Background
In May 2008 the government announced a new Water and Sanitation Initiative (WSI) of A$300m for the period 2008/9 to 20010/11. AusAID has been focussing on the design of the initiative and has begun preparing a new WASH policy and a Performance Evaluation Framework.
The focus on the WASH Reference Group (WRG) has been engaging in the WSI design, embedding WASH within country strategies and initiating community of practice work on hygiene promotion. As the end of the WSI is now only 20 months away the WRG has began trying to understand the process and timelines for future budget measures with the aim of ensuring further Australian finance for WASH to meet Australia's fair share of the WASH MDG funding. There was one full meeting of the WRG in this period, one ExCom meeting and one meeting between the WRG and AusAID.
Water and Sanitation Initiative Peer Reviews
In the last quarter four peer reviews have taken place. Jane Bean (Oxfam) represented the WRG on the review of funding to South Asia in August; Juliet Willetts (ISF) participated in the Indonesia peer review in August; James Wicken (WaterAid) represented the WRG on the review of support for Philippines in September; Rod Jackson, World Vision, participated in the Africa peer review in September. A design review of support to Solomons is planned for late November.
WASH in AusAID strategies – a review
A review of WASH in AusAID country strategies was completed by Tara Howes, an intern at ISF. One of the aims of the WASH Reference Group (WRG) is to increase Australia's response to the global sanitation and water crisis. As much of AusAID's planning and budgeting is done on a country or regional basis, the WRG has been engaging in AusAID strategy reviews, through ACFID, to try to embed WASH within strategies for those countries and regions where significant support is needed to promote water, sanitation and hygiene. To help the WRG decide where to focus its effort, we conducted this review to map the level of inclusion of WASH in country and regional strategies.
The findings are presented as a one page picture (attached), accompanied by a report which provides more detail on each country and identifies possibilities for inclusion of WASH. The report suggests that in several countries where access to WASH is poor, there may be opportunities to embed WASH within existing development pillars in country and regional strategies, for example health, education, infrastructure or rural development.
Disability Inclusive WASH programming in Timor Leste
A group of seven professionals from WASH NGOs and DPOs in Timor Leste have just completed an Australian Leadership Award program on disability inclusive WASH programming. The Fellows have now returned to home armed with new skills and knowledge, enthused and with an action plan to develop demonstration projects and influence sector guidelines and WASH policies.
Pre-budget submission
The WRG provided to ACFID content for the ACFID pre-budget submission on WASH with a range of calls around increased volume of spending and improved effectiveness.
Meeting with AusAID on 11th September
This was the first full meeting of the group with AusAID since March and covered – the make up of the WSI spending; integrating WASH into country strategies; the AusAID WASH strategy; increasing priority for WASH after the WSI – what are the processes and timeframes and what roles do we all play?; update on the civil society partnerships component of the WSI; Capacity Building.
Community of Practice on Hygiene Promotion
This year the WRG has decided to focus its community of practice work on Hygiene Promotion. We know that hygiene promotion is one of the most effective ways of reducing diarrhea risk and considered to be the single most cost effective public health intervention (World Bank). Yet it is frequently overlooked by the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector. We also know from our own experiences how difficult it can be to bring about sustainable behavior change and reach the desired outcomes from our hygiene promotion programs.
WASH Reference Group members have begun collecting information on approaches adopted by their partners as part of an exercise to share and learn from experiences. WaterAid submitted an application to the AusAID Innovations
Fund to support this community of practice work. If you are also interested in getting involved please contact james.wicken@wateraid.org.au
Looking Forward
- World Toilet Day, 19th November – join the Australian Toilet Organisation and WaterAid at the Sanitation is Dignity: Where would you hide? installation and the Big Squat in Melbourne. For more info visit www.wateraid.org.au
- Knowledge Sharing in the WASH sector – come along to this workshop featuring Rene Van Liethorst, International Water and Sanitation Resource Centre, Netherlands, and Iftikhar Hussain (ALA fellow from WESNET Pakistan) on 24th November 2009 at the Nossal Institute for Global Health.
For more information contact Naomi Carrard at Naomi.Carrard@uts.edu.au - Next meeting - the next meeting of the WRG with AusAID is tentatively scheduled for end November/ early December and will likely focus on – the WASH strategy, the Performance Evaluation Framework and the ODE evaluation of AusAID's water and sanitation program.
How to get involved
If you would like to join the WRG please get in touch with James Wicken at WaterAid Australia – james.wicken@wateraid.org.au
James Wicken on behalf of Wash Reference Group, Executive Committee, November 2009
