Triple-S Uganda, NETWAS launch capacity building programme

Published on: 11/11/2011

In a bid to improve WASH governance, Triple-S Uganda and NETWAS Uganda have launched a capacity building programme for Water Users, Water User Committees (WUCs), Water and Sanitation Service Boards (WSSBs). The programme will cover Busoro and Buheesi sub counties in Kabarole and Lira and Barr sub-counties in Lira district.

The programme aims to strengthen capacities of WUCs and WSSBs to fulfil their mandated responsibilities; empower water users to monitor and assess the performance of service providers and to improve communication between water users and water service providers. This is premised on the assumption that good governance, manifested as transparency and accountability, is key to the provision of water services that last. A water integrity study conducted by the World Bank in 2009 showed that 90% of water users did not trust their Water User Committees, especially in respect to the management of water user fees.

To kick start the programme, NETWAS conducted inception visits to the selected sub counties in Lira and Kabarole, to identify the key issues around WASH governance. The inception visits also aimed to explore opportunities for collaboration and assess the attitudes of stakeholders.

Preliminary findings from the inception visits indicated the following governance issues in both districts:

• Inadequate planning and monitoring: Owing to budgetary constraints, the DWOs can only hold one-day DWSCC meetings. Even then, these meetings do not fully focus on planning and monitoring. In addition, there are limited budgets to set up sub-county level coordination, particularly in Kabarole district. In addition, there is inadequate reporting by extension workers.
• Training of WUCS, WSSBs and local leaders: Training of WUCS usually focuses on newly established sources and leaves out the older ones. Also, newly elected councillors are unaware of their roles and responsibilities because they have not been trained.
• Community attitude: Water users have a negative attitude towards operation and maintenance of sources, seen in their reluctance to contribute monthly user fees. Moreover, there are very many alternative sources of water – albeit unsafe.
• Untrustworthy water user committees: Some of the users will not make monthly contributions because some members of the Water User Committees are unscrupulous and not accountable. They cannot be trusted with money. Moreover, there are not structures to audit the WUC treasuries.
• It was also found that the selection of WUC members is not transparent in some areas.

The latter stages of the capacity building programme will include a variety of activities namely: a baseline survey and capacity assessment to inform the training package. This will focus on identifying existing capacity gaps in the WUCs and WSSBs. The capacity assessment will result into the development of an assessment tool which can be used by any other actors wishing to undertake a similar initiative. It will build on the Service Delivery Indicators already developed by Triple-S.

The assessment will be followed by the training of WUCs and WSSBs. The training will also be extended to the Water Users to enhance their capacity to monitor and assess the performance of service providers. After three months of implementation, action learning sessions will be organised to reflect on the whole process, identify lessons and challenges and use those to take the programme to another level.