SuSanA Secretariat:

2 posts are running on sanitation governance. The secretariat may like to group the 2 posts in one.

Thanks,

F H Mughal


Note by moderator (EvM): the other thread you are referring to (forum.susana.org/forum/categories/21-eve...olm-world-water-week) is strictly about that meeting in Stockholm. Any content discussions should take place here, not there.

I read with attention responses from respodents and do agree and disagree to some comments. Yes, we cannot dissociate water and sanitation as both are considered as essential services. Today you will agree with me that more focus is being put in water than sanitation; as evidence statistics regarding access to water are often higher that those of sanitation. We should ask a question why is this the case? The answer is simple, most of policy and legislative framework put more emphasis on water than sanitation... the implementation of these polcies is consider often access to water as benchmark for assessing the performance - not sanitation.

I strongly believe that there should be strong focus on sanitation governance given that the way sanitation is being provided and managed consider number of factors that are different from water.

I agree with Tina that we should consider sanitation governance as a burning topic. I would like to thank everyone for useful feedback and documentation provided but I will still like to explore this field of sanitation governance as well... findings will be shared later.

Chris

Hi Tina,
And thanks for bringing this topic up.
In my recent experience (which I imagine isn't that different to many other people posting on here) I've been working generally in the context of relatively recently decentralised authorities which have been charged with a whole range of responsibilities at a local level (for example collecting municipal taxes, responsibiltiy for water supplies and sanitation). Looking at this from an organisational point of view, these authorities are for the most part struggling to fulfil their role, which often sees a transfer of responsibility but not of resources to the local level. The major challenge here that I have seen for these structures is simply to avail of the necessary capacities to even work as a local authority. With relation to governance I feel that a general overall non-sector specific support is what works best. Hard pressed councils adopt pragmatic, context specific solutions based on their organisational capacities. Governance in this context at local Level seems primarily to require a high Level of organisatinal capacity to allocate the limited resources to the panoply of responsibilities that the local authority is responsible for.

For me, improving governance of anything is a management / organisational development issue that is the core of capacity building efforts in programmes and projects supporting government or local authorities (for example as part of a decentralisation process). These should support the creation of a capable institutional framework into which sanitation people (or for that matter water supply people, infrastructure planners or whatever) can then place knowledge and capacity through targeted capacity building measures. What’s the use in reinventing the wheel when there are already enough people working in governance? Of course there are certain sanitation specific aspects, but in the grand scheme of things they are hardly rocket science. The trick is to get functioning governing structures first of all and not to start some kind of sectoralisation of the topic of governance.

Putting it a little simply Governance is important for sanitation, sanitation is not so important for governance. Sanitation operates within the framework of good governance (including legislative and institutional frameworks) but that Framework is not exclusive to sanitation. There are a few aspects of sanitation that will require particular attention (for example the multitude of actors usually involved), but that does not justify fracturing governance into sector specific slices I think.

all the best,
Patrick

Dear Tina,

GWP has some nice publications related to the topic, however more about water:
www.gwptoolbox.org/index.php?option=com_...icle&id=36&Itemid=61
www.gwptoolbox.org/images/stories/gwplib...nd/tec_7_english.pdf

FYI, we are currently working on a policy guidance paper on small scale water supply and sanitation in the European Region under the WHO/UNECE led Protocol on Water and Health. WECF is in charge of the sanitation part, I can share the draft with you soon,

Claudia

tina wrote: I would like to get an overview on who is tackling this topic, and what are the areas

Hi Tina, there seems to be very little on governance specifically focussing on sanitation, but quite a lot on water and sanitation, or on water only.

I think (as I already said in my email) that it makes probably more sense not to seperate water and sanitation when tackling governance. But seen the present dominance of water issues also in the governance field, perhaps it makes sense to look into where sanitation issues are currently too much neglected in governance issues.

Ok, here some initatives on governance in water and sanitation that come to my mind (absolutely non-exhaustive):

- Water Governance Facility www.watergovernance.org/
- Water Integrity Network: www.waterintegritynetwork.net/ and also TI: archive.transparency.org/global_prioriti.../corruption_in_water
- Benchmarking Network for Water and Sanitation Utilities, IBNET: www.ib-net.org/
- IWA, O&M www.iwahq.org/n0/themes/water-supply-ser...tenance-network.html and

Some other initatives that focus only on water supply, but still could give ideas on what could be done on sanitation:
- Water Services that last (triple-S, IRC): www.waterservicesthatlast.org/
- Rural Water Supply Network, work group on managament: www.rural-water-supply.net/en/management-and-support

Dear all

thanks a lot for your reply and valuable input! Some of you who follow the post may wonder why I dont reply, but I follow the moderator's advice and use the "contact" button to say thank you

I have another question: do you know which organisations are dealing with this topic, organisations that have a special task force / working group on "sanitation governance"? I would like to get an overview on who is tackling this topic, and what are the areas - as Florian says it's a wide field.

@ F H Mugal: I am just at the beginning but surely will keep you all posted!

Once more, Thanks for all your input!
Best,
Tina

Dear Tina,

I'm attaching a third publication. This should help you by providing you background information. It is a WaterAid publication.

Regards,

F H Mughal

Dear Tina,

While Florian and Cecília are right, you are, in your own way, also right. In addition, there is good governance and bad governance. You are, obviously, implying good governance.

I have 2 publications that might interest you. One is on the importance of good governance. It is UNESCAP-UNDP-ADB joint publication. The other one is also on good governance. It is a UNESCAP paper. I’m attaching these 2 publications.

Please keep us posted on your research work. Your topic is very interesting.

Regards,

F H Mughal

Hi Tina,

Nice to meet you! It's a pity we haven't met in Eschborn (I was there until January).

I am also working and researching on sanitation governance, but as Florian mentioned there are several tiers. In my MSc thesis I looked at stakeholders involvement - public, private and civil society in sanitation projects in East Africa (www.susana.org/lang-en/library?view=ccbktypeitem&type=2&id=1615). Now I am particularly interested in inter-governmental and inter-sectoral coordination.

In the GIZ sanitation program in India, we are dealing mainly with the public sector and institutional coordination between federal, state and municipal level. In other words, how to implement a national policy in the local level. Well, it sounds simple but I could stay a whole day only describing all the intricacies...

Maybe a good start could be to make a review of the governance components of GIZ country programs on sanitation. I am sure they will cover a wide range of governance aspects.

Furthermore, I can recommend you the PhD thesis of Christoph Lüthi (eawag/sandec, working group 6 leader). He has a chapter on urban governance and public services provision: opus.kobv.de/tuberlin/volltexte/2012/3692/

Good luck and keep us posted!

Cecília.

Hi Tina,

I'd be interested to hear what aspects or levels of governance you are interested in (governance is a wide field). As you are new in the giz programme, I guess you are planning to develop some activities on sanitation governance? Would be interesting to hear more about this.

I myself am dealing a lot with governance related to sanitation (and water supply), but then I think everybody working in sanitation probably is, perhaps with the exception of those solely focussing on technology development (ok, a lot of those here in this forum). In my work, governance is mainly relevant when dealing with structures for operation and maintenance of communal sanitation systems (community organisations, small or large utilities), with legal and regulatory framework for sanitation, wastewater discharge, etc. and with mechanisms for funding/subsidising the extension of sanitation coverage.

Best, Florian

I could probably link you to some of my colleagues at UWASNET who are active in that area (although maybe not mainly in the sanitation sector, but rather general WASH, as the sanitation sub-sector is a bit underdeveloped in Uganda).
UWASNET is also a good starting point to get in contact with other organizations working with WASH governance in East Africa, but as I'm personally are not that much involved I can't give you more details.
But please send me your email address and I try my best.

(Note by moderator: this is by the way one example where the contact button can be used to exchange email addresses between two forum users or to send a quick thank you message. When you press the contact button on the left you are able to enter a short message with only 360 characters. @Tina: you can use this function to share you email address with Julius. However, don't then move the interesting conversation to e-mail, rather discuss it here. Rgds Trevor)

Dear all,

my name is Tina and I am a new team member of the sustainable sanitation program of GIZ, and now also a member of the SuSanA secretariat. My background is IWRM with focus on sanitation. I lived and worked in the MENA region for a long time, mainly in Egypt, so currently I try to get used to clouds and rain again

Amongst others I am working on the topic of "sanitation governance" or, more precisely, "governance in the sanitation sector". In this regard I would like to know who of you is (or was) active in this field and dealing with the topic?
Currently I am collecting information on activities and try to get an overview on who is working in this area, what is already existing, which organisations are doing what, etc. I will be glad to connect with you and know more about your activities in this particular field! Also, I appreciate any kind of information (documents, links, etc.) you can provide me with.

Thanks for your help and I hope for a fruitful exchange
Tina