A consortium consisting of the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA), IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre , Akvo , Water for People and Ghanaian private company SkyFox leads the three-year project which is designing a country-wide rural water monitoring system for Ghana.
Published on: 17/02/2014
The new model for district-wide rural water monitoring builds on a pilot of an improved monitoring system in three districts developed with support of Triple-S. Other important elements of SMARTerWASH are the upgrade of the monitoring tools AKVO FLOW for data collection, the District Monitoring and Evaluation System (DiMES) for data storage and analysis and SMS reporting for triggering repairs. ICT specialists will connect the systems and make them interoperable.
Capacity building of regional and district staff on monitoring systems and tools as well as orientation meetings for Ministry staff and Development Partners are also crucial in rolling out the new monitoring model.
The CWSA, the national support agency for rural water sanitation in Ghana, leads SMARTerWASH, implement the orientation and training and supervise the upgrade of the monitoring tools. It will mainstream the monitoring system in all national and development aid activities and projects it implements. District Assemblies will collect the data and use it to carry out repairs, upgrade and replace water systems, to plan, budget and correct the performance of the community based organisations providing water services.
Funding for this Public Private Partnership is provided by the Government of the Netherlands, the Government of Ghana, the World Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Cisco Systems and the Conrad Hilton Foundation. Contact Nick Dickinson of IRC at dickinson@irc.nl for more information.
