Inclusive Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Activity

We partnered with the Centre for Human Settlement, Shelter and Environment Africa (CHELSEA) to design and deliver this project. This activity was implemented on the Anambra – Imo River Basin. The exact implementation location was a total of 22 communities spread over 11 LGAs in Abia and Imo states. All together the project reached a total of 36,000 beneficiaries, this included a coterie of people, households, farmers, artisans and other group of beneficiaries.

The goal of the activity was to improve water quality and expand access to clean drinking water in the degraded Imo and Otamiri Rivers watershed communities. it sought to address the problem of pollution from agriculture, and leaky septic –pits, and expand access to clean drinking water as well as reducing the cost of water treatment at both municipal and household levels, reducing the prevalence of waterborne diseases and ensuring ecosystem sustainability.

The project diligently generated detailed data on both the physico-chemical and bacteriological characteristics of both rivers in order to appreciate the impact of unregulated waste discharge on the quality of these rivers as well as to discuss its suitability for human consumption based on the computed water quality index values. The was expected to impact policy, especially watershed policy in both states. No watershed policy existed for the watershed or even the basin. This activity therefore worked closely with the relevant institutions of both states especially the ministries of water resources, the public water boards in both states, and the federal government – owned Anambra –River Basin Authority, that is headquartered in the Otamiri watershed.

The project brough all parties/stakeholders together, to collaborate and ensure that safe water, sanitation and hygiene become possible through our proposed two-level components of:

• • Increasing access to basic drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene; and
• • Enhancing capacity for watershed management and water resource quality

The project also built the capacity of the local institutions and involved them in all stages of the project starting from baseline surveys to monitoring and evaluation to expand the opportunities for sustainable ownership and management of the entire infrastructure at the end of the project.

The methodologies deployed for the work included: Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) and the Market-based Solutions within a Human Rights-Based Approach (HRBA). Both methods were driven by a participatory rural appraisal for WASH development, and the Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation (PHAST).