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Every day, local authorities in Africa demonstrate their commitment to fulfilling their new responsibilities for improving water and sanitation services. Nevertheless, to enable them to mobilize finance, attract the requisite skills, access the relevant information and build a strategic vision of water and sanitation service development within their area, their capacities need to be further reinforced. The concerted municipal strategy development process aims to assist them with addressing these challenges.
Water and sanitation are local public services around which it is possible to develop local capacity and good governance practices. Thus, local authority ownership of its role in providing these public services is hugely important for local democracy.
In order to achieve the targets set by the international community for increasing coverage of water and sanitation services, local authorities need to involve all relevant partners - not only civil society organizations, but also local private operators – in implementing appropriate actions.
The proposed approach for addressing these challenges is the development of concerted municipal strategies, an approach which has been piloted in 15 towns in West Africa (Abomey in Benin, Koudougou in Burkina Faso, Rosso in Mauritania, Tahoua in Niger, Ziguinchor and Louga in Senegal), Central Africa (Dschang and Ebolowa in Cameroon, Dolisie in Republic of the Congo and Bandundu in the Democratic Republic of Congo) and in East Africa (Debre Birhan in Ethiopia, Nyeri in Kenya, Masaka in Uganda and Moshi in Tanzania).
The term CMS refers to a:
– concerted: it results from listening to all stakeholders and involving them in every step of the process to ensure their participation in implementing the strategy;
– municipal: it applies to the entire local authority area;
– intervention: it results in immediately feasible actions that visibly and rapidly improve both practices and the outlook for future medium and long-term actions;
– strategy: a guidance document that sets out a vision tailored to a demand and to financial and management capacities.
Development of a concerted municipal strategy is a process that needs to be locally led and promoted by the mayor and his municipal team. The commitment of the municipal council is required to ensure the process is fully incorporated into local planning; this thus provides elected officials with an ideal opportunity to discuss water and sanitation services with all stakeholders and to develop real legitimacy.
The need for a facilitator
To successfully implement this discussion process, it is recommended that an external facilitator be used; one who has proven skills and experience and whose legitimacy stems from national level, placing him above local issues. His neutrality will enable him to both facilitate sometimes heated debates and bring a new and objective perspective to actors' issues.
This facilitator needs to have high level mediation and facilitation skills. Sound expert knowledge of the field of water supply and sanitation is also required to enable the facilitator to undertake a detailed examination of the technical issues and most appropriate solutions with each category of actor. The role can thus be summarized in two words: mediator and expert.
The role required of the facilitator is to be particularly attentive to the views of the local actors during the diagnostic phase. During the consultation phase for developing the strategy, whilst remaining attentive, he also needs to be creative, actively seek new solutions and provide expertise.
The three steps of the process
The process of developing a CMS involves three main steps:
• Step one: conducting a concerted and detailed diagnostic that includes both a socio-economic and technical component. The aim of this diagnostic is to provide a clear overview of the water and sanitation infrastructure situation at town level. It takes into account all the various water and sanitation-related practices employed by the population, particularly focusing both on initiatives already in place for seeking local, adapted solutions and on issues specific to different neighborhoods or different segments of the population. It is also essential to analyze the actors of both supply and demand and remain attentive to their expectations and perception of the service.
• Step two: sharing and discussing the diagnostic findings with all stakeholders. Both the various actors involved in providing water and sanitation services and the users (the population) will have been identified during the diagnostic phase.
In most towns, there is no single system for water and sanitation, but rather many different systems and thus many different actors. Therefore, in order to define and implement actions tailored to the people's needs and capacities, it is important for local authorities to involve all the relevant partners: civil society organizations, the people (in the form of neighborhood organizations), as well as local private operators. Once the diagnostic has been completed, it must be publicly debated and collectively approved. This shared diagnostic serves as a reference for each actor, enabling him to identify the main challenges to be addressed.
• Step three: defining the intervention strategy. This provides a clear vision, shared by all local actors, of the water and sanitation situation within the municipal area. It sets out the agreed desired improvements and defines each actor's contribution to implementing these. In order to make the strategy workable, it includes a localized, realistic and time-bound action plan. The aim of this jointly developed and agreed action plan is to facilitate the synergy between local and external efforts, particularly those relating to finance.
A flexible innovation framework
A water supply and sanitation municipal strategy is not a fixed, overly-detailed framework, as this would inhibit innovation and initiative. Instead, the result of a consensus reached through consultation with the different actors, it is a framework that provides guidance and clarification and that guarantees sufficient sustainability to enable initiative and innovation to thrive. Initiative and innovation are both key to responding to changes in water and sanitation service levels and consumption methods. A strategy is a tool that makes it possible to better anticipate the future.
The consultation exercise
A collective learning and ownership process
Using consultation as a tool for developing a municipal strategy for water and sanitation results in the production of a concrete, shared and galvanizing strategy.
This consultation makes it possible to:
– take account of the perceptions, issues and opportunities of each actor with regard to existing services;
– provide information and stimulate collective discussion;
– bring together all local skills;
– support sustainable behavior change;
– ensure support for implementation of the strategy.
The consultation process is just as important as the resulting strategy document because of the educational and collective role it plays, stimulating learning, information and discussion and instilling a sense of ownership in all involved and in the population, in particular.
By bringing together actors of different types and with varying interests to develop the strategy, a well-designed and skillfully conducted consultation can ensure these actors take progressive ownership of the strategy and participate in its implementation, each at their respective level.
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