A capacity building workshop on Service Delivery Approach (SDA) and Life Cycle Cost Approach (LCCA) for selected District Assembly staff has been held in Akatsi in the Volta Region.
Published on: 30/07/2013
The four-day workshop (4-7 of June, 2013) organized at the Akatsi, the capital of the Akatsi South District, forms part of efforts by the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) and the Triple-S project at building district level capacity for sustainable water service delivery.
Why this workshop?
The objective of the training was to expose district staff to, and enhance their skills on SDA and LCCA concepts for planning and budgeting for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) service delivery at the district level. The LCCA training is within one of the experiments of Triple-S Ghana.
Who was there?
A total of forty (40) participants drawn from CWSA regional office in Ho, Akatsi North and Akatsi South Districts in the Volta Region attended the workshop. Participants constituted policy makers, administrators, technocrats from District Assemblies (DAs) and CWSA and development facilitators. They included the District Chief Executive (DCE) for Akatsi North, District Coordinating Directors (DCDs) for Akatsi South and North, Presiding members, District Engineers, Finance Officers, Budget officer, staff of the District Planning and Coordinating Unit, Chairpersons of all sub-committees, CWSA (Deputy Regional Director, Accountant, assistant accountant, Information Technology Specialist, Extension specialist and Monitoring of Operation and Maintenance (MOM) specialist as well as the Country Director for Lifetime Wells, an NGO into water service delivery. The choice of these high-profile district assembly staff as participants for the workshop was to raise their consciousness to the need for sustainable WASH service delivery so as to give priority attention to these in their planning, budgeting and resource allocation, to ensure sustainable WASH service delivery.
The Training
Participants were introduced to the SDA concept: moving from systems to services, and how Triple-S was testing innovative approaches for service delivery in its pilot districts, facilitating dialogue and learning in the sector, and integrating Service Delivery Approach into ongoing initiatives to improve water service delivery. They were also introduced to the concept of Life Cycle Cost Approach (LCCA), identifying cost components or elements, group cost components, the various cost components of LCCA, methodology for comparing the cost items, direct support cost and asset management.
The training session was facilitated by Dr. Kwabena Nyarko, a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Civil Engineering of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), a former Director for the WASHCost Ghana Project and a technical Advisor on LCCA to the Triple-S project in Ghana. The workshop mainly involved series of presentations by the trainers, practical group work for the participants, presentations by groups and discussions in plenary sessions.
The CWSA mandate and its role on sustainable WASH service delivery in Ghana
CWSA is the governmental agency mandated to facilitate the provision of safe drinking water and related sanitation services to Rural Communities and Small Towns in Ghana. CWSA is the host institution for Triple-S project in Ghana. The agency has been partnering with Triple-S to champion the provision of sustainable water service delivery in the rural water sub sector. The interest of CWSA in sustainability is in line with its responsibility to ensure that facilities that it facilitates to be constructed remain functional to deliver service to beneficiaries.
Mr. Wigbert Dogoli , CWSA regional Director for the Volta Region, gave clarity on the mandate of CWSA in providing direct support. He enumerated the role of CWSA in the delivery of water services to include the following:
– Develop guidelines for the training of service providers
– Quality assure the training process by partner organization (PO)
– Technical backstopping- demand driven as a result of financial constraints
– Support for service delivery monitoring e.g. functionality
– Comprehensive Operation and maintenance (O&M) auditing
– Provision of refresher training for private sector development of District Water aand Sanitation Teams/District WorksDepartment
– Facilitation with the DAs in the delivery of new facilities
Mr. Wigbert Dogoli also commented on the stance of CWSA vis á vis financing for service monitoring to ensure reduced downtime. He stated that CWSA wants the mainstreaming of service monitoring in Ghana. He said plans are far advanced with AKVO, the developers of Field Level Operations Watch (FLOW), to reduce the cost of monitoring to ensure the FLOW platform is adopted on a large scale in the sector. According to him, each district requires not more than GHC 30,000.00 per annum to conduct quarterly water service monitoring, which can salvage huge investment loss.
Mr. Wigbert Dogoli also briefed participants on the work of the Direct Support Cost committee of CWSA), which he is a member. The committee, which just concluded its work, determined the various activities required in the provision of sustainable WASH services. To these activities, cost estimates were allocated to give an idea of how much it will cost, in total, to provide sustainable service delivery for rural communities and small town water service delivery in Ghana.
It is expected that the outcome of the committee’s work will trigger national discussions on Expenditure on Direct Support for the provision of sustainable water services. Expenditure on Direct Support (ExpDS) - Expenditure on support to local-level service providers, users or user groups. The costs of ensuring that local government staff have the capacities and resources to carry out planning and monitoring, to help communities when systems break down, to audit community management structures, to monitor private sector performance, to carry out regular hygiene awareness raising and so on.
Views from some participants
Hon. James Gunu, District Chief Executive (DCE) for Akatsi North district acknowledged the importance of taking proper care of water facilities which he described as assets. According to him, planning, implementing and evaluating of water facilities aimed at ensuring that the facilities function at all times were a continuous process. However this is not always the case resulting in facility frequent breakdowns.
Hon. Gunu stated that ‘”Effective monitoring, if put in place; will help reduce some of the challenges confronting service providers in their management, governance and operation of systems”. He gave the commitment of his district to ensuring that water facilities are properly managed. To this, he requested of technocrats in the district to submit a work plan and budget on sustainable delivery of service in the district for discussion and further action.
Hon. Togbe Samlafo IV is the Presiding Member for Akatsi South District Assembly. He admitted that some districts have misplaced priorities when it comes to issues relating to water and sanitation, a situation which can compromise the health of the inhabitants of the district. He said “It is time to sit up and set priorities right because it is the responsibility of the DA to provide the enabling environment for the provision of facilities”. He lamented the situation where due to non-maintenance and lack of effective monitoring result in facility breakdown compelling communities to resort to unsafe sources of water. He hoped the workshop will equip participants with the knowledge to ensure sustainable WASH service delivery.
Mr. Dzukey, District Coordinating Director for Akatsi South admitted that even though his district made budgetary allocation for support to service providers in the district under the District Development Facility (DDF), it was never disbursed due to inadequate funds. He hoped the current year budget will be released so they can meet their commitments to the DWD/DWST.
Conclusion
The workshop was an exposé to participants on the idea of sustainable service delivery of rural water which also included proper costing for services. It also brought to the fore the various roles and responsibilities of all sector stakeholders in rural WASH service delivery, especially CWSA and DAs. It is the expectation that the knowledge and skills so acquired from this workshop will bring about policy change or interventions that will result, ultimately in sustainable rural water service delivery.
Compiled by:
Victor Narteh Otum
DCO-IRC Ghana
Juy 30, 2013.
