Report on Joint SWAp Learning Event for the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene sector
in Ethiopia, November 2006
1. Key data
Country: Ethiopia Sector: WASH – Water, Sanitation and Dates: 21-23 novemeber
Hygiene
No. of participants Government Donors Civil Society
M F M F M F
3-days event 2 1 12 0 4 1
Senior level event 13 (9 DP, 2 govt, 2 NGO)
Facilitators (names) Nils Boesen (last minute regrets from Desiree Dietvorst for health
reasons)
Residential /Non- Non-residential
residential
2. Evaluation summary
Evaluation Summary Average (1 =
excellent, 4 = not
satisfactory
1. Achievement of the objectives of the event 1.8
2. Relevance of the event to my work 1.5
3. Balance between “theory” and “practice” 1.9
4. Mix of methods used 2.0
5. Materials provided 1.7
6. Quality of group work exercises 2.3
7. Facilitator’s communication skills 1.3
8. Logistics and overall organisation 1.5
Overall average 1.7
3. Key issues from the evaluation formats:
88% of the scores were very good or good, 12% satisfactory. Lowest average score for a
participant was 2.7. Donors scored at the same level as non-state participants. See the
detailed score in the annex.
Overall, the key messages from the evaluation formats are:
The participation was not optimal: government, including the Min. of Finance, and
regions should have been much stronger represented.
The financial management module and the financing issue was an eye-opener for a
number of participants
Clear wish to take the process forward, both among donors and civil society
participants.
Group sessions could have been better structured, but overall there was satisfaction
with content, process and methods.
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See the summary of comments in the annex.
4. Status of the SWAp, the Sector Programme and donor support to the sector
programme:
Within the context of a EU Water Initiative, government and donors have over 2006 come
together to take the first moves towards a SWAp in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
(WASH) sector . A first joint review of sector status was made in August, leading to a
multistakeholder forum in October 2006 where agreement was reached about a number of
shorter and medium term actions.
The WASH sector is composed of three subsectors, covering part of the mandates of the
Ministries of Water, Health and Education, respectively. An MOU has been signed
between these three formally structuring their cooperation and coordination, but the
mechanisms outlined have yet to be implemented. NGOs are estimated to deliver around
20% of services in the sector.
Decentralisation
A key concern for all partners is the fact that Ethiopia is a federal state, where regions (and
below them, woredas), receive unearmarked blockgrants. The federal state (and donors)
therefore cannot impose spending targets on the lower levels, though in practice most
investment funding in the WASH sector is still channeled outside the block grant system,
through mostly donor funded programmes and projects. The decentralization issue
therefore took center stage during the event: How can a SWAp work in a highly
decentralised setting? The discussions emphasized that the concern should not be seen as:
how can donors target their assistance? – but broader, as: how can policy directives and
targets set at central level (including in dialogue with donors) influence local decision
making, giving adequate – but not full – autonomy to local levels to adapt targets and
policies to local realities?
The theoretical range of mechanisms for this “transmission” of policies/targets to local
implementation includes:
Ex-ante tied grants on or off budget – an option still used for investments, but not
aligned with the formal policy of decentralisation
Legal instruments requiring lower teirs of government to deliver certain services
(but leaving it to them to allocate the required resources)
Negotiation/bargaining between central and local levels to influence the local level
budget allocation process, including voluntary agreements on average spending
targets/results
Conditioning of future funding levels to the local levels (including from donors) on
the actual sectoral distribution of their spending (ex-post verification), or their
achievement of agreed results (agreed in negotiation process)
Transmission and enforcement of policies/targets through the political system
(“party-discipline”) – a mechanisms hardly effective where opposition forces have
majority on local levels – or through patronage-client systems or other informal
governance processes
Professional or civil servants’ networks across levels (e.g. sanitation engineers,
health staff etc. who are “front line policy implementers”) (if the civil service is
unitary across levels of government, this is likely to enhance the effectiveness of
this channel as “policy transmitter”).
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Pressure from non-state actors who press for implementation of national policies on
local levels.
There was no clear picture of which combination of these possible mechanisms that was
actually active in the WASH sector, or which of them that could be
strengthened/developed to ensure effectiveness of central policy making.
In relation to the other components of the sector programme, the situation is briefly:
Policy and macro level: The policy of ensuring universal access to water within 7
years is apparently not affordable, and the links to the macrolevel PRSPS
(“PASDEP”) are unclear in terms of spending framework.
PFM and MTEF: While work has been undertaken to define a financing strategy
(e.g. calculating cost implications of policy, and look for possible gap financing
sources), very little attention has been paid to align current activities to the hard
short and medium term budget ceilings. There is no MTEF or medium term
forecast for the sector, links to the Min. of Finance and Economic Development
(MOFED) are weak, and little attention has so far been given to PFM issues in the
sector. Various participants recognized that major work would lie ahead in this area.
Institutional capacity and capacity development: There is a government-wide
public sector reform programme (PSCAP), but it was perceived to be top-down and
not necessarily responsive to WASH needs. CD efforts in the WASH sector are
fragmented (often linked to donor-funded and NGO programmes), participants
identified the need to work for joint approaches (a need also identified in the multi-
stakeholder forum)
Accountability and monitoring: Accountability mechanisms exist locally through
Water Associations, which interact with Woreda officials. Their strength obviously
varies. The monitoring in the sector is in general weak, and mostly linked to donor
funded programmes. Efforts to harmonise in this area seem still embryonic.
Harmonisation and alignment: Under the aegis of the EU Water Initiative,
significant steps have been taken to bring stakeholders together, culminating with
the multistakeholder forum held early October. A key challenge ahead is to foster
stronger government leadership of the process.
In summary, very important first steps to adopt a SWAp in the WASH sector have been
taken, and a comprehensive agenda for future work is being developed. It will need
underpinning of joint analytical work, deeper knowledge of how the sector works, and a
policy dialogue addressing critical issues of affordability and implementation capacity. It is
thus important that all stakeholders adopt realistic expectations as to how fast the SWAp
process will move and be able to consolidate and mature into e.g. more aligned financing
modalities.
5. The event – preparation and logistics
The Italian Cooperation, which is heading the EU Water Initiative, had organized the event.
Unfortunately, it had not been possible to ensure the active participation of government
partners in the preparation process. Further, the organizers had been reluctant to invite too
many government representatives, wanting to observe the 60/40% limits on donor/country
participation imposed by the JLP Steering Committee.
As a result – combined with the simultaneous implementation of other events –
government participation in the event turned out to be severe limited, with 1 representative
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from the Ministry of Health participating full time, and 3 others participating part time
only. This was seriously limiting the achievements of the broader objectives of the JLP in
terms of fostering a joint understanding about SWAp, and dialogue about the status.
Fortunately, this dialogue had been conducted in the multi-stakeholder forum in October,
so it can therefore also be considered that the JLP came somewhat too close to that event.
The senior level event suffered from the same skewed pattern of participation. Apart from
that, logistics were very well organized, materials produced etc. in a timely and efficient
manner.
6. The event – content/substance
All modules were covered. In addition, given the concern about decentralization issues, an
extra module was included (taking time from the PFM module, but given the status of
PFM/MTEF awareness, this was justified). The available slides on decentralization worked
well.
The Next Steps group (3 persons) was formed the first day at lunch. Given that an agenda
for future action had been concerted in October, it was agreed that the Next Steps group
should only collect issues and key points, and the group played a relatively smaller role
than have been seen in other events.
7. The event – process/methods
There were local presentations followed by “theory” and then group/plenary discussions.
No exercises were used (there were two presentation in module 2, from the education
sector and the road sector, respectively.). However, the local presentations with q/a
generally took an hour – well spent, but it left limited time for extended group discussions
(which ended up having around 30 minutes, including summing up which was done
informally).
The unfortunate fact that there was only one facilitator was not directly leading to
appreciable problems, except the weak engagement by the facilitator in coaching the
groupwork – these slots were used to regain energy and focus (a food poisoning affected
the facilitator the first two days of the event).
8. The Senior Level Event
The senior event attracted the main donors to the WASH sector, including the WB and the
AfDB. As mentioned, the government was thinly represented. The senior slides worked
well, the presentation took around 50 minutes. This was followed by a presentation from
the Next Steps group, and a debate not least about decentralization. Not surprisingly, in
relation to SWAp, many kept thinking about SWAp as intimately linked to finance
modalities, whereas our inclusive concept – stressing all the other aspects that can be
worked on, and underlying that more “advanced” modalities may take a long time to come
around – needed some “selling”. However, this was a fruitful and, in my perception, well
appreciated debate.
9. Coaching of local facilitators
A 2-hour session was held after the senior level event for 3 participants (all international)
who were interested in replicating the event. Ethiopian participants from NGOs had been
invited (and had confirmed their interest) but did not show up.
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In the session, I recommended that the participants should start with 1 day events,
underlined that they should edit content so that they felt comfortable with the slides, and
that they should clarify what they could reasonably expect to achieve during a one (or
eventually multi-) day event. We went briefly through issues related to objectives, content,
materials, logistics, process and “facilitation tricks”. The importance of bringing
participants’ practical experiences into the event was underlined.
10. Recommendations
The key challenges related to the SWAp process are outlined above.
In so far as future Joint Learning Events in other countries are concerned, the following is
recommended:
i) Stronger insistence that preparation be organized by a joint donor-government
group. Facilitators should follow carefully up on this.
ii) The very clear interest in hearing from other sectors in the country - and the
good experience from the multi-sector event in Rwanda – may make it
worthwhile to consider whether there should be “joint” events by 2 or 3 sectors
in countries where several sectors apply for an event. It challenges facilitation
somewhat, but also opens opportunities for cross sectoral learning. It would,
however, be crucial that there were a critical mass (size plus composition) of
participants from the sectors (say, 8-12 per sector) – this is not a suggestion to
consider “open” events with a mix of participants across sectors. Multi-sector
events may also make it easier to attract Ministry of Finance participation.
December 4th, 2006
Nils Boesen
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Annex 1: Evaluation comments
Summary of comments:
What was the most valuable?
The clarity of the concept behind SWAp
Parts that explained where our sector stands and where we are driving
Sharing opinions with colleagues
Linking policy to implementation (various, an “eye-opener”),
Political economy aspects of each issue
Case studies and examples from other countries
Additional module on decentralisation
Small groups discussions
Highly summarised but very useful slides
What was the least valuable?
Too little participation from government, Mofed, regions (many comments)
Group sessions could be better facilitated
Too much based on power point presentations
Suggestions for improvement
Broader participation
Future events should focus on deeper critical analysis
One more day
Impact on work
Change our approach to the harmonization process
High impact!
Will initiate discussion in and outside my area about joined up approaches
NGOs role in advocacy
Specific actions to promote a sector approach
Repeat event for regions (various)
Will push to upscale with greater sense of determination and purpose
Work on establishing MTEF
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JLP SWAp Event in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene sector in Ethiopia November 2006
Government Donor Others
participants participants
Objectives Overall Govt. 1 Donor 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Others 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Average Average average average
1. Key components and the language used 1.5 1 1 1.4 1 1 2 1 1 2 2 1.6 2 2 1 2 1 2 1
2. Conditions for success and best options to 1.7 1 1 1.6 2 1 2 2 1 1 2 1.9 2 2 2 1 1 3 2
support
3. Know your own and others’ roles 1.9 1 1 1.6 2 2 2 1 1 1 2 2.3 3 2 2 2 2 2 3
4. Be able to deal with major risks and challenges 1.9 1 1 2.0 3 2 2 2 1 2 2 2.0 3 2 1 1 2 3 2
5. Agree the next steps to move the process 2.1 1 1 2.2 3 2 2 1 3 2 2.2 3 2 1 2 3
forward
Average objectives 1.8 1 1 1.7 2.2 1.6 2 1.6 1 1.8 2 1.9 2.6 2 1.5 1.4 1.5 2.4 2.2
6. How relevant is the event to your work? 1.5 1 1 1.3 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 1.7 2 3 1 1 1 3 1
7. How adequate was the balance between “theory” 1.9 1 1 1.9 2 2 3 1 1 2 2 2.1 3 2 2 2 2 2 2
and “practice”?
8. How adequate was the mix of methods used? 2.0 1 1 2.1 3 3 2 1 2 2 2 2.0 2 2 2 1 2 2 3
9. How do you rate the quality of the materials 1.7 1 1 2.0 3 2 2 1 2 2 2 1.6 2 1 1 1 2 2 2
provided?
10. How was the quality of group work exercises? 2.3 1 1 2.7 4 2 3 2 3 3 2 2.1 3 2 2 1 2 2 3
Faciltators' performance: Nils Boesen
11. Knowledge of SWAp issues 1.1 1.0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1.1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1
12. Communication skills 1.3 1.0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1.5 2 1 1 2 2 1
13. Faciliation of debate and group work 1.5 1.3 2 1 1 1 2 1 1.6 3 1 1 1 1 2 2
Average facilitator 1.3 0 1.0 1.3 1 1 1 1.3 1 1.4 2 1 1 1.3 1.5 1.7 1.3
E1. Pre-event information 1.8 1.7 3.5 1 2 1 1 1.9 2 1 2 1 2 3 2
E.2 Event venue, food and refreshments 1.1 1.4 2 1 2 1 1 1.4 1 1 1 1 2 2 2
1.5
Overall average (clusering objectives and 1.7 1 1 1.8 2.7 1.8 2.2 1.2 1.7 1.7 1.7 1.8 2.2 1.7 1.5 1.2 1.8 2.2 2.1
facilitator perf.)
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