Accountable Governance and Making the Rights to Water and Sanitation a Reality: Mali Case Study
WaterAid are joining with Accountability for Water and IRC in co-convening a session at this years Stockholm World Water Week on Monday 21st August, 4pm CET - the event will be in-person and online, online registration is free from https://www.worldwaterweek.org/tickets.
The session will comprise presentation of the outcomes of 3 years of research into accountability, a panel discussion with development partners, government, and civil society organisations who have been working on system strengthening and financing accountability for over five years, and a focussed plenary discussion on the structure needed to finance sustainable accountability, particularly in water scarce contexts. The session will be in translated between French and English.
WaterAid/Basile Ouedraogo
Background
Social accountability is critical to achieving universal access to water and sanitation. Empowering users and citizens to make demands to states and local governments, to deliver the human rights to water and sanitation is essential to improve WASH service delivery and quality. There are different ways of institutionalizing accountability mechanisms.
WaterAid designs its programmes in each country based on the understanding that WASH exists in complex systems with many components and within different social, economic, political, and environmental contexts. This systems approach involves a process of analysis, implementation, adaptation, and learning to address the barriers to the achievement of inclusive, sustainable, universal access to WASH.
Systems thinking encourages a focus on stakeholder participation and the underlying societal barriers that prevent people from accessing WASH. WaterAid blends systems thinking with the underlying principles associated with the human rights to water and sanitation as well as efforts to build solidarity and empower all people to collectively claim their rights while fulfilling their own obligations.[1]
Social Accountability and Human Rights based projects in Mali[2]
In Mali, the ‘Ji Ni Beseya’ project ((2020- 2024), funded by WaterAid and One Drop, aims to increase access to safe water and sanitation services in nine rural communes in the districts of Kati and Bla, collaborating on behaviour change with the social arts organisation Centre Culturel Kôrè and with other local NGOs.
WaterAid and partners provided training and orientation for rights holders (including water user committees and community members) on the human rights to water and sanitation and on social accountability mechanisms. They also provided training for duty bearers (municipal and provincial leaders) on their obligations with respect to human rights. Social accountability mechanisms were established to monitor the status of WASH and hold duty bearers accountable for their obligation towards rights holders.
Another project in Bamako, ‘Improving Access to Sanitation’(2016- 2018), involved the establishment of the citizen jury, capacity building of authorities and citizens on human rights, budget monitoring, advocacy and contributed to the institutionalisation of a framework for dialogue between citizens and authorities of the municipality, and improvement of the budget of the municipality allocated to sanitation and water.
The Ji Ni Beseya project organised spaces for questioning, and citizen watch committees, women’s and youth groups were set up and strengthened on human rights-based approach and leadership to improve their participation in the planning and budgeting process of development actions.
The project has also facilitated the renewal of local development plans and the integration of WASH into planning tools in all the project intervention communes. They have also helped to establish accountability and dialogue frameworks at the local level to address inadequate WASH in Bamako. These include spaces for democratic interpellation, Citizen Juries, joint dialogue, and public hearings.
One success story was on addressing a violation of rights to water and sanitation. Community members in Gouana , near Bamako airport were mobilized to act against pit emptying associations dumping faecal sludge around their neighborhood. The community members gathered evidence that was used in collaborative advocacy with National Human Rights Institutions (CNDH) and included in Mali’s report to the UN on human rights violations. Additional advocacy with parliamentarians and the media helped increase demand for government response which has now committed to allocate land for a faecal sludge treatment station.
Results
Through this project the joint action of different CSOs and rights groups, the participation of women and young people in the decision-making process, and citizens’ involvement in the budget process at the local level, resulted in budget increases for WASH through the local authorities’ planning document.
In addition, there was progress in embedding principles of accountability at the national level through the establishment of an annual consultation framework for the sector; and increased citizen participation in the planning process of the local budget and the restitution of the administrative account.
[1] SusWASH Global Learning Report: https://washmatters.wateraid.org/publications/suswash-system-strengthening-for-inclusive-lasting-water-sanitation-hygiene
[2] Louisa Gosling , Tripti Raib, Pedi Obani , Moussa Alou Traore, Landry Ouangree, Fauzia Aliuf and Sonu Kumar Shahb Analysis of experience using human rights to accelerate WASH access in four countries
