The sight of a young girl walking under the weight of a heavy jerrycan is all too commonplace in Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in the world. Ethiopia lags far behind in achieving the Millennium Development Goals and suffers from one of the lowest water supply and sanitation (WSS) coverage rates of any country in the world. Only 6 percent of Ethiopia’s 71 million population has access to improved sanitation and 22 percent to improved water supply. Over the years, the World Bank has been working with the Government of Ethiopia to improve access to WSS services. The World Bank’s analytical work -- such as a Country Water Resources Assistance Strategy and a water chapter in the 2003 Ethiopia Public Expenditure Review -- has helped guide sector reforms and integrate WSS to government planning.
Surface area: 1,100,000 km 2 Life expectancy: 42years GDP per capita: $100 USD
Human Development Index: 170 of 177 countries Below basic poverty line:44% Improved water access: 22% Improved sanitation access: 6%
In order to reach the MDGs: Need access to water:Â 44m Need access to sanitation:47m
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The World Bank also financed infrastructure facilities through a series of lending operations. From 1996 to 2003, the Water Sector Development and Rehabilitation (WSDR) Project piloted decentralized approaches for sustainable water supply services in a number of towns and rural communities.
World Bank support to the National Water Supply and Sanitation Program In 2004, the World Bank launched the Ethiopia Water Supply and Sanitation Project, which builds on earlier projects and scales up World Bank involvement in town and rural WSS. The project provides support to the Government of Ethiopia’s new National Water Supply and Sanitation Program. The program recognizes that increasing access to sustainable WSS services depends on more than just the construction of new facilities, which is why its emphasis is on developing institutional capacity at all levels.
The Ethiopia Water Supply and Sanitation Project specifically provides a US$75 million IDA credit and US$25 million IDA grant to improve approximately 5,500 rural water supply schemes serving 2 million people, and about 75 town water supplies serving 1 million people
The "Stepped Approach" The National Water Supply and Sanitation Program incorporates a demand-driven, performance-based approach for allocating assistance to towns and rural communities.Â
Towns and rural communities receive access to financial and technical resources in steps. They must meet certain targets before moving from one step to the next. The approach ensures that the government’s limited resources are only targeted to towns and rural communities that are capable and committed to improving their WSS systems.
The stepped-approach varies slightly for urban and rural WSS. The urban component of the program is helping towns establish Water Boards and improve the capacity of their local utility operators. The rural component, on the other hand, is providing financial assistance to woredas (rural districts) to help communities establish water supply and sanitation committees (WASHCOMs) and build facilities. WASHCOMs represent the communities in planning and managing their WSS facilities. WASHCOMs contract local artisans to operate and maintain the installed facilities.
Listening to what communities want The program’s emphasis on local government decision making reflects an overall government shift of responsibilities and resources to the lowest possible level. It contrasts markedly with the former centralized supply-driven approach whereby the Federal Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) identified, financed, and implemented WSS projects for towns and rural communities. Under the new program, the MWR and the Regional Water Bureaus (RWBs) refocus on facilitation, coordination, monitoring, and evaluation, while towns, woredas, and communities plan and implement the program.
The importance of capacity building Capacity building is essential in this decentralized approach. Years of central government decision making have left most local and regional entities without the capacity to identify and implement changes needed in their WSS systems, even though they are the ones best positioned to understand their communites’ needs.
How exactly, however, is all this capacity being developed? In order to build it, the program is relying on a system of international, national, and regional sector professionals working with one another to develop capacity across all levels and among all stakeholders—from the ministry down through to participating communities and local artisians.
International consultants are working with the MWR to train a group of national consultants, who are working with the RWBs to train a much larger group of regionally based sector professionals. These regional consultant teams are each responsible for assisting several Town Water Boards and woredas with preparing and implementing their WSS programs through each phase of the stepped approach. The regional consultancy teams also train local communities and artisans to operate and manage their own water supply and sanitation facilities.
The layered structure maximizes the number of sector professionals at every level that can be trained in a short period of time to speed up the expansion of WSS access. Over time, the fledging consultant groups will develop into private sector organizations that cansupport operations of town and rural WSS facilities on a professional basis.
Work in progress Implementation of the National Water Supply and Sanitation Program began in the fall of 2004 and is still in its early stages. international, national, and regional specialists have been contracted and trained. The RWBs have selected the first group of woredas and towns to participate in the program. These towns and woredas are now implementing Step 1. Woredas are equipping and training their RWSS teams, while towns are establishing or reinforcing their Town Water Boards. Towns and woredas are assessing their needs and planning how to meet them. Over the coming months, rural communities will be establishing WASHCOMs. At the same time, the first towns will be moving to Step 2 and will start making immediate service improvements.
Going forward The National Water Supply and Sanitation Program is altering the way the WSS business is conducted in Ethiopia. The program sustainably improves WSS access by focusing on capacity building at all levels and allocates limited government resources to where they will have the greatest impact.
The program demonstrates the government’s commitment and provides a road map for scaling up WSS access at an increased pace. The challenge now lies with the donor community, which has a history of piecemeal support to the WSS sector. Some donors have already expressed an interest in channeling their funding through the National Water Supply and Sanitation Program, and they should be encouraged. Only with increased and more coordinated aid can Ethiopia achieve the WSS MDGs.
The importance of capacity building
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