Implementing an advocacy agenda for improved accountability in the WASH sector

A factory in Dar es Salaam. Credit: Water Witness

The following blog provides a summary of learning from breakout room one at our World Water Week session ‘How accountability is accelerating progress towards SDG6.’ Parts 2, 3, and 4 will be published shortly.

Breakout room one featured Shahidi Wa Maji discussing experiences of advocacy in Tanzania. The session began with a recorded video outlining how citizens struggle to secure basic rights to WASH.

The video featured Katerina Aloyce, a resident of Kipera street, from the Mkundi ward of Morogoro. She expresses anger that - five decades after independence - residents of her ward still do not have access to clean and safe drinking water. Water service providers have not built infrastructure to supply the neighbourhood. The community used to rely on the Ngerengere river for irrigation and domestic needs. However, it has since been polluted by upstream industries. Katerina described the water as so dirty that when you boil it ‘it boils into foam’. Yet without alternative options, some residents continue to use it. Others rely on water tanks delivered by donors in trucks, but this is a stopgap solution at best. Residents have complained to public authorities in writing, on the radio, and to TV. Yet for all their efforts, municipal authorities have not responded.

The discussion provided further context and illuminated the political challenges to accountability. Those who had worked in the region suggested that Tanzania’s power structures and political economy explained the muted political response. Pollution in the Ngerenge river can be traced to a group of factories in Morogoro town, and political donations from factory owners was alleged to have weakened political will to clean up operations.

Participants agreed that the experience in Morogoro was not an isolated incident. Many other communities have demanded better services for decades without success. This raises a crucial question: how does one escalate? Participants identified the need for sustained social mobilisation, taking issues to parliament and gaining the backing of politicians if media action is not working. The discussion turned to the political power of people benefitting from insecurity. In recent years, Shahidi wa Maji and partners have tried to test a social accountability model. Community advocates have mobilised evidence, samples, and personal testimony to build their case, but there has been an ineffective response from regulators. Fines are ‘brushed off’ and industry carries on polluting.

In Tanzania, campaigners are now advocating for change through the courts. Public interest litigation can bring accountability, but also the danger of repercussions. Trans- and supra-national accountability mechanisms are thus also important to consider. This could include UN sanctions for governments over national breaches of the human right to water and sanitation. Other participants described successful strategies in the Bangladesh delta. Stakeholders developed a water security plan, applying accountability mechanisms to break deadlocks.

This discussion was followed by a presentation from Zobair Hasani (DORP, Bangladesh). He argued that advocacy must display a strong commitment to lobbying multi-sector constituencies. It should set the agenda for governments, development partners, and the private sector. Hasani stressed the need to identify influential institutions, media operators, and political actors. This was key to generating change. He recommended a bottom-up approach, connecting rights holders and duty bearers at a grassroots and district level. This political laboratory could offer a template for broader change.

Hasani was asked about the background to his work with SWA, supporting a network of 230+ WASH groups in Bangladesh. Some participants were skeptical about the efficacy of social accountability initiatives, but others argued that social accountability can work. Rigorous evaluation from the Global Evidence Review has shown the impact of citizen voices included in national debates, analysing budgets and incentivising governments to up their game. The analysis explains why collaboration works, the importance of the media, and how to ensure legitimacy. What is key is understanding why interventions works differently in different contexts.