Jerry Atengdem, water expert, IRC Ghana
Water expert IRC Ghana
Published on: 19/12/2024
To progress faster and reach more people, we need to professionalise how we deliver water services. Professionalisation may mean different things for delivering water to big towns, villages and hard to reach hamlets. As part of the Safe Water Initiative Jerry works with partners and district leadership in Asutifi North to address these professionalisation challenges.
‘My name is Jeremiah Atengdem, I work with IRC Ghana as a water expert. I look after the district-based initiatives of the IRC country programme.
Originally, I am from the Upper East region from a small village called Wiaga in the Builsa North district. But I’m now based in Asutifi North District where I support the ANAM partnership.
The ANAM partnership in Asutifi North is a unique partnership. It has attracted a lot of attention in Ghana, even beyond Ghana, internationally people have become aware of the tremendous gains that we've made here.
ANAM stands for Asutifi North Ahonidie Mpontuo. In local language, “Ahonidie” means cleanliness and “Mpontuo” means “development”. The chiefs and people of the district tried to coin a name that really reflects what they stand for and are committed to, as far as water, sanitation and hygiene services are concerned.
In 2017, we started off. IRC Ghana, in line with our then strategic plan, we wanted to select a pilot district, where we would be able to test our district level approaches for achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 6.
We went through a lengthy and robust process before we settled on selecting Asutifi North District. Once we agreed on the district, we started the process of galvanising all the different stakeholders, who had an interest in water, sanitation and hygiene to be able to co-create a common vision, a vision to be able to deliver universal access to water sanitation and hygiene services by 2030.
We worked with all the different stakeholders through a participatory and inclusive process to develop this common vision, that eventually culminated into what we call the District WASH master plan. The plan is the product of a yearlong process of consultations and engagements to work towards that common vision and to agree on how we were going to translate that vision into reality. We brought together the traditional authorities, local people local government, and the NGOs and partners who were already working in the district or had interests in supporting the district. All were involved right from the outset, to ensure joint ownership over the plan. Everybody believed in it, and everybody was committed to the plan and its implementation.
Once the plan was ready, it was important to have a robust partnership to support the implementation. That was how we came to set up partnership agreements. These clearly stipulate the role of each partner in the implementation of the District WASH masterplan. The partnership agreements were also to ensure proper coordination and alignment. We all agreed on our joint obligations, joint commitments, to what each of the partners was going to do in the district. And activities like learning, monitoring, resource mobilisation, joint reflections and planning, were the issues that we needed to agree on how we're going to do together.
Ensuring that the different specific roles were clearly spelt was also important so that local government would be able to use that to do the coordination, and to ensure synergy and all working together, complementing each other's efforts.
The partnership agreement really helped to cement the collaborations that we had forged as from the planning process, to make it a very formal process, which enables everybody to be clear.
The Safe Water Partnership in Asutifi North district, is a group of different partners, who are collectively committed to a common vision of providing universal access to water and sanitation services by undertaking complementary activities. The partnership in Asutifi North district is unique in the sense that it has been able to leverage on the collective capacities and the different competences of the partners to deliver a common vision of providing universal access to water and sanitation services.
Advocacy, learning, and networks are important elements underpinning the implementation of the master plan. If infrastructure is delivered, without having the right attitudes and behaviours to sustain and to maintain the infrastructure, we're not going to be able to fully maximise the benefits of infrastructure. Advocacy plays a crucial role in issues like ‘how do we get people to pay for services?’ and ‘How do we ensure people have positive behaviours to be able to keep their surroundings clean, so they do not become sick’. These are things that require ways of getting into the hearts and minds of the people and getting them to appreciate the value of making sure they support the initiative.
This is the reason why Netcentric Campaigns introduced the ANAM WASH Network, a network of people, citizens, across different groups, who are mobilised to support the delivery of WASH services. The network’s radio programme is one of the best ways to connect with citizens. It provides a platform for citizens to engage with duty bearers, service providers, and to voice their concerns, and make complaints about the services, and to receive feedback from the duty bearers and service providers, about the state of these services.
The radio programme is just one component of the ANAM network process. It is airing each last Thursday of every month. Because of the wide coverage of radio, we think it's an effective tool for reaching a lot of the communities who are far away from the district capital.
What Netcentric Campaigns does is to make citizens appreciate their services and if they desire good and high levels of services, they’ll need to pay for that. You’re paying your tariffs so that water providers are able to provide the water to you 24/7.
It is something that needs a bit of time. Through constantly talking to citizens, you’re able to get that change in mindset towards paying for the service. And that’s what Netcentric Campaigns are geared towards. It’s a slow and gradual process. On the other side, it means that service provider must make sure, that those who already are subscribed receive the highest level of service. As that makes the case for people to pay for it. Because if their services are lousy, then people will be very reluctant to pay for it. So, it’s important to create that process of changing people's behaviours and attitudes.
To be able to progress faster and reach more people, bigger populations, we need to professionalise how we deliver water services to these bigger populations. The Safe Water Enterprise approach that is being promoted by Safe water network plays an important role in this. Previously the service delivery model that was predominantly used, was the community ownership and management model. The absence of professional service providers in that model affects the service delivery, and progress on ensuring access to water was lagging. The Safe Water Enterprise brings that professionalism and the efficiency to the delivery of water services, and particularly for bigger populations. Safe Water Enterprises are able to raise revenue, which is crucial to enable service providers meet their operation and maintenance costs and their capital maintenance costs. Without those resources you're not able to provide water continuously. The lessons from how Safe Water Enterprises that are operating in Asutifi North district will be leveraged on and replicated in other districts.
But to quickly mention that that is just for a segment of the population. In Asutifi North, we have also rural communities that are hard to reach, that have a smaller population size, where the Safe Water Enterprise model won’t work. We've tried to map the districts into areas where specific models can be applicable and where some models won't work. There, we have to look for other technologies to be able to provide the services to these communities. Service delivery models complement each other. In Asutifi North, we have populations being served with services from the Safe Water Enterprise model, but we also have populations that are being served by a Water and Sanitation Management Team operating under the community-owned and managed (COM) model. We also see a few individuals who construct their own systems, and serve their neighbours, that is the self-supply model.
We also see smaller communities where all of this won't work, except for having a small borehole with a handpump. Simply, because it is not economically viable to go and construct a system for say, 500 people or less. It’s not a one-size fits all. Different models complement and provide services for different segments of the population.
District leadership has been crucial in providing direction and driving the whole process. The seal of approval by government is crucial and they’re encouraging partners to do their bit. The district also has committed government resources to support some of the partners to be able to deliver water systems. Safe Water Network is an example of this. The District Assembly has provided funding for the provision of water stations in Wamahinso, in Gambia and more recently, the Assembly has also been collaborating with Safe Water Network and World Vision to construct a big system in Kenyasi No.1 to serve a population of 5,000 plus. The district is truly committed to the process.
One of the encouraging things is that we're getting a lot of interest and requests from other districts to also be part of all the successes that are happening in Asutifi North district. It's always been our end game to replicate these lessons in other districts, region, and even nationally. For this reason, in 2022, we started that process of replication in three additional districts in Ahafo region. We went through a process to objectively select the three additional districts out of the five that were left in the region. We went with them to prepare their District WASH Master Plans. One of the biggest lessons from here is that if you get the planning right, then every other thing falls into place. As we speak, we are finalising these plans, and meanwhile we've seen partners who already have raised some funds to begin the implementation of these District WASH master plans. For examples in Asunafo South, Project Maji is already implementing limited solar power stations and limited mechanised systems to provide water to communities. Also, Safe Water Network is constructing systems in Asunafo North and South districts, and also Aquaya Institute is already working in these three districts, supporting with mechanisms for water quality testing. And Safe water Network is also going to rely on Netcentric Campaigns for public education and sensitisation, to activate consumer interest and demand for their services. So that's the kind of collaboration we see between the different partners and their innovation.
The district learning alliance platform in Asutifi North, is being replicated at regional level to learn jointly, share and scale. We’re also replicating the district partnership agreements at regional level. The Regional Coordinating Council is spearheading that effort to have this partnership agreement between them and the districts and the NGO partners, where we will all sign up and indicate what we're going to do in the region. It will also help them to do the coordination and to monitor whatever all of us are doing to ensure that there's no duplication, to ensure that there is synergy and alignment with the original vision for WASH.
IRC Ghana is key member of the Safe Water Initiative in Ghana. IRC provides capacity support and promotes learning. The Safe Water Initiative is funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and focuses on systems strengthening and service delivery to ensure reliable and safely managed water to one million people in low-income households, health facilities and schools in Ethiopia, Ghana and Uganda.
As part of its five-year strategic plan, Conrad N. Hilton commissioned a review of its investments and approaches in the target geographies. The primary aim of the review was to investigate the relevance, effectiveness and sustainability of different Service Delivery Models (SDM), including community-based safe water management, publicly owned water utilities and private-sector approaches such as Safe Water Enterprises (SWE).
In 2023, as part of the review, IRC produced on behalf of Aguaconsult Ltd and for the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation the film 'In service to everyone'. For this film, IRC's Dechan Dalrymple and Abubakari Wumbei, interviewed Jerry Atengdem in August. This article is an adaptation and summarised version of the full interview.
