SWA partner the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) provided short-term funding to selected SWA partner countries, targeted specifically to improve sector co-ordination and collaboration in those countries. The funding was agreed in 2019, through SWA’s Mutual Accountability Mechanism. The aims of the funding were to help countries engage their sectors beyond government, to encourage an increasingly multi-stakeholder approach to water, sanitation and hygiene. The funding helped WSSCC work with SWA to strengthen sector civil society networks in different ways in four countries: Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria.
The move was warmly welcomed in Malawi, for example, where civil society organizations have been supported to participate in decision-making for the sector. The support has helped to include district and local actors in the Joint Sector Review process, which is a first for Malawi. National water, sanitation and hygiene policies are now being revised and improved to consider the most vulnerable populations, and ways of strengthening Malawi’s coordination platforms are also being explored. Dialogue has focused specifically on practical ways to embed SWA’s Framework to boost the country’s water, sanitation and hygiene sector.
In Malawi, the WSSCC support encouraged multi-stakeholder partners to work together, identifying marginalized populations and using the SWA Mutual Accountability Mechanism to bring those voices into sector review, planning, and monitoring conversations.
The funding is accompanied by technical support from SWA’s secretariat, which has helped to magnify its impact. In Kenya, the support has helped civil society organizations co-ordinate to consult with ministries responsible for health and water, sanitation and hygiene, establish a national sanitation steering committee, and develop a social accountability tool that can help better track funding and inclusion of those left behind in national policies. In Tanzania, the civil society water, sanitation and hygiene network has been supported to build evidence around financing efforts to eliminate open defecation. And in Nigeria civil society networks were supported in their advocacy efforts to mobilize government and other stakeholders to increase financial support for the sector, especially for the most vulnerable communities.
The grants provided by WSSCC show how relatively small amounts of catalytic funding can be particularly effective. When it is targeted at improving specific elements of sector strengthening, and combined with the sort of technical support provided by SWA, the funding can be an effective catalyst – improving sector accountability and boosting multi-stakeholder platforms and processes.