East Gonja District is one of three districts piloting the Service Delivery Approach under the Triple-S Project. The district is struggling with improving its water coverage figure of 46.98%.
Published on: 25/07/2012
East Gonja District is one of three districts piloting the Service Delivery Approach under the Triple-S Project. The 2010 Population and Housing Census put the East Gonja District population at 135,450. Only 46.98% of the total population (Community Water and Sanitation Agency Northern Regional Report ,2011), has access to clean water.
This percentage according to the District Chief Executive, Honourable Alhassan Mumuni is worrying. Mr Mumuni said, "When our people do not have access to water, it is a source of big problem for us. But we understand there are a number of reasons for this situation", he said.
He added,"we have a challenge with underground water in this district, a lot of the point sources only function well during the rainy season but dry up during the rainy season. This puts a lot of pressure on existing boreholes".
Mr Mumuni was reacting to findings of a functionality and service monitoring baseline study conducted in the district by CWSA and the District Assembly and facilitated by the Triple-S Project. He gave the assurance that the District will take actions to ensure the challenges identified in the study are addressed.
Communities in the East Gonja District operate the Community Ownership and Management (COM) model predicated on the National Community Water Sanitation Programme which emphasises effective community participation in planning, implementation and management of water facilities.
For effective operation and maintenance (O&M) of water supply systems and point sources, Water and Sanitation Management Teams needs to be established in every community with the responsibility for the day-to-day running of the facilities in accordance with nationally accepted standards.
Many point sources in the East Gonja District have Water and Sanitation Management Teams in place, but there are challenges with their capacity to deliver on their mandate. Out of 60 Water and Sanitation Management Teams interviewed in the baseline study, only eight were well-qualified, trained, experienced and gender balanced (CWSA Sector Guidelines - Small Communities O&M Guidelines, 2010).
Record keeping among the Water and Sanitation Management Teams was found to be problematic. Less than half of the Water and Sanitation Management Teams that responded to the study kept technical, administrative and financial reports of their activities and shared them with the community.
The District Assembly is required by the CWSA - General (Rural and Small Towns) Guidelines, 2010 to monitor operations and maintenance of point sources and provide technical support to Water and Sanitation Management Teams. However, the baseline study revealed that only 14 out of 60 Water and Sanitation Management Teams received this support. The support provided by the District Assembly is inadequate and constraints the delivery capacity of the Water and Sanitation Management Teams.
Knowledge and information management play a key role in facilitating a culture of sharing information, best practice and experiences within the sector. However, learning at the district level is not well structured. Though many platforms exist for information sharing within the District Assembly, it is not systematically done for learning.
There is, however, evidence suggesting the District is positioning itself to improve on sharing and learning among water and sanitation sector stakeholders. A new coordinating group, the East Gonja WASH Platform mobilized and established by SNV, is seeking to address learning within the District by mobilizing stakeholders and other resources behind a locally thought through WASH plan that promotes harmonization and coordination of activities within the sector.
According to Hon. Mumuni, the Assembly recognizes the Water and Sanitation Management Teams urgent need for capacity building to enable them manage the facilities entrusted to them. As a result, the District Assembly has developed a water service delivery action plan to address the challenges identified with providing improved water services to the residents.
The plans indicate the formation and training of Water and Sanitation Management Teams in communities whose water management bodies have not had any training at all, refresher courses for existing teams, organizing platforms for learning, facilitating spare parts services and organizing citizen engagement processes. In addition, the District Assembly will also conduct financial audits of systems and carry out functionality tracking and service monitoring of both piped systems and point sources.
The plan is currently awaiting the approval of the Executive Committee of the District assembly. In the meantime, the Assembly has rehabilitated 3 water point sources (boreholes) in Jankpariba, Chachosi, and Mariche at a total cost of about GHc 1,200 cedis (US$ 600.00) as part of efforts in addressing specific findings in the baseline study..
July 25, 2012
Lamisi Dabire/Jeremiah Atengdem
