meeting the water and sanitation millennium development...
Post on 13-Sep-2020
3 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
Meeting the Water and Sanitation Millennium Development
Goals: Tanzania, Mozambique and Burkina Faso
Capacity Building of Local/National NGOs/CBOs in Africa (Cap-WASH)
Meeting the water and sanitation MDGs A Synthesis report on human resource capacity in NGOs and CBOs in three countries
Tanzania, Mozambique and Burkina Faso
Funding for this publication was provided by the people of the United States of America through the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID), as a component of the Capacity Building of Local/National NGOs/CBOs in
Africa (Cap-WASH). The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the
United States Agency for International Development of the United States Government or Florida International
University.
Copyright © Global Water for Sustainability Program – Florida International University
This publication may be reproduced in whole or in part and in any form for educational or non-profit purposes
without special permission from the copyright holder, provided acknowledgement of the source is made. No use of
the publication may be made for resale or for any commercial purposes whatsoever without the prior permission in
writing from the Florida International University - Global Water for Sustainability Program.
addressed to the same at the following address:
Any inquiries can be
Global Water for Sustainability Program Florida International University
Biscayne Bay Campus 3000 NE 151 St. ACI-267 North Miami, FL 33181 USA
Email: glows@fiu.edu
Website: www.globalwaters.net
For bibliographic purposes, this document should be cited as: Meeting the water and sanitation MDGs: A synthesis report on human resource capacity in NGOs and CBOs in
three countries, Tanzania, Mozambique and Burkina Faso. Global Water for Sustainability Program, Florida
International University.
ISBN:
Front cover: Laying a concrete plinth for a borewell in Tanzania; women carrying washing to a river in
Mozambique; dug well in Burkina Faso. Rear cover: Importance of aquatic ecosystems in maintaining water quality - environmental education in Burkina
Faso
Table of contents
Introduction ................................................................................. 1
Methodology ............................................................................... 1
Disciplines to map human resources capacity ......................... 2
Work types ...............................................................................2
Assumptions and research scope ............................................ 2
Countries ..................................................................................... 3
The wash sector: role of NGOs and CBOs ................................ 3
Areas of work .......................................................................... 4
Assessment of existing human resources capacity.................. 4
Availability of qualified human resources ............................... 5
Human resource shortages ......................................................... 7
Tanzania .................................................................................. 7
Mozambique ........................................................................... 7
Burkina Faso ............................................................................ 8
NGO and CBO human resources shortages ............................ 8
Key constraints for human resource development ..................... 9
Financial constraints ............................................................... 9
Institutional constraints .......................................................... 9
Organisational constraints ....................................................10
Conclusions ................................................................................10
Recommendations .....................................................................11
Short term .............................................................................11
Medium term ........................................................................11
Long term ..............................................................................12
Introduction
The purpose of the national capacity assessments is to
provide recommendations for use by senior decision
makers, related to human resources (HR) requirements
in the drinking water, sanitation and hygiene promotion
sectors. The assessments focused on water supply and
sanitation with the hygiene promotion component im-
plied through the review of human resources issues in
the social development components.
The studies focused on identifying shortages (numbers)
and gaps (skills and competencies) necessary to attain
a) the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and b)
full service coverage by 2015 using a standardised
methodological framework to collect the data.
This document focuses on the capacity within NGOs
and CBOs in Mozambique, Tanzania and Burkina Faso,
superimposed against the public and private sectors
that impact directly on the human resources capacity in
rural areas, where NGOs/CBOs mainly operate. The pri-
mary goal of the Capacity Building of Local/National
WASH NGOs/CBOs in Africa (Cap-WASH) programme
was to support capacity building and knowledge man-
agement for African local/national WASH NGOs/CBOs.
This report had the aim to support the identification of
niche areas identified by USAID.
Methodology
The methodological framework defines the following
steps to assess the human resource requirements in the
sector, in terms of numbers (shortages) and skills and
competencies (gaps).
In order to achieve the main objective, Figure 1 shows the following activities:
Estimate the 2015 population to incorporate growth.
Determine the current water and sanitation cover-age and calculate the increase needed to achieve a) MDGs and b) full service coverage.
Estimate a proxy of human resources demand per type of service delivery for 10,000 people.
Determine the existing human resources capacity in the country in terms of numbers and skill set.
Assess the human resources supply in the years up to 2015 in terms of graduates as well as vocational training.
Calculate the human resources shortages and as-sess the human resources gaps.
Provide recommendations for the way in which training institutions can address the shortages and gaps, as well as provide recommendations for alter-native ways to meet the shortages and gaps.
Figure 1: Methodological framework to assess human resource shortages and gaps
1
Disciplines to map human re-sources capacity
The study used the following disciplines to map human resources capacity in the water supply and sanitation sectors:
Technical specialisation specific to water and sani-tation services: a person who is professionally en-gaged in a technical field specifically related to the provision of water and sanitation facilities or infra-structure (for instance civil/environmental engi-neers).
Technical specialisation, not specific to the provi-sion of water and sanitation services: a person who is professionally engaged in another technical field that is required in the planning, design or op-eration of water and sanitation facilities or infra-structure (such as hydro-geologists, mechanical/electrical engineers), but is not water and sanita-tion sector specific.
Management and finance: a person who is profes-sionally engaged in management (for instance fi-nance, human resources or strategic managers and office managers fulfilling administrative functions)
as well as persons who procure goods and services or cost planners.
Social development: a person who is professionally engaged in hygiene promotion or other relevant water, sanitation and health professions in the so-cial sciences (for instance health promotion special-ist, sociologist, community development worker).
Work types
The study also investigated the capacity of these four disciplines, whilst distinguishing the human resource requirements for three different types of work noted below. Whilst this study reflects data from the water supply and sanitation sectors, the research considered hygiene practices as defined by the WASH sector.
1. Design and construction
2. Operation and maintenance
3. Community mobilisation/sanitation and hygiene promotion.
Assumptions and research scope
The methodological framework was developed and tested over a two-year period, and hinged on a number of assumptions:
Existing coverage data is sufficiently accurate;
The methodology uses Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) coverage definition, which is ‘improved’ levels of water and sanitation;
Different agglom-eration sizes are typi-cally served in each country by the same water and sanitation service delivery mech-anism; and
The methodology assesses profession-als; hence it does not include household and community in-volvement.
2
Countries
The countries that were assessed under the CAP-WASH
programme were Burkina Faso, Mozambique and Tan-
zania. All countries experience significant growth in
population (between 5% and 9%) that will cause the
population to be 18.6, 25.6, and 49.9 million inhabit-
ants respectively, in 2015.
Figure 2 illustrates the enormous challenges that these
countries face with regards to achieving their MDG Tar-
get 7c. In comparison to achieving the MDGs, full ser-
vice coverage is an even bigger challenge. The figures
for rural sanitation illustrate the large service deficits,
especially given the fact that over 75% of the popula-
tion of these countries still reside in rural areas.
However, all three countries face significant rates of
urbanisation, 2.1 % for Mozambique, 4.5% for Tanzania
up to 7.1 % for Burkina Faso. This exemplifies the need
to continue paying attention to urban areas, particularly
peri-urban areas, in order to maintain the current cov-
erage and ensure that the coverage increases in tan-
dem with the urbanisation rates.
Obviously, the differences in size of the populations will
impact the number of human resources required to
cover the MDG and full service coverage deficit.
The WASH sector: role of NGOs and CBOs
NGOs and CBOs have a significant role to play, especial-
ly in rural water supply and
sanitation provision, where
they have traditionally en-
gaged more than in the urban
provision.
The case studies report that
42, 55 and 101 NGOs and
CBOs operate in the WASH
sector of Mozambique, Tanza-
nia and Burkina Faso respec-
tively. This appears to be rela-
tively limited compared to
other typical areas of engage-
ment of these organisations,
for instance the HIV/Aids sec-
tor in Tanzania. The case
study sampled 6, 13, and 25
NGOs respectively to investi-
Figure 2: Existing coverage rates versus MDGs in the three countries
Figure 3: Burkina Faso NGOs rural and urban divide
3
gate the human resource capacity of NGOs to deliver
water supply and sanitation services.
Areas of work
To gain an understanding of human resources required
in NGOs, there was a need to identify what areas of
work they are en-
gaged in.
Sanitation tends to
be neglected at pub-
lic sector level with-
in all three coun-
tries, often due to
the absence of one
single government
entity responsible
for sanitation; and
confusing roles and
responsibilities. In
addition, decentrali-
sation and reforms have devolved responsibilities to
district or municipal level for both rural water and sani-
tation services. The reality shows that the implementa-
tion of the delegated responsibilities is far from being
completed.
In the meanwhile, as illustrated in the figure above, the
NGOs and CBOs direct the majority of their activities to
the rural water supply and sanitation sector, and when
present in urban areas it is mostly within peri-urban
(informal) settlements. The NGOs and CBOs assessed in
the three countries work primarily on community mobi-
lisation, capacity building, hygiene promotion and
sometimes implementation of rural water supply and
sanitation systems. They also tended to focus on com-
munity-managed facilities, which align with these areas
of work.
International NGOs in each of the three countries have
also indicated work in the areas of resource mobilisa-
tion and advocacy to strengthen the sector with re-
sources and through influencing policy.
Assessment of existing Human Resource Capacity
The case studies investigated the human resources
within the four disciplines described below and estimat-
ed the total existing human resource capacity at coun-
try level. Table 1 illustrates this.
Table 1: Existing Capacity NGOs/CBOs
Burkina Faso, with double the number of NGOs and
CBOs working in the WASH sector, has the highest hu-
man resource capacity, even when taking an average of
10.69 full-time staff members working in the water sec-
tor per NGO, while Mozambique has ten and Tanzania
6.54. NGOs in Burkina Faso also have more human re-
source capacity for the sanitation sector. This could be
the result of the prioritisation of the WASH sector
through their National Programme for Water and Sani-
tation (PN-AEPA), which is actively supported by NGOs
and CBOs because the public sector does not have the
capacity to achieve these targets by itself. Particular, in
the area of sanitation, where service coverage is cur-
rently 1%, NGOs and CBOs have a large role to play.
In Mozambique, the role of the NGOs and CBOs is
slightly different. The government is dominant in the
water supply sector, implementing a sector-wide ap-
proach with NGOs and CBOs following their lead. Re-
garding sanitation, this is still an area of neglect in
Mozambique, and NGOs and CBOs take up a much larg-
er role in implementation and community advocacy. In
Subsector/HR Categories
WATSAN tech-nical field
Other tech-nical field
Management & finance
Social development Total
Tanzania
Water 80 40 120 120 360
Sanitation 11 11 15 15 52
Mozambique
Water 163 6 94 157 420
Sanitation 120 6 13 173 312
Burkina Faso
Water 131 161 323 464 1080
Sanitation 121 151 313 525 1111
4
Mozambique, NGOs employ more professional staff
than the private and public sectors.
In Tanzania, the most populous country of the three
case studies, with double the population of Mozam-
bique and almost triple that of Burkina Faso, NGOs
seem to have a limited role and an equally limited hu-
man resource capacity. The Tanzanian case study re-
ported overall a far lower number of human resource
capacity, and indicated a very limited focus on sanita-
tion. Still, there could be a larger role for NGOs and
CBOs in the country.
The existing capacity of professionals within NGOs and
CBOs greatly depends on the nature of on-going pro-
grammes and activities and the geographical spread of
the activities. It was generally observed that the majori-
ty of the NGOs had a higher number of social develop-
ment staff such as sociologists and community workers,
which can be explained by the community-managed
systems and approaches that these organisations fol-
low in the rural areas, such as the community-led total
sanitation (CLTS).
To effectively implement a system such as the CLTS,
requires a multitude of sensitisation and training activi-
ties, such as awareness raising, hygiene promotion, and
training of communities on management of systems,
setting up of water-user associations, and operation
and maintenance of the systems. Most of these activi-
ties are performed by professionals within the social
development category.
Furthermore, most NGOs manage to recruit a water
engineer who would generally operate as a programme
manager providing their professional input from a man-
agement perspective rather than actual engineering
work in the field. These managers often outsource the
building of the infrastructure to private organisations.
Operations and maintenance of these community-
managed systems is often dependent on the communi-
ties themselves, but requires training that is generally
performed by a technician or engineer in the employ of
the NGO or CBO. Since this type of work is the responsi-
bility of the communities, or is sometimes contracted
out to private local organisations, NGOs have limited
staff working on the operation and maintenance of in-
frastructure. In all three countries, the lack of O&M is
indicated as an area of concern. In Tanzania concerns
were expressed over coverage rates dropping due to
high rates of system failure. In Burkina Faso the focus
has been on construction, especially for sanitation, indi-
cating a major obstacle to sustainable implementation.
Availability of qualified human resources
The qualified personnel are
more common in large cities
than in small towns and vil-
lages where NGOs generally
operate. This makes it more
difficult for NGOs to attract
qualified personnel to live
and work in the rural areas.
In Tanzania, the younger
professionals prefer urban
over rural settings to live and
work, because of the availa-
bility of services and facili-
ties. In Burkina Faso, alt-
hough the majority of NGO
personnel are based in the
cities, their personnel also
5
work in the rural are-
as where the greatest
demand is. Only
Mozambique showed
that over 65% of NGO
and CBO personnel
live in the rural areas.
International NGOs
have less of a problem
attracting qualified
staff, mainly because
of better remunera-
tion packages. These
organisations general-
ly hire better qualified
and educated staff,
with longer work ex-
perience, attracting
them from the public
sector agencies. In
two of the case stud-
ies, this was thought to cause a brain drain from public
sector working in the water supply and sanitation sec-
tors.
Local NGOs are generally financially precarious and
tend to have more temporary contracts with staff ra-
ther than offering them long-term employment.
CBOs are the organisations that face the largest capaci-
ty gaps (both in numbers and quality). These are the
organisations that rely largely on volunteers as they do
not always have financial resources to hire or pay quali-
fied staff.
Education and training
As indicated above, international NGOs tend to attract
higher educated personnel in most countries. The staff
at the NGO head offices will generally have a university
degree or technical diploma. The following general
trends have been extracted from the research:
In Mozambique, the overall evaluation indicated that
many personnel working in the rural areas – for inter-
national NGOs as well as local NGOs and CBOs – have
not been professionally educated to work in the sector,
as the more experienced workforce suffers from the
stagnation as a result of the long conflict period in
Mozambique. The current workforce primarily consists
of professionals with only a primary education, but with
work experience that they have built up over many
years.
In Burkina Faso, NGOs and CBOs represent an educa-
tion level between primary and university levels and
most of the staff has at least some form of training.
Here, a particular reference was made to the lack of
engineers employed by NGOs and CBOs due to their
lack of financial capacity.
In Tanzania, the sampled NGOs all had at least one wa-
ter engineer in place, who would generally manage the
projects and be capable to do so.
Gender
In all three countries gender inequality is prevalent. In
terms of gender participation in the NGO and CBO
workforce, in Burkina Faso, 34% of the NGO/CBO staff
is female and this percentage decreases further when
6
investigating the technical disciplines. Mozambique has
an overall female participation in the WASH sector of
27%, whilst this percentage increases slightly in NGOs
and CBOs. The Tanzanian NGOs and CBOs seem to have
a higher ratio (half of the organisations have a 50-50%
gender distribution), but this was indicated
to be specifically in the social development
discipline.
All countries have forms of gender participa-
tion strategies and / or policies in place to
promote female participation in WASH pro-
grammes.
Human resource shortages
The studies evaluated the supply to the WASH sector
from universities and training institutes. It looked at
overall supply, but faced challenges investigating the
actual supply to NGOs and CBOs. The studies illustrated
that Tanzania’s supply of professionals entering the
water supply and sanitation technical fields by far ex-
ceeds that of Burkina Faso and Mozambique. This in-
cludes water engineers, hydro-geologists, technicians
and water quality specialists. While in Mozambique, the
education institutes have increased student enrol-
ments, those entering the water supply and sanitation
sector is generally still very low. Burkina Faso has a par-
ticularly low level of entry of qualified, professional
staff into the WASH sector and to compound the chal-
lenge, the country also does not have any education
programme that specifically targets water and sanita-
tion professions.
Statistics for Burkina Faso and Mozambique show that
graduates from tertiary education institutions are
scarce at the decentralised levels, being district, provin-
cial and municipal), and can hardly ever be found at
municipal or village level. All organisations, recruiting
local people will face this challenge.
Tanzania
In Tanzania, the assessment team was able to indicate
the human resources shortages within NGOs, listed in
Table 2 below. Notwithstanding the need for finances
to recruit personnel, Tanzania’s NGOs and CBOs face
significant shortages requiring almost five times the
current capacity. This is partly due to the larger need to
focus on sanitation sector, and the role that NGOs and
CBOs can play in achieving this MDG target or full ser-
vice coverage. The table below illustrates this, where
particularly social development staff is required to raise
awareness and mobilise communities on sanitation and
hygiene issues.
Mozambique
In Mozambique human resources shortages in the sec-
tor seem to be most significant in the water sector.
Management and finance and social development per-
sonnel, respectively, are the most needed. However,
under current circumstances the biggest challenge is
finding the various categories of engineers and particu-
larly water engineers. On the social development side it
is interesting to note that the numbers are short for the
water sector but not the sanitation sector. This could
mean an underestimation of the demand for sanitation
professionals, which follows the general neglect of sani-
tation in the country over the last years. Following the
current figures, between 45% and 50% of the human
resources shortages in sanitation sector will be a short-
age faced by NGOs. To achieve MDGs, this means that
94 water supply and sanitation, ten other technical, 193
social development workers need to be trained and
employed.
Graduates in management and finance have been grad-
ually increasing which accounts for a) the a general high
supply of graduates entering the workforce and b) even
considering a low absorption rate into the WASH sec-
tor, this resulted in a surplus of human resources in
some categories. The tables below illustrate this.
NGOs WATSAN technical field
Other tech-nical field
Management & Finance
Social Devel-opment
Water 425 203 988 375
Sanitation 319 293 419 1602
Table 2: HR shortages in Tanzania
7
Burkina Faso
In Burkina Faso human
resource shortages pre-
vails in the whole sector,
but is most pronounced
in the water sector be-
cause technical special-
ised positions for water
supply are very difficult
to fill. The supply in this
discipline has remained
low despite the fact that
about ten new engineer-
ing enter the WASH sec-
tor every year. Within
the social development
discipline, large shortag-
es exist, for which the
supply has been increas-
ing. It will thus be a matter of devising strategies to
attract them into this sector.
To estimate the shortages within NGOs and CBOs, and
working on the assumption that the current percentage
of personnel is maintained, NGOs face a shortage in the
water sector and the tables below depicts total shortages.
The Burkina Faso case
study report indicates that
the shortages within NGO
and CBO are approximate-
ly 400, 525, 180 and 2,500
in the technical field, other
technical field, manage-
ment and finance and so-
cial development. For sani-
tation, only the social de-
velopment category is far
higher with an estimated
capacity of 1,500. The wa-
ter supply and sanitation
technical field lacks ap-
proximately 275 people, the other
technical fields 220 and the man-
agement and finance 20 people.
NGO and CBO human resources shortages
The research has shown that while there is a general
shortage of qualified staff within the sector, NGOs and
CBOs are particularly vulnerable and there is a critical
shortage of the following skills: hydraulic technicians,
hydraulic engineers, water engineers and technicians;
MOZAMBIQUE WATER SECTOR WATSAN tech-nical field
Other tech-nical field
Management and Finance
Social devel-opment
HR shortage for achieving MDG 1,589 235 715 2,486
HR shortage for achieving full service coverage
2,392 376 1,755 4,322
Table 3: Mozambique total human resources shortages in the water sector (- figures show oversupply)
MOZAMBIQUE SANITATION SECTOR
WATSAN tech-nical field
Other tech-nical field
Management and Finance
Social devel-opment
HR shortage for achieving MDG 2,283 146 -2,604 449
HR shortage for achieving full service coverage
3,983 187 -2,367 1,253
Table 3: Mozambique total human resources shortages in the sanitation sector (- figures show oversupply)
BURKIA FASO WATER SEC-TOR
WATSAN technical field
Other tech-nical field
Management and Finance
Social develop-ment
HR shortage for achieving MDG
4,778 3,899 3,346 9,390
HR shortage for achieving full service coverage
6,448 5,231 6,503 12,529
Table 5: Burkina Faso human resources shortages in the water sector
Table 6: Burkina Faso human resources shortages in the sanitation sector
BURKIA FASO SANITATION SECTOR
WATSAN technical field
Other tech-nical field
Management and Finance
Social develop-ment
HR shortage for achieving MDG
2,061 1,680 365 4,295
HR shortage for achieving full service coverage
4,590 4,209 7,395 9,352
8
sanitation specialists; civil engineers; senior personnel
with experience and who has mastered water and sani-
tation issues in decentralised areas; communicators;
human resources specialists; directors and managers;
and monitoring and evaluation specialists.
Overall, 69% of the surveyed NGOs and CBOs indicated
that they are satisfied with the skills of their staff, as
they already have some experience of working in the
sector. However, they indicated a need for continuous
strengthening of their capacity through education pro-
grammes, sharing experiences and specific training.
The rest of the sample (31%) indicated that the skills
that were lacking include the level of academic staff,
the general lack of experience, and the fact that there
were not enough water supply and sanitation sector
specialists.
Key constraints for Human Resource De-velopment
The case studies indicate that the
throughput of competent people into the
sector is insufficient for various reasons.
These can be summarised as being relat-
ed to the following areas:
Financial constraints
The problem of lack in quantity and quali-
ty of human resources working in the
WASH sector is intrinsically linked to the
low financial capacity of organisations to
recruit staff. Most organisations, particu-
larly local NGOs and CBOs are heavily de-
pendent on external funding from large
donors or International NGOs and often
work with temporary staff rather than full
time employees. As a result In addition to
this other sectors seem to attract many
qualified resources available, causing a
brain drain from the sector
Institutional constraints
Unclear roles and responsibilities, especially in the sani-
tation sector and particularly rural, can be a constraint
for NGOs to operate. Lack of an overall coordinating
body and official and formally- constituted roles of
NGOs can be an obstacle in their interventions and
could have an impact on the financial as well as human
resources available.
Within the various countries there seems to be a lack of
coordination between the sector organisations, includ-
ing NGOs, and the Education sector. This causes defi-
ciencies between the supply and the need in the sector.
Additionally, it was mentioned that coordination of hu-
man resources between NGOs at national level is still
relatively limited. In Mozambique and Tanzania they
9
have high level coordination meetings, but the
exchange of human resources or combined use
of resources is still an unexplored area.
Inappropriate training and ill-equipped training
institutions – The problem of increasing access
to water and sanitation is not just associated
with the total number of workers but the quality
of the training. Often recently-qualified staff
lacks some important competences that are
needed for work in the WASH sector. As well as
outdated curricula, standards of teaching can be
linked to poor incentives due to low salaries and
a general lack of resources.
Organisational constraints
NGOs faced fewer problems of availability of
human resources in quantity and quality com-
pared to CBOs and associations. Indeed most of
the (international) NGOs working in the WASH
sector are involved in the programme which
takes into account the human resources recruit-
ment, which is not always the case for CBOs and
associations with limited resources or operate
on the basis of grant NGOs.
Lack of opportunities for practical WASH related work
experience – The lack of opportunities for graduates to
get practical WASH-related experience is a significant
problem. This is compounded by inadequate support
for the transition from academia to the work environ-
ment and lack of mentors to train less experienced
staff. In Mozambique the NGOs typically look for expe-
rienced personnel, and more often than not, hire em-
ployees that have been working in the public sector.
Gender inequalities – WASH is a male dominated sec-
tor; the case studies demonstrate clear gendered occu-
pational boundaries, with men and women tending to
do different jobs in the sector; with men working more
on water supply and women more on hygiene promo-
tion. Even though the various countries have taken
measures, in forms of policies, scholarships for women
and promotion of technical jobs for women, there still
is a low level of women graduates from universities es-
pecially from technically orientated courses.
Conclusions
In all three countries, the WASH sector faces difficulties
attracting qualified personnel. There are numerous rea-
sons for this, one of which is the limited financial capac-
ity of NGs and CBOs to pay decent salaries or offer job
security. The results are that there is a brain drain to
organisations outside of the WASH sector, high staff
turnover in the water supply and sanitation sectors and
professionals working in temporary capacity or project-
linked tasks, rather than in fulltime employment. This
leads to a heavy reliance on volunteers and interns to
fill the human resources gaps.
Another serious ramification of this incapacity to attract
and retain staff is felt in the sanitation and hygiene sec-
tors in the rural areas which rely heavily on NGO and
CBO staff interventions to implement; operate and
maintain the infrastructure; and educate the popula-
10
tion on health and hygiene issues. Traditionally, the
public sector does not pay much attention to this geo-
graphical area or sector.
This inadequate capacity of NGOs and CBOs is one ma-
jor reason why there are limitations to achieving the
sanitation MDG targets as well as the ultimate goal of
reaching full service coverage.
Recommendations
To tackle the significant deficits with regards to achiev-
ing the MDG target 7c and full service coverage, a huge
number of professionals are required to mobilise and
sensitise the communities; to design and construct the
infrastructures and to operate and maintain the sys-
tems to ensure sustainability.
The following recommendations constitute
some of the remedial action that can be
implemented to assist governments to
overcome their water supply and sanitation
service deficits as well as the human re-
sources shortages in the sectors.
Short term
Mobilise large cadres of volunteers, such
as graduates or final year students, who will
then be able to
Immediately fill the shortages in the organisations;
Make use of an ideal opportunity to gain practical experience;
Provide channels for NGOs and CBOs to acquire competent and committed people to work in the sector.
Train and build the capacity NGO manag-
ers on governance and institutional settings
and for CBOs capacity building on resource
mobilisation. This will strengthen collabo-
ration and ties with, for instance public-
sector role players and stakeholders. It will
also strengthen the NGO/CBO itself to effi-
ciently manage their organisations and thus push up
the productivity.
Develop inter-communality so that resources can be
shared. This is a good alternative to bridge the hu-
man resources gap in communities. Municipalities
share commonalities and can share senior profes-
sional staff, such as technicians and engineers.
Medium term
Creating a directory of human resources NGOs and
CBOs in the WASH sector at national level will assist
these organisations in sharing resources – human
resources and otherwise. This will strengthen the
ability of NGOs/CBOs to communicate and collabo-
rate.
11
Creating opportunities for personal development to
enable the rural officers to be trained on specific and
appropriate water supply and sanitation modules
through offering short courses;
Strengthen vocational training of water and sanita-
tion engineers and community mobilisers and there-
by create intermediate skills levels which are appro-
priate and meet the needs and capacities of munici-
palities, and NGOs and CBOs;
Developing strategies for attracting and retaining
educated and professional staff in NGOs and CBOs.
These strategies could include elements that are
broader than just the adjustment of salaries to
attract staff, such as offering additional training and
doing advocacy work to make the water supply and
sanitation sectors an attractive sector to work in. De-
signing and implementing such strategies will pre-
vent the current brain drain to other more attractive
sectors. The strategies need to include incentives for
professional staff to work in rural areas.
Devise ways to ensure that trained and professional
staff are deployed to work in the field, rather than
using them to do administrative tasks.
Longer term
Improve the over-
all sector coordina-
tion of the private,
public and NGO/
CBO sectors to
work together, ra-
ther than perpetu-
ating the current
fragmentation. It is
also of great im-
portance to create
synergy amongst
the education and
WASH sectors.
Develop a national
plan for human
resource develop-
ment in the WASH sector, which will allow for a reori-
entation of the sector’s capacity.
Strengthen education and training institutes by regu-
larly assessing the education and training shortcom-
ings and plan for additional, applicable and appropri-
ate courses. Streamline the curricula to meet the
needs of the water supply and sanitation sectors.
Incentivise and subsidise education and trainings in
the areas where the country lacks resources by offer-
ing scholarships, internships and work-study pro-
grammes.
Accredit the education and training programmes to
track people who have obtained training in other
forms than degrees or diplomas from universities or
technical colleges. There is a need to measure the
impact of shorter training courses and this can be
done through accrediting the training programmes.
Formalisation of a deployment strategy, particularly
of engineering and management staff to under-
resourced geographical areas and organisations.
12
Global Water for Sustainability Program
Florida International University
Biscayne Bay Campus
3000 NE 151St. ACI-267
North Miami, FL 33181 USA
Phone: (+1-305) 919-4112
top related