Published on: 04/07/2013
An iterative process of absorbing knowledge, skills and experience, documenting and joint analysis that involves a wide range of stakeholders is the foundation of a learning and adaptive sector. The hallmarks of such a sector are leadership, collaboration, government buy-in, documentation and sharing. By establishing and supporting existing learning platforms, IRC improves overall sector performance and ensures that its own initiatives are timely, relevant, effective and above all scalable.
In 2012, IRC led or participated in the following actions to promote a learning and adaptive sector:
- In Uganda, IRC helped establish multi-stakeholder learning platforms, institutionalising an iterative process of learning at district and decentralised levels.
- IRC led the formation of Ghana’s Sanitation Knowledge Management Initiative consortium, at the request of Ghana’s Environmental Health Directorate of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development. UNICEF has expressed interest in funding aspects of this work, which will expand IRC Ghana’s scope of work into sanitation.
- In the Sahel region, IRC established learning alliances (called water communal advisory boards, WCA), which help strengthen their capacity to monitor local compliance with national regulation by eight communities.
- In Ghana, IRC continued its long-term support to the Ghanaian Resource Centre Network and its National Learning Alliance Platform. Regional learning alliance platforms were also initiated in the Volta and Northern regions.
- With the support of the Humanitarian Innovation Fund, IRC’s Knowledge Point project created a website prototype to facilitate an open, collaborative and multi-organisation enquiry service on WASH.
- IRC helped the UNESCO-IHE set up the FIPAG Academy for Professional Development Water and Sanitation Consortium—a capacity strengthening project on the implementation of investment programmes in urban and peri-urban water and sanitation service.
Results are evident in the following developments:
- Uganda’s Ministry of Water and Environment has embraced the concept of sector learning and is active in several IRC-supported learning initiatives.
- In Mozambique, IRC’s case studies on Dutch-funded projects and documentation of lessons learnt in the implementation of the One Million Initiative (OMI) informed the development of the National Directorate of Water’s National Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Programme implementation plan.
- IRC research is expected to provide insight into initiatives in Mozambique funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Millennium Challenge Cooperation.
- IRC-supported research on current levels of service delivery and system failure was instrumental in the adoption of a service delivery approach by the Government of Ghana.
- The Dutch WASH Alliance (DWA)—comprising Simavi, Akvo, AMREF Flying Doctors, ICCO, RAIN and WASTE—asked IRC to help intensify learning, cooperation and coordination across its member organisations’ WASH programmes in developing countries. This collaboration resulted in the development of a sustainability framework for the alliance (see link below).
Another IRC initiative is the WASH Information Consortium, intended to forge collaboration among WASH information and resource centres. In September 2012 a first meeting was organised to explore the potential of such a consortium. Participating organisations now include SuSanA, the Water Channel, the India Water Portal, Akvo, WASTE, Resource Centre Network–Nepal, NETWAS Uganda and the USAID WASHplus project.
Training sector professionals on effective approaches has emerged as an important endeavour for IRC, and demand for IRC’s expertise has made training a cornerstone of the current business plan.
In addition to IRC’s regular face-to-face training activities, IRC acquired its own modular object-oriented dynamic learning environment, or Moodle, and tested it in 2012 by offering the Costing Sustainable Services Training Package online. During the year, a webinar presentation of a life-cycle costs approach—the foundation of IRC’s Costing Sustainable Services Training—was also organised. Overall, all training activities on a life-cycle costs approach reached approximately 1,350 individuals, spanning 61 countries worldwide. Of the top 15 countries with the most registered participants—excluding the Netherlands where IRC is based –11 countries are non-IRC focus countries.
Other face-to-face trainings continued in 2012 as part of IRC’s activities:
- Senior government officials and technical personnel from India came to the Netherlands for week-long trainings on WASH service delivery, with support from UNICEF and the Government of India. IRC’s programme introduced service delivery models, with a focus on post-construction maintenance and good practices.
- Eighteen senior water service professionals from Timor Leste, Ghana, Uganda, India, Burkina Faso, Belgium and the Netherlands convened for a training workshop on the concepts of a service delivery and roles and functions of service authorities.
- Four young professionals involved in WASH Resource Centre Networks received a month-long introduction to WASH concepts in the IRC office in the Netherlands, followed by a nine-month placement in a partner organisation in a different country. This class joins 2011’s four graduates of IRC’s Southern Youth Zone programme, a three-year initiative (2010–2012) to strengthen the skill set and knowledge base of young professionals. One participant was hired by IRC.
Finally, during 2012, IRC organised webinars on multiple-use services, sector learning and post-construction support in Colombia. With CARE USA, IRC co-organised three e-debates contributing to the advocacy for the inclusion of school children access to WASH services in the post-2015 global monitoring of water and sanitation. The results of the e-debates were submitted as input for consideration in the discussion rounds of the post-2015 working groups.
