Collaboration and cross-border learning for a ripple effect in WASH access

Imagine a school where girls miss days of learning every month, not due to illness, but for a far more basic reason – fetching water. This was the reality for students in rural Iringa, Tanzania. Ms. Zaina Lusekelo, a dedicated teacher in this region, recalls and tells me of a time when the school's latrines were not well supplied, and the absence of water meant students (it usually ended up being the girls) had to spend precious learning hours fetching what was needed for the school. Today, thanks to the Sustainable Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Program (SRWSSP), the school has access to a consistent supply of water, enabling many girls to attend regularly, and as a result, improve their learning and performance at school.

Communities with limited access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) facilities experience daily despair and frustration. The distance traveled to access water disrupts family life, and unclean water sources cause disease. Water is a priority, and its multiple uses make it a non-negotiable for families and for those of us working in development. It not only facilitates economic growth, health, and well-being, but when it is safe, it has a transformative impact on individuals and communities, inspiring a brighter future.

Unfortunately, access to basic water supply and sanitation has decreased over the last two decades. As of 2020, 37 million more Africans LACK basic water supply and 247 million more are WITHOUT basic sanitation. This underscores the pressing need for action and our collective responsibility to address this issue. We must urgently improve water access in the region.

To exchange experiences and galvanize support for this critical issue, we recently organized a hybrid learning roundtable for sector stakeholders in Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe -  ‘Bringing WASH Solutions Closer to People’. We brought together government officials from the four countries, including Engineer Mwajuma Waziri, the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Water in Tanzania, as well as development partners, private sector representatives, members of civil society and academia, alongside WASH advocates in the three countries.

This is what we heard from them:

No country has solved all its WASH challenges and sharing successes and lessons learned is crucial. Stakeholders shared knowledge by highlighting best practices and lessons from implementing water projects in their countries. Participants stressed the importance of ensuring that investments consistently result in reliable water supply and functioning sanitation facilities. This calls for good stewardship and commitment beyond short-term goals, aiming to improve the lives of those in need over the long-term.

To improve interventions in the sector, participants suggested using targeted analytics, research, and data management to inform national strategies, adopting results-based approaches to shift mindsets and operations, and enhancing multi-stakeholder collaboration to strengthen system design and sustainability.

In Zambia, the government has successfully introduced results-based contracts to safely manage fecal sludge in low-income communities of Lusaka. Residents shared how the approach provided a responsive, well-managed, and safe practice of removing fecal sludge from their environments, a significant improvement over previous methods. The government team also shared how sludge collected is safely treated and reused as manure.

Roundtable participants across the border from Zambia learned how the utility managed to persuade communities to embrace the sludge-to-manure initiative, considering the stigma associated with sludge and heard strategies for encouraging private sector involvement in low-income areas and motivating citizens to pay for more professionalized services.

The Tanzania Rural Water and Sanitation Agency showcased how they spearheaded systems change to address and manage WASH service delivery in rural areas under the SRWSSP. This program has been a game-changer for rural Tanzania, providing over 4.7 million people in rural areas with access to safe drinking water. It has improved sanitation and hygiene facilities in households, schools, and healthcare centers. This comprehensive approach has led to a ripple effect of positive changes: improved hygiene practices, a major reduction in disease burden, and an increase in school completion rates, particularly for girls.

The Zimbabwe government presented the benefits of their Dam Rehabilitation Prioritization Tool (DRPT). This innovative tool takes the guesswork out of dam rehabilitation. Using a multi-criteria scoring system to assess each dam, the tool helps ensure resources are directed to the ones that most need intervention, while improving water security. This data-driven approach has been a boon for the Zimbabwe National Water Authority and the Ministry of Water. Now, dams identified for rehabilitation are more likely to be included in the annual budgets. Building on the DPRT’s success, officials are now developing a comprehensive online Management Information System. This will create a detailed map of all dam infrastructure in Zimbabwe, allowing for even more efficient planning and management of this vital resource.

Information was shared on how the tool incorporates catchment management needs, ensuring the health of the entire water system and not just the dam itself and how weather data was integrated. The discussion also touched on the training process for data collectors and validators.

As we concluded the discussion, I felt a sense of hope for the future in the experiences, questions, and insights exchanged. WASH accessibility remains a top priority for the World Bank in the region. Bridging the rural-urban divide and ensuring everyone has access to this fundamental human right has never been more urgent. No doubt sustainability will remain a cornerstone of successful WASH interventions. And, as participants also highlighted, governments cannot tackle this challenge alone. Effective partnerships between governments, communities, and the private sector, capitalizing on the strengths of each of these actors, are key to achieving tangible improvements in people's lives. Through concerted effort and innovative collaboration, we can amplify the impact of these initiatives, creating significant and lasting change.