A Learning Sanitation Sector is one of the IRC and partners' sessions at the Africa San 3 Conference in Kigali, Rwanda, in the morning of 19 July 2011. The session will assess practical learning experiences in the sanitation sector from a number of African countries. This will be followed by a panel discussion with prominent representatives from different stakeholder groups (national and local government, civil society, knowledge institutes/networks), who will provide their perspectives on opportunities for a better learning sanitation sector in Africa.
Published on: 06/07/2011
Side event S6: AfricaSan 3, Kigali
Tuesday July 19th 2011, 10:00 – 13:00 hours
Session Summary
“Why is one country progressing faster with access in rural sanitation than another?” If you, as a politician, government or NGO staff, ask that question, you do not just want to know what they have done to get to that success; you want to know how they did it and whether your sector can learn from that experience to do better in your own country. However, learning is also about analysing the factors behind the successes and the challenges, and the resistance the innovators had to overcome. And more, a success story cannot just be simply copied into your context. It needs to be analysed for potential success in application and be contextualized. And it is only then when the learning journey starts in your own country: how do districts apply it? How are the poorest and most marginalized reached in different contexts? Why do families react differently than expected? How can successful approaches be taken to scale? Welcome in the world of the Learning in the Sanitation Sector!
A learning sanitation sector has the internal capacity to identify sector challenges, identify good answers and implement effective and scalable solutions. This session at AfricaSan-3 will provide an interactive platform to share the concept of a learning sanitation sector and to discuss, assess and formulate recommendations for structured learning, and strengthening national capacities for learning.
The session will assess practical learning experiences in the sanitation sector from a number of African countries. This will be followed by a panel discussion with prominent representatives from different stakeholder groups (national and local government, civil society, knowledge institutes/networks), who will provide their perspectives on opportunities for a better learning sanitation sector in Africa.
The main objective of the session is to increase the understanding and acknowledgment of the importance of a sanitation sector that is a ‘learning sector’, a sector that has the internal commitment and capability to identify and solve challenges by building on experiences and lessons learned.
Specific objectives are:
IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre (contact Jo Smet. Smet@irc.nl, tel. + 31703044027)
WaterAid (contact Mara van den Bold at maravandenbold@wateraid.org, mob: +447795833470)
ANEW (contact Baker Yiga, baker@anewafrica.net tel. +254 735 506 562)
