WASHCost Ghana influencing other projects

The WASHCost project has in recent months been influencing quite a number of other programmes and projects in Ghana. They include:

• Facilitating a scoping visit of the Sustainable Services at Scale (Triple-S) project.
• Collaboration on sector news publications with the Resource Centre Network (RCN) Ghana.
• WASHCost Ghana at WaterAid Ghana WASH sector review meeting.
• WASHCost Ghana helped facilitate a SWITCH Learning Alliance meeting

Support to Triple-S scoping in Ghana

WASHCost Ghana has been involved in facilitating the scoping visit to Ghana of the Sustainable Services at Scale (Triple-S) project team from IRC. Ton Schouten and Tania Verdemato were in Ghana from 1-5 of June 2009. The team had discussions with directors of key water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) institutions such as Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA),the Water Directorate (WD) of Ministry of Water Resources Works and Housing (MWRWH), along other development partners including DANIDA and UNICEF Ghana.

The scoping results help the team to better understand the Ghana WASH sector, how to liaise with some WASH institutions and what synergy possibilities exist with the WASHCost project in Ghana.

Collaboration with Resource Centre Network (RCN) Ghana

RCN Ghana held an RCN core group meeting of institutions (WASHCost, WaterAid Ghana, TREND/TPP, CONIWAS, CWSA, SAFISANA, and WSMP) on 4 June 2009 to discuss issues on sector news publications and contributions from core group members. WASHCost Ghana has submitted an article to be published in the next RCN Ghana WASH newsletter.

RCN held an RCN Facilitation Training Workshop on 19th of June 2009 to strengthen national capacities for better learning in the WASH sector. The workshop was geared towards improving the facilitation and presentation skills of core RCN partners under the PSO capacity development training programme. Participants brought out challenges they face as facilitators in their institutions. IRC's Joep Verhagen was the main facilitator for this workshop.

WASHCost Ghana at WaterAid Ghana WASH Sector Review Meeting

WASHCost Ghana is increasingly gaining recognition in the WASH sector. Water Aid Ghana invited WASHCost Ghana to join their Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Sector Review and Analysis Meeting on the 18 of June. Patrick Moriarty, Alex Obuobisa-Darko, Michele Adjei-Fah and Nick Dickinson contributed to this meeting.

WaterAid Ghana realised that for proper planning of their WASH programmes they and their local partners need to know the life cycle cost of providing WASH services. Hence WASHCost as a programme will be of greater benefit to the sector.

WASHCost Ghana at SWITCH Project Learning Alliance Meeting

WASHCost on behalf of the Learning Alliance (LA) was also asked to assist in the facilitation of an LA meeting of the Sustainable Water Management Improves Tomorrow’s Cities Health (SWITCH) project, another IRC supported project in Ghana from the 23 - 24 of June 2009. Accra is one of the cities involved. This 2007-2012 project (www.switchurbanwater.eu) aims to achieve sustainable and healthy urban water environment through research, training and demonstration activities in Integrated Urban Water Management. The meeting focused on revisiting the vision, scenarios and strategic directions for the Accra LA and validate results of research and institutional mapping. The results of the research would be applied to the development of the city strategic plan and the commitment of various stakeholders will be sought.

Based on WASHCost Newsletter 11, June/July 2009