Keeping WATSAN committees accountable

In the rural community of Bosoafise, the Rotary-USAID partnership program provided two boreholes with hand pumps. The community also benefited from a formal hygiene promotion campaign called community-led total sanitation (CLTS). Residents praised the benefits of the project:  less waterborne diseases, less time spent by children to fetch water from the Densu River.

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However, maintaining the positive changes over the long-term required residents to take the lead in the management of their water, sanitation and hygiene systems and services. In Bosoafise, the community appointed several residents as deputies to oversee system management and maintenance. As part of the Rotary-led advocacy program within the partnership, Rotary members were called to mentor the community’s WASH management committee and hold it accountable. “We engage beneficiaries on water and sanitation management using a participatory learning and action tool called a spider web,” says Rockson Dutenya, a WASH advocacy consultant working on behalf of the Rotary-USAID partnership. The spider tool also helps community members hold the local government accountable for monitoring and maintaining the WASH services. “If we don’t work on these gaps, we know we won’t have sustainable water and sanitation services,” says Dutenya.

When members of Bosoafise’s local committee drew their web in June 2019, they realized there was a gap in the community meetings, where the committee was supposed to explain its accounting methods. They then developed a plan to address this gap in financial stewardship.