Monday, December 15, 2008

Development of a Communication Strategy

The communication strategy responds to tasks in the scope of work to develop a comprehensive strategy that improves and facilitates communication within the NETWAS team and with other stakeholders on one hand and secondly to enhance communication between water users and providers in Wobulenzi, the area of operation on the other hand.

The Communication Strategy Report (CSR) that explains the communication strategy is intended to offer a coherent and comprehensive plan that will allow to better relationship among all the stakeholders of the program, as well as will help to disseminate the benefits of the applying social accountability tools.

The strategy will also facilitate change in the water sector, in the sense that the program is expected to promote the concept of users’ feedback and social accountability as an institutionalized mechanism for improving service quality. Thus, the communication strategy is key in bringing about change in actors’ behaviors and perceptions about social accountability. The communication strategy will also aid to achieve the goals of the program including:

a) Information sharing: communication may be used to announce objectives and goals of the program or provide stakeholders with information about the nature, timing, and significance of the program.
b) Participation: Change agents may create communication processes that actively involve even common citizens from Wobulenzi into the program to: provide them with new and creative ideas, and change their perceptions about the service delivery in the water sector. In addition, change agents may construct communication processes that allow the upper-level management from the water sector to get feedback and fresh ideas from implementers and citizens.
c) Vision and Motivation: Communication can be utilized to convey the vision, set of goals, and highlighting the important drivers for changing existing organizational or individual attitudes, beliefs or practices within the water sector in Wobulenzi, or even at national level. For example, communication in this project could provide information about perception on OBA (Output-Based Aid) provision. This new financial system is supposed to pay the provider after confirming delivery of the product or service.
d) Social Support: when efforts are put to produce a change, high-levels of anxiety can arise within the government and providers, and communication may be needed to determine people’s responses to change, alleviate potential fears to social participation, and encourage partnerships for improved service delivery and the establishment of networks support systems for the program. Evaluation/Feedback: Impacting a public service requires the structuring of communication processes that provide providers feedback about their performance during the program and provide feedback to implementers regarding strengths and weaknesses during the implementation.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Use of Communication Tools to Share Information to promote governance and improve relashionships among stakeholders within the water sector

The goal of the communication component of this program is to foster communication and knowledge sharing by providing and ensuring effective flow of information, updates, success stories, challenges, key messages and action plans promptly within the implementation team and among all targeted stakeholder groups with the aim to increase the overall awareness levels about the social accountability and transparency program. At the same time to collect feedback and knowledge in order to continually improve the program activities.

During the process of the program, NETWAS is sharing information with all types of stakeholders in involved decision-making, implementing process or feedback mechanisms in a two-way communication process. When some one raises his voice, sh/e must feel that sh/e is being heard, and thus must get an answer or a response, even if it is negative. Focusing on increasing understanding and relations among stakeholders through the use of communication enables participants to move forward with implementation plans, because stakeholder’s dialogue is important to avoid blaming for the past mistakes and creating a shared future

This program is basically a program devoted to promoting dialogue and building partnerships among stakeholders which is what CRC/CSC is about. NETWAS will be implementing through the Community Score Cards process, a dialogue between users and providers of water services, in Wobulenzi. It will take place with the participation of local authorities to promote partnerships and good governance within the sector. In order to generate a productive dialogue, NETWAS will be doing the following actions:
* Engaging frequently and systematically with stakeholders to determine mutually beneficial actions.
* Remembering that communication must be two-way. Communication is not the same as information. The aim of the dialogue should be to achieve mutual understanding and rational agreement or consent about the goals of the programs and its achievements. Information is crucial, but it must go beyond by incorporation channels from sharing ideas and worries.
* Inviting stakeholders to become involved in our program also exploring their concerns about our initiative.
* If there are no channels with stakeholders, create them! NETWAS will be trying to reach silent stakeholders and form partnership with stakeholders early, as has been done since the beginning of the project by working with the local government of Luwero and Wobulenzi town council.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Water Quality Test in Wobulenzi (Two different Providers)


The water quality testing is intended to offer the beneficiaries and service providers with the quality of the drinking water being provided. The results will be used as the baseline information for the supplies and advocacy for continuous water quality monitoring. Controlling the quality at sources is important as contamination at a single tap may affect a large number of people and will be more significant than a failure at a number of taps that are only used for a single household.

In line with the above criteria of monitoring, some selected tap stands, storage tanks and kiosks were sampled from both Bukalasa Agricultural College and Wobulenzi Town water supplies. Also in areas / zones that were found with no taps but used alternative sources (boreholes, springs etc), these sources were also sampled for analysis.

METHODOLOGY AND SCOPE OF WORK
A total of 10 taps-stands, 4 water tanks and the main source outlet on Bukalasa Water Supply were sampled. However, some tap-stands that had earlier been programmed for sampling were found with no flowing water, and others had been disconnected. In Wobulenzi Town Council water samples were taken from a total of 4 Kiosks, 2 Tanks and 4 tap-stands. Also 6 boreholes within the town council were sampled as they served large population of people within the town. In the absence of flowing water in some zones e.g. Sikanusu zone, people collected water from a near by unprotected spring found in Wapamba zone. Of the 4 Kiosks mentioned above, one of them (Katongole Expedito) was served by a private motorized borehole was not part of the bigger water supply.

The scope of work involved: (1) Carrying out on- site physical quality tests on all the water points that were sampled using portable electronic meters. (2) Collecting water samples in pre-sterilized glass bottles for microbiological tests. (3) Sensitizing the community on the importance of maintaining a clean environment around the water points that were sampled.

RESULTS
Regarding PH, which affects the taste and corrosivity of the water: (i) For the town council waters supply, the average PH of the supply water points was 6.41. The recommended PH range for untreated water supply is 5.0 – 9.5. (ii) For the Bukalasa supplier, the average PH of the water supply was 5.99.

With regard to Turbidity that indicates the cloudiness of the water and affects the risk of infections disease transmission: (i) For the Town Council supplier the turbidity value of water in the sump (tank) was 0.86 NTU Compared to the average turbidity value of the water points which was 2.11 NTU. The maximum Turbidity Value recommended for untreated water supplies is 30 NTU. (ii) For the Bukalasa provider, the average water points Turbidity was 1.88 NTU, compared to the turbidity of water from the main source outlet which was 1.45 NTU. Though the variation was small, slightly higher turbidity values were recorded in all the tanks

Electrical conductivity / IDS, which affect the taste and freshness of the water: (i) For the Town Council provider, the average TDS values of all the water points were 148.4mg compared to the value of 149 mg/l of water in the sump. There was no significant change. The maximum acceptable TDS value for untreated water supply is 150mg/l. (ii) For the Bukalasa provider, generally there was a slight increase in the TDS value in the water supply. The average TDS was 112.3 mg/l compared to 83mg/l in the source out let.

Regarding Faecal coliforms, which indicates recent faecal pollution, and the potential risk of contracting infectious diseases: (i) For the Town Council provider, the results for all the water points were Satisfactory. (ii) For the Bukalasa provider, unsatisfactory results were obtained in the cylindrical water tank and Sakaaza tap stand. Acceptable results were obtained in the elevated tank. The rest gave satisfactory results. The maximum acceptable concentration for untreated water supply is 50 Cfu/100 ml of sample.

And finally Coliforms that indicates the general hygienic quality of the water: (i) For the Town Council provider, Semaganda , Florence Nabowa& Mrs. Betty Nakajubi tap- stands and Sikanusi kiosk showed Unsatisfactory bacteriological results. (ii) For the Bukalasa provider, the elevated tank, cylindrical water tank and Sekaaza tap- stand showed unsatisfactory bacteriological results. The maximum acceptable T-Coli concentration in untreated water supply is 100 cfu/100 ml of the sample

CONCLUSIONS
1. People collecting water from tap stands and boreholes always assume that the water is safe and hence no boiling is required. In order to protect public health, a lot of operation and maintenance is required to maintain good water quality.
2. Where water supply is unreliable, it forces people to use alternative water sources, possibly more distant and of lower quality which may increase the risk to health.
3. Discontinuity was noted in both water supplies. Discontinuity may increase the livelihood of contamination as the risk of back – siphoning into the distribution network is increased when pipes are at lower pressure than the surrounding soils.
4. Discontinuity in the town council water supply should be addressed to save the community from using alternative sources of inferior quality as evidenced by people of Sikanusu Zone that were using water from an unprotected spring located in Wapamba Zone. The spring had Unsatisfactory Water quality results.
5. General lack of alternative power supply in case of interrupted UEB power supply was the major cause of discontinuity of supply in the Town Council. This was also the main reason why most kiosks and tap-stands were not sampled at the time. However, it was observed that a stand-by generator was in place.
6. All the tanks of Bukalasa water supply should be cleaned and their cover tops properly fixed. Contamination of these tanks by feacal matter may have been as result of bird dropping washing into the tank since there were all installed on raised platforms. The line up to Sakaaza tap- stand should also be closely examined to identify whether there are leakages.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Applying the Survey of the Citizen Report Card (Data Collection)

To facilitate the selection of Households to be interviewed for each stratum in the village, tables of random numbers were used to avoid biased selection. The Field staffs were trained on the use of the tables of random numbers. For each village a total of 5 replacements HH were also selected although this was increased to 10 HH during the field due to some respondents having left completely the houses where they were residing initially. In some instances, the owners could not be seen although they were selected.

Field activity
The household survey data collection exercise was conducted over a period of ten days and started from the 29th of August 2008 and ended on 7th of September 2008. The team comprised of nine Research Assistants, two field supervisors and three specialists on the team monitored the field exercise. Data collection was successfully carried out in partnership with the Town council, Local Councilors and Water Board members. Two Service providers were interviewed as the NGOs currently working in the Town council, either do not provide services within the Town council or are not directly involved in Water. 8 Water Board members were also interviewed.

During the data collection process, the Research Assistants experienced different scenarios that are worth mentioning:
a) Tenants who connect water and then sale the water to their landlords, hence rather than the common scenario of the landlord being the owner of the water source i.e. the tap and being the one to pay the bills, it is the tenant who pays the water bill and sells water to the landlord.
b) There were tenants who are allowed by their landlords to use water in the house and water in the compound/plot at no cost. That is to say they have never paid for the water they use and the cost of water is also not included in their rent.
c) There are landlords who offer space on their land to service providers to construct water kiosks and compound taps in return for free water access. Hence these lands have piped water in their compound but cannot answer question on the application for connection, payment of bills.
d) There were also cases especially in Upper west were households visited had piped water connection but had never applied for the water because the household members found the houses already connected with water.
e) Similarly there are households that were found to be using both piped water sources as well as the borehole but were not paying for the water at all.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

The Communication Component of our Program

The Communication Strategy (CS) of this program was designed as a coherent and comprehensive plan that aims at allowing a better relationship among all the stakeholders of the program, as well as disseminating the benefits of the application of social accountability tools. Promoting a good communication among stakeholders is a crucial part of this program because only with good communication:
(i) Local stakeholders can understand better concepts of social accountability and transparency and mechanisms that are used to improve governance in the water service provision.
(ii) Local stakeholders can learn how to build a permanent, sustainable and constructive way of providing feedback to providers as well as informing general users about water service provision.
(iii) Providers can learn that listening to users can be constructive and fruitful when it is done using social accountability tools.
(iv)The Ministry of Water and Environment and the Directorate for Water Development can learn from this program how social accountability mechanisms implemented by the communities could help them to monitor the performance of providers hired by them, etc


The strategy is key also to promote a change in the water sector, in the sense that the program expect to promote the concept of users’ feedback and social accountability as an institutionalized mechanism for improving service quality. Thus, a communication strategy is key to developing change in actors’ behaviors and perceptions about social accountability. A good communication should help to achieve different and crucial goals of the program:

a) Information sharing: communication may be used to announce objectives and goals of the program or provide stakeholders with information about the nature, timing, and significance of the program.
b) Participation: Change agents may create communication processes that actively involve even common citizens from Wobulenzi into the program to: provide them with new and creative ideas, and change their perceptions about the service delivery in the water sector. In addition, change agents may construct communication processes that allow the upper-level management from the water sector to get feedback and fresh ideas from implementers and citizens.
c) Vision and Motivation: Communication can be utilized to convey the vision, set of goals, and highlighting the important drivers for changing existing organizational or individual attitudes, beliefs or practices within the water sector in Wobulenzi, or even at national level. For example, communication in this project could provide information about perception on OBA (Output-Based Aid) provision. This new financial system is supposed to pay the provider after confirming delivery of the product or service.
d) Social Support: when efforts are put to produce a change, high-levels of anxiety can arise within the government and providers, and communication may be needed to determine people responses to change, alleviate potential fears to social participation, and encourage partnerships for improved service delivery and the establishment of networks support systems for the program.
e) Evaluation/Feedback: Impacting a public service requires the structuring of communication processes that provide providers feedback about their performance during the program and provide feedback to implementers regarding strengths and weaknesses during the implementation.


Sharing information with stakeholders during the process of a program involves all types of stakeholders in decision-making, implementing process or feedback mechanisms in a two-way communication process. When some one raises his voice, sh/e must feel that sh/e is being heard, and thus must get an answer or a respond, even if it is negative. Focusing on increasing understanding and relations among stakeholders through the use of communication enables participants to move forward with implementation plans, because stakeholders dialogue is important to avoid blaming for the past mistakes and creating a shared future.

This program is basically a program devoted to promoting dialogue and building partnerships among stakeholders which is what CRC/CSC is about. NETWAS will be implementing through the Community Score Cards process, a dialogue between users and providers of water services, in Wobulenzi. It will take place with the participation of local authorities to promote partnerships and good governance within the sector. In order to generate a productive dialogue, NETWAS will be doing the following actions:
a) Engaging frequently and systematically with stakeholders to determine mutually beneficial actions.
b) Remembering that communication must be two-way. Communication is not the same as information. The aim of the dialogue should be to achieve mutual understanding and rational agreement or consent about the goals of the programs and its achievements. Information is crucial, but it must go beyond by incorporation channels fro sharing ideas and worries.
c) Inviting stakeholders to become involved in our program also exploring their concerns about our initiative.
d) If there are not channel with stakeholders, create them! NETWAS will be trying to reach silent stakeholders and form partnership with stakeholders early, as we have been done since the beginning working with the local government of Wobulenzi.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Household Listing Exercise


Before carrying out the Data collection in Wobulenzi town council, a household listing exercise was carried out in the 17 sampled villages. The purpose of the household listing was to obtain a comprehensive updated list of all households in the village without any omission or duplication since the Population census data of 2002 was not adequate. The acquired list would them be used to randomly (without bias) select a sample of households, to be interviewed during data collection exercise.

The team comprised of 5 household listers and 1 supervisor. At the Town council, the team worked with the Town Clerk of Wobulenzi town council. A letter from NETWAS about the activity was earlier on written to the Town Clerk informing him of the activity. An introduction letter from the Town clerk was given to each Lister to be shown to the LCs in the villages. The Town Council water engineer was assigned the role of leading the team to the Local councils. Work started on the 12th August – 15th August 2008.

The 14 sampled villages all in Wobulenzi town council were all listed[1]. The household listers moved from one household to another to be sure all the households were listed in each village. Below is a matrix showing the total number of villages and total number of households in each village and a comparison with the original data set.

What went well in the household listing exercise

  1. The listing of the households was completed in time. This was realised because the team members worked really as a team

  2. The team was coherent/ there was team work. This made the whole exercise a success in fact on the final day all the household listers combined their efforts in Nakadingidi village which was the biggest village of all.

  3. The community was receptive/no resistance. All the household listers reported a positive response from the community members which made household listing a more enjoyable exercises.

  4. Local leaders (LCs) were cooperative although some of them wanted to be paid. With the exception of the few who demanded to be paid, the LC I Chairpersons were willing to work with the team members. Some of the Chairpersons took the opportunity to list the households in their own villages for their own purposes.

  5. Locating the LC 1 Chairpersons was not a problem; at least one of the committee members was available in each village. In all the villages visited the listers were always able to connect with at least a member of the village committee who would be willing to work with us.

  6. The Town coucnil water officer was available and helped a lot in locating local leaders. This made the household listing very swift as no time would be wasted looking for directions to different villages.

Challenges/Limitations

  1. The challenges below also became learning lessons for the team for future household listings.

  2. Timing for peri-urban settlements was not good particularly in the mornings. Most people had left their homes closed and were busy in their gardens or gone to work in different places.

  3. Some residents were in the process of shifting and could not give their names for registration.

  4. Some people expected water immediately while others had a lot of anger about water related issues.

  5. Some household members complained of having been registered by different organizations but nothing had has been done after the study.

  6. Guides complained about little allowance (shs 3000) comparing it with the whole day work they had been engaged in.

  7. In some household, the head had just died and the replacement/heir had not been named.

  8. Transport for household listers within the villages had not been provided which meant that all the team members had to rely on the driver alone yet the villages were so distant.

  9. Time for the exercise was not adequate. It needed more time because some villages were so big. On average 150 households could be listed in a day.

  10. There was a problem of mobile phone network especially UTL /mango network which was not available in most of the areas.

  11. On the list of the villages in Wobulenzi West is a village called Wobulenzi Modern which does not exist on the ground. In Bukalasa Ward, there is no village known as Bukalasa central any more. The former Bukalasa central was divided into-:North central, -upper east,-Upper west.

  12. There were big variations in 3 of the selected villages of Lutamu, Kikasa and Modern between census (2002) and the listing exercise whereby the census had more households and yet villages were expected to have grown bigger since 2002.

  13. Some households were totally closed both in urban and rural areas and neighbors could not identify the names at all. As a result the team members resorted to using names like tenant 1,2,3… or mother so and so the way they are usually called by friends and neighbors.

  14. There is always need to add additional descriptions of the households on top of the names to enable easy identification

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Sample Design for Applying the Survey in Wobulenzi

The stratified sampling plan was designed as part of the preparation for the survey. The households in Wobulenzi Town Council were stratified into two strata; namely Stratum I for Core Urban (Wobulenzi East, Wobulenzi West, Zones Luzzi and Katale of Wobulenzi Central); and Stratum II (Katikamu, Bukalasa and zones Kikoma and Kikasa of Wobulenzi Central) for those households in Peri-Urban. A representative sample was drawn from each of the stratum. . All households in the strata were treated the same way (no divide between connected and not connected), since those not connected fetch water from those connected. It is assumed that the two categories (connected and not connected) may have similar issues related to governance and social accountability.

The application of a petinent formula for this context suggested a sample size of 316 households per stratum, thereby giving a total of 632 households for both strata. Each stratum formed a population to facilitate the selection of the survey units. The sample size proposed enabled generation of representative information on all core variables that were included in the survey. However, given that the proposed sample size per stratum was over 5% of the stratum population, a finite population correction factor was applied. The finite population correction factor measures how much extra precision we achieve when the sample size become close to the population size. Seven (7) zones/villages were randomly selected in each of the stratum. The sample for each of the seven (7) zones/ villages per stratum was selected with probability proportional to size (PPS). In each of the selected zone for Stratum I, 33 households were randomly selected; while in Stratum II, 36 households.

Selection of households for Interview
A household is defined as a group of people who normally live and eat together. Very often the household will be a family living in the same house or compound and eating together, although in some instances a household may be different from a family. A household will normally consist of a head (male or female), a spouse, children and sometimes relatives and visitors.

If two or more people, each with his own separate housekeeping arrangements, live in the same dwelling, they should be treated as separate households. If a man has two or more wives and they with their children live and eat together, they form one household. If each wife and her children live and eat separately, then this family will form more than one household. A household may consist of one person who eats and lives on his/ her own or it may consist of several persons who are not related to each other. What matters is that they live in the same household or compound and eat together.

To facilitate the selection of units for interview, a comprehensive listing of households was undertaken. The purpose of the household listing was to obtain a comprehensive updated list of all households in the village without any omission or duplication and then to randomly (without bias) select a sample of households, for interview.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

The hybrid of CRC/ CSC (citizen report cards and community scorecards)

Social accountability is an approach towards building accountability that relies on civic engagement, i.e. ordinary citizens, service users and/or civil society organizations who participate directly or indirectly in holding service providers and power holders accountable for their performance and behavior. Social Accountability mechanisms refer to a broad range of actions (beyond voting) that citizens, service users, communities and civil society organizations can use to hold service providers and power holders accountable, including: citizen participation in public policy making, participatory budgeting, community scorecards (CSC), citizen report cards (CRC), public expenditure tracking, citizen monitoring of public service delivery, and citizen advisory boards. A communication strategy is an important factor in the success of social accountability since they promote exchange of ideas and social behavior change with both consumers and service providers (public or private) and bring transparency to the process. By enhancing consumers’ ability to engage with providers of water and sanitation services, improved social accountability and communication can promote transparency, which in turn can improve public service delivery.

In this particular program, we will combine the use if citizen report card (CRC) and community score cards (CSC) to promote civic participation in monitoring and improving the water service provision in Wobulenzi.

Through the application of the survey of the CRC, information about users’ awareness of; access to; use of; and satisfaction with public services will be collected. The Report Card will identifies the key constraints faced in accessing the water service, their appraisals of the quality and adequacy of water services, and the treatment they receive from service providers. In summary, the survey will establish a baseline of the current situation of the water service in Wobulenzi. Information generated by the CRC will helps public officials and service providers to address issues in the delivery and maintenance of critical services.

Meanwhile, with the implementation of community scorecards (CSC), the community will provide direct and concrete suggestions to the providers. The richest part of this tool is the inter-face meeting between users and providers, where both can exchange their worries, constraints, problems, and suggestions. The program expects this program will promote a constructive dialogue among users, providers and local authorities to make agreements on enhancing governance within the water service in Wobulenzi.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Improving Governance in the Water Provision through Social Accountability


Netwas-Uganda (Network for Water and Sanitation) in partnership with the World Bank Institute (WBI) and Wobulenzi Town Council in Luweero District is implementing a program that has its focus on improving governance, transparency and communication in water service delivery in Wobulenzi-Uganda by engaging communities in the Town Council to work in partnership with the service providers to improve the quality of water service delivery using a methodology known as the Citizen’s Report Card (CRC)/Community Score Card (CSC) Process.
The Citizen’s Report Card (CRC) will provide services providers in Wobulenzi with feedback from the community about the adequacy, efficiency and quality of water services, based on their experience. Through the Community Scorecard Process (CSC) both community members and service providers will (i) identify priority areas for improvement in the quality of service delivery based on scores – areas with poor/low scores will be given priority for action; (ii) generate suggestions for improvement in service delivery; and (iii) work jointly to identify and implement specific actions to improve the quality of water service delivery within a set timeframe and using available resources. The communities in Wobulenzi will be able to monitor progress in service delivery through constructive feedback to water providers.