Common challenges raised by the three Ministries in their collaboration with UNICEF in 2014 were: - Delays in processing of payments by UNICEF -

Transcription

1 Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation & Development (MRRD) National Rural Water Supply, Sanitation & Irrigation Programme (Ru-WatSIP) UNICEF WASH Annual Review Meeting (ARM) On 9 th and 10 th of December 2014, the National Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Irrigation Program ( Ru-WatSIP) hosted with coordination of United Nations Children s Fund (UNICEF) a 2-day Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Annual Review Meeting (ARM) at the conference room of the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) in Kabul This two-day meeting, chaired by the Executive Director of Ru-WatSIP and the UNICEF Chief of WASH, aimed to review the accomplishments of the UNICEF supported WASH program as implemented by the line ministries including Ministry of Education (MoE), Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), MRRD/Ru-WatSIP as well as I/NGOs working with UNICEF on WASH, against the Annual Work Plan (AWP) The meeting was attended by 51 representatives and delegates from UNICEF and line ministries including Ministry of Education ( MoE), Ministry of Public Health ( MoPH), Ministry of Urban Development Affairs (MUDA) and, MRRD/RuWatSIP and I/NGOs including, Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA), Action Against Hunger (ACF), The Deutsche Gesellschaftfür Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugee (DACAAR) and Ray Construction Development Company (RCDC). On the first day of the meeting, Acting Minister of MRRD HE Mohammad Tariq Ismati inaugurated the meeting with his opening speech, mentioning that the annual review meetings effective in identifying the gaps and shortcomings for the achievements against the Annual Work Plan (AWP) of HE encouraged the audience to carefully consider these shortfalls in the AWP for the upcoming year (2015). He asked the WASH partners to strengthen the coordination among their activities in WASH and prioritize the most vulnerable areas in their work plans for the next year. Following the acting minister speech, UNICEF Chief of WASH, Rolf Luyendijk made some opening remarks, encouraging the participants to discuss successes and think creatively how to accelerate progress towards universal access to drinking water and sanitation and ending open defecation in Afghanistan. He asked participants to come up with a list of priorities to ensure better use, increased sustainability and quality of new and existing services. He gave a short presentation about discussions, facilitated by UNICEF and the World Health Organization at global level about new Post-2015 WASH targets for the new Sustainable Development Agenda. These tentative targets call for universal access by the year He added that UNICEF will support the different Ministries to end open defecation in Afghan communities by 2025 and ensure that every Afghan teacher and student have access to safe drinking water and hand washing facilities. 1

2 After this, the executive director of Ru-WatSIP, Eng. Ghulam Qader, delivered a comprehensive presentation explaining the achievements made by Ru-WatSIP in the field of WASH, challenges against the progress and future plan. He emphasized on the coordination among the line ministries and I/NGOs working the WASH sector of Afghanistan. He reminded that the flow of donations for WASH from foreign donors has declined over the past years; therefore, the WASH sector should come up with strong evidence-based plan until sufficient budget is obtained for the sector in the country. He also mentioned about importance of MIS/GIS for planning investment and coordination which is under development. After lunch, the participants attended a live webinar about the relationship between sanitation and stunting a form of malnutrition irreversibly affecting the cognitive development and susceptibility for opportunistic infections of young children during the first 1,000 days after conception. The webinar was given by Mr. Oliver Cumming, lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK. After the webinar, Eng. Omar Azizi, Special Advisor to the Minister of the MoE and Dr. Shafiqullah Hemat, Director of Health Promotion of the MoPH delivered their presentations about their respective achievements under the 2014 UNICEF supported WASH program on WASH in Schools and Hygiene Promotion. They each highlighted several challenges and listed plans for

3 Common challenges raised by the three Ministries in their collaboration with UNICEF in 2014 were: - Delays in processing of payments by UNICEF - Unpredictability of funding - Limited implementation capacity at decentralized levels - Poor monitoring and lack of coordination for targeting of WASH interventions across different ministries Brief outcomes of the first day: Policy: Relevant policies are available related to WASH. Need to follow up how partners are using them. Operation and Maintenance (O&M) : Institutionalization is crucial O&M for quality inspection. World Bank providing fund for O&M so it needs enforcing. Information/ data: All relevant information s/ data should be available for WASH partners for better targeting and avoid duplication. Co-ordination: Strengthening coordination among three ministries e.g. MoE, MRRD and MoPH for better planning on hygiene promotion and strategic sustainability. Joint secretary could be considered to follow on regular basis regarding progress on WASH among three ministries. Capacity building: Capacity building at provincial level needs to be enhanced to implement the project. Integration& cost-effectiveness: Integration of hard ware and software is required to change behavior and need better coordination for cost- effectiveness. Consistency: Need consistency on messages related WASH promote by the three ministries on hygiene promotion. Co-location: Co-location is required to promote hygiene practice like hand washing promotion at hospital. Technical paper: Technical paper on MHM and CLTS are required for advocacy. Documentation: Documentation on success stories for advocacy. Advocacy: Donor level advocacy is not adequate for resource mobilization. Advocacy is required within the ministry (Minister) for WASH. Advocacy should be continued for increased funding to WASH. 3

4 Apply theory of change: Synergy, social norms, habit change not behavior, quality of service, knowledge management and research should adapted in future implementation of WASH. UNICEF role: Make better use of UNICEF conquering power and play neutral role. Monitoring: Increase monitoring for accountability (HACT). Conclusion: Recommended to three C approach e.g. Coordination, Capacity and Commitment Challenges was discussed for the second day group work DACAAR WET Centre will continue to provide in full strength its WASH capacity building, consulting and technical support, action researches and water quality testing services to client organizations (NGOS, UN, Government and Private Sector) in 2015, and beyond. Could not manage to achieve the financial target as per WASH policy Process on new strategic benchmark preparation (how do we do it?) Engagement of big donor in WASH especially in Sanitation and Hygiene. Role of Ministry of Economic and Development in WASH at central level The geographical focus for intervention made by UNCIEF which has created problem for other areas that cannot be focused under UNICEF funding. On the second day of the meeting (10 December 2014), each of the participants was asked to come up with a brief recapture from the previous day meeting. Most of the participants expressed their opinions and lessons they had learned in the previous day meeting. Mr. Rolf Luyendijk, Chief of WASH of UNICEF presented the six WASH outputs of the Country Program Action Plan agreed upon between the representatives of different Ministries of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and UNICEF in November He also presented the total budget ceiling for the five-year period of US$63 million. He reiterated that UNICEF currently has secured funding for 44% of $63 million for the five years and has only 80% of its 2015 budget covered. Mr. Luyendijk called upon the representatives of the different Ministries to speak with one voice to donors about WASH and relay their confidence of their collaboration with UNICEF on WASH to different bi-lateral donors. Then all the participants were divided into four groups and were asked to discuss among themselves and come up with some comments, opinions and recommendation for the improvement and acceleration of WASH activities in the country. After a long discussion among the group members, each of the group come up with some recommendations for the improvement of the WASH activities in the country. Recommendations made by the four groups are listed below: Group work Acceleration of service provision Building/ developing capacity at provincial level Scaling up of best practices Identifying, documenting and creating 4

5 Advocacy for fund raising Presenting WASH achievements and goals to partners and people Enhance political support for WASH by the government Coordination, contextualization and information sharing. Line ministries should identify their ToRs Coordination among ministries Providing policies and guidelines for the I/NGOs The WASH policy should be revised by three line ministries The WASH annual\action plans should be timely approved and shared Decentralization of contracting and procurement procedures Simplification of financial procedures Public awareness and behavior communication change Need assessment for all WASH services awareness (CLTS, MHM, etc) Documentation of best projects Review of WASH projects Identification of best achievements and rewarding The services should be simple, scalable and sustainable and cost effective The MIS system should be in placed at national/provincial levels Sharing of lessons learned among line ministries WASH standards should unified among line ministries considering local context The services should be gender based needs The WASH key messages should be placed in schools curriculums and literacy courses CLTS approach should be scaled up House to house visit including other interventions of communication strategy Base line formatting and research School child club promotion Exchange visit ( internal and external) Providing quality, sustainable and functional services Using the existing/ new data for quality and functionality Standardization of WASH facility and enforcement Building capacity/ involvement of private sector Promote user friendly facility and cost effectiveness Subsidy to private sector for sustainable production Conduct hydrogeological studies/ feasibility studies Finalize and endorse and implement O&M Policy and structure Monitoring by different sectors including joint monitoring Involving the community in all phases of the projects including monitoring Exit strategy should be in place for sustainability Identifying existing strategy policy Operation and maintenance of the project The WASH component QC/QA policy and Better targeting and prioritization Use existing data/ conduct need assessment Afghan context CLTS Increasing public awareness Evidence based implementation of projects MIS system to target actual needs Using available data from national and sub national researches/surveys (NRVA, MICS, NNS ) Community Involvement (CDCs/DDA, Health Shura, School Shura ) Before implementation, technical survey along with need assessment should be conducted Mapping system should be created for all provinces Evidence based three category prioritization of vulnerable areas Integrated approach 5

6 strategy should be developed WASH MIS system should be in placed Post evaluation of services should be practiced and gathered, data should be used for future planning Public awareness and behavior change communication Developing of standard designs as per context Goods suppliers should provide quality services to beneficiary Social marketing on sanitation Operation and maintain policy should include collection of data Increasing accountability Joint monitoring and Evaluation On time reporting and documenting. Supervision of projects Selecting committed people Bi-Annual review of achievements Establishment of regular reporting system Improving coordination secretariat MIS/GIS system Afterwards Rolf, UNICEF chief of WASH, summarized, all the four groups and emphasized on strengthening and enhancing of four issues including coordination, capacity building, fund raising and cost effectiveness. At the end of the meeting, Rolf mentioned the meeting a useful one and assured the participants that all their opinions and recommendation will be taken into consideration during revising the AWP for 2015 and thanked the attendees for their participations. Engineer Mohammad Afzel Safi of the MRRD closed the meeting and thanked the participants for their attendance and contributions. 6