Existing Solutions

media,pro- poor, communication, reporting, monitoring, advocacy, campaigns, transparency, accountability, WASH, corruption, good governance, Journalists, openness

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Information
Communication
Public awareness
Enlightenment

The crisis of lack of access to Water and Sanitation services, affects the poor most. Poor people residing in rural areas and especially in urban slums do not have access and public and private servie providers do not have plans to deliver services to poor areas.

Policy makers are seldom aware of the challenges being faced by the poor in accessing services, mainly because the voices of the poor are rarely heard in debates on problems and solutions on water issues.

To address this problem, WASH Journalists in the West Africa region where about 300million people lack access to WASH services, formed a regional network with the strategic objective of amplifying the voices of poor people on WASH issues and increase visibility of lack of access of the region’s poor to water and sanitation services, and generate discussions on practical, low cost, and people centred programmes to resolve this challenge.

The network is now comprised of national networks from 13 West African countries-Ghana, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Mali, Benin, Togo, Cote DiVOire, Cameroon, Gambia, Senegal,Sierre Leone, Niger and Liberia, with the three overarching objectives that it has defined for itself:

- amplifying the voices of the poor;
– ensuring an enhanced flow and quality of information on WASH;
– and targetting for enhanced influence and awareness on WASH in West Africa.

One of the goals of the Network is to become a resource for the sector and to unite sector actors in their relationship with the journalists in the region while aiming towards common messaging and advocacy for due priority to be given to the 68% of the population from the region who lack access to sanitation and 40% who don’t benefit from safe drinking water.

The West Africa Water and Sanitation Journalists Network therefore partners with poor communities and pro poor WASH Civil society groups groups to report stories that highlight the challenges of urban slum and rural poor dwellers.

The overall aim is to influence policy and programme change for better service delivery.

This is a West Africa regional body comprising national networks from 13 West African countries-Ghana, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Mali, Benin, Togo, Cote DiVOire, Cameroon, Gambia, Senegal,Sierre Leone, Niger and Liberia.

Its secretariat is based in Accra, Ghana.

The network was formed in December 2010 in Bamako, Mali.

The regional network was initiated by national platforms of Journalists reporting the WASH sector in 13 West African countries-Ghana, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Mali, Benin, Togo, Cote DiVOire, Cameroon, Gambia, Senegal,Sierre Leone, Niger and Liberia.

The regional network was initiated by national platforms of Journalists reporting the WASH sector in 13 West African countries-Ghana, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Mali, Benin, Togo, Cote DiVOire, Cameroon, Gambia, Senegal,Sierre Leone, Niger and Liberia.

WaterAid in West Africa and WSSCC have both formed a partnership since 2010 to support this regional network of WASH journalists across West Africa

WAWA and WSSCC jointly organized a workshop in December 2010 in Bamako, Mali, which brought together journalists from 9 countries in West Africa as well as representatives from the Pulitzer Centre on Crisis Reporting and WASH United. Journalists from Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria and Ghana represented existing WASH media networks that have been supported for the past few years by WA in those countries. A WASH media network from Benin was also represented, while journalists from Togo, Liberia, Senegal and Niger reported plans and commitments to establish similar networks in their own countries in the coming months. The workshop provided a valuable platform for sharing of information and experiences between the participants.

Discussions covered very practical issues around forming and running networks as well highlights of their contribution towards addressing the deplorable WASH situation in West Africa, which has only 32% access to improved sanitation and around 60% access to safe water.

It was agreed unanimously that, in order to be able to support each other more effectively and to make an impact at a broader scale, beyond national borders, there was a strong need to establish a regional network. Building on this decision, participants worked together to define a vision, strategic objectives and a short term action plan for the establishment and activities of the regional network.

The two partners have provided a seed funding for the initial three years, with a view to the network becoming financially independent and sourcing funding from outside the partnership.

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The Network set up a Blog www.wash-jn.net through which its members are publishing compelling stories on good governance, transparency, accountability, equity and inclusion, and several other issues.

The Pulitzer Centre on Crisis Reporting commissioned some of our members to carry investigative case studies of WASH challenges and solution in five West African countries.

The Water Integrity Network, the Water Aid in West Africa and the WSSCC is giving seed money to WASH Journalists to enable them produce compelling stories that come up with problems and solutions to WASH challenges in 13 West African countries

In Africa, apart from the low level of access to water and sanitation services by poor communities, limited access to information presents a major challenge to improving and sustaining service delivery.

That notwithstanding, there are a number of civil society groups and structures that are working towards improving access to information, creating and providing platforms or opportunities for citizens to engage with governments and other duty-bearers in the private or public sector.

The need to develop a network of media, strengthen capacity and create bigger platforms to articulate community voices has become extremely important in order to lobby or advocate on water and sanitation issues on a much larger scale. More importantly, CSOs work with poor people and their organisations and the linkage between them and the media for improving access to information and increasing advocacy is very critical to influencing policies and strengthening citizens’ participation in the delivery of WASH services.

In this way poor people’s voices can be amplified and the capacity of the media in turn can be strengthened by their relationships with CSOs.

A coordinated effort at harmonizing and building media- CSO relationships in-country as well as across the West Africa region are critical steps towards impactful policy work in the region.

In many respects, the momentum generated by such relationships would not only bring issues affecting poor people into the public domain but also generate pressure on individual and collective governments to deliver on their mandates to WASH.

• Coordinated coverage of West African WASH Journalists at key events the 3rd AfricaSan held in Kigali in 2011, the 1st Global Forum on Sanitation held in Mumbai in October 2011, World Water Day 2011, High Level Forum on Water and Sanitation in Burkina Faso December 2011, Global Hand Washing day 2011

••During the 3rd AfricanSan in Kigali, our body run a session called ‘Hardtalk- an ‘Interactive media round-table with ournalists and Ministers of Water in Africa on the topic of sanitation commitments and accountability, its wider implications in terms of health, education and socio-economic development, the relationship between media, CSOs, governments and the general public, and the media’s role in the development process. The session demonstrated the power and the role of journalists in fostering public debates and accelerate actions to respond to commitments on sanitation

Publication of compelling and Investigative stories on www.wash-jn.net

Increased capacity of West Africa Journalists in understanding, analysing and reporting WASH issues

One of our members won the WASH Media award

Strategic objective 1:
The voices of local people and their WASH issues are heard at national, regional and international level.

Indicators
Voices of the poor are magnified. Interviews/voice capture, reports, documentaries are published/broadcast

News outlets (BBC, CNN, AP, Reuters)

Number of times stories gathered according to priorities of the regional network appear in national media

Circulation levels of the media in which stories gathered according to priorities of the regional network appear (TV and radio viewer and listener numbers, newspaper circulation

Stories gathered according to priorities of the regional network are placed prominently in print/radio/tv media (op-ed, page, prime time etc.)

Uptake of stories gathered according to priorities of the regional network in news outlets at regional level (ATN, Africable etc.)

Journalists bring voices from the poor through their presentations and questions at regional events
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Uptake by media outlets outside West Africa (e.g. Pulitzer, Global Voices)

Journalists bring voices from the poor through their presentations and questions at international events

Strategic objective 2:
High quality information is gathered and documented by members of the media network from a wide range of credible sources and shared widely at the regional level

Quality and flow of information Rigour & flow
Organisations and other networks regularly approach the regional media network in their search for expertise (writing, collating information etc.)

Increased demand from media editors for WASH stories and a WASH element in stories

Improved quality of journalists’ output on WASH

Journalists use a broad range of reliable sources (eg. interviews, local/national/regional/intl statistics, sector CSO networks, sector reports)

Stories with the same key messages are published and broadcast across several countries within a given time

Reports from a given country are taken up by news outlets in other countries

Key messages agreed by the network are communicated widely through a media ripple effect in West Africa around milestone days and key events (eg. AfricaSan, World Water Day, Global Handwashing Day, World Toilet Day etc.)

Strategic Objective 3: Our stories and reports get into the media that decision-makers and the people view and hear

Targeting for enhanced influence and increased awareness on WASH Comments are made on our stories and reports and excerpts are used by people and decision-makers at various occasions (including events)

Increased, more regular and systematic coverage of burning WASH issues in popular media e.g.

Increased, regular, systemic coverage of burning WASH issues in media that traditionally covers broad development issues

Strategic objective 4:

The network is recognized as a credible media network with strong expertise on WASH issues. Journalists receive invitations to regional/international events (other than from WAWA-WSSCC)

Website is active being referenced by a wide range of stakeholders within and outside the region on WASH issues.

The demand for the WARMN services steadily increases

Enhanced and diverse membership (regions within countries, gender, etc.)

This solution should interest decision makers, policy formulators, service providers, regulators and donors in the WASH sector, who desire to know how best the voices of marginalized groups could be heard and their needs addressed.

The solution could work best where there is a vibrant Media community and freedom of the press, including freedom to receive and impact ideas

The solution is on a regional level already. Other regions in Africa and in the world would want to learn from this experience and form Regional WASH Journalists Network. In the future, these regional groups could come together to form a Continental network and ultimately a Global network of WASH Journalists that can jointly cover global events like the WWF.

Network members and partners should adopt ways of working that are accountable, collaborative, transparent, inclusive and equitable.

Initial seed funding is needed to catalyze and develop an independent and self-financed network in the long term.

The network should emphasize the inclusion in the network of a large number of women journalists from different parts of member countries (decentralization).

There is need for a strong Governance structure based in a Secretariat.

The factors for success are:
The Governing Board should be open, transparent and accountable

Members should be committed to the objectives.

Yes, WASH Journalists in East Africa and Central Africa are in the process of forming Regional WASH Journalists network in the manner of West African Journalists Network. They have already contacted us for assistance and support.

Also WASH Journalists in South Asia met with the West Africa WASH Journalists Network during the Global Forum on Sanitation in October 2011 in Mumbai to learn how to effectively manage a South Asian WASH Journalists Network

Tatiana Fedotova, Communications Officer,Water Supply & Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC)
15, chemin Louis-Dunant 1202 Geneva, Switzerland. Tel: +41 22 560 81 77, Fax: +41 22 560 81 84
Email: tatiana.fedotova@wsscc.org, Web: www.wsscc.org Skype: tf_wsscc

Abdul Nashiru Mohammed,
WaterAid inWest Africa, Accra, Ghana
abdulnashiru@wateraid.org