four countries (Andhra Pradesh (India), Burkina Faso, Ghana and Mozambique) and applied since by governments, INGOs, bilateral aid agencies and IRC, adding up to over 80 organisations worldwide. Now the UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) has shown interest in adapting and applying the methodology in a refugee context. 

 

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