The Citywide Inclusive Sanitation Technical Assistance (CWIS TA) is an effort to strengthen and support Ethiopia’s urbansanitation governance arrangements, in coordination and collaboration with existing sanitation initiatives. On April 24-26, Athena Infonomics organised the final leg of our project on Technical Assistance for Capacity Development, Planning, and Private Sector Development to Achieve Inclusive and Safely Managed Urban Sanitation Services in Ethiopia, with funding support from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supported TA Hub Ethiopia. This project was implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Water and Energy (MoWE) and other governmental bodies across 11 selected cities, which marked a significant milestone.

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The workshop was also attended by Ato Belayneh Teshome, Hawassa Mayor’s Office and Ato Nuredin Mohammed, Ministry of Water and Energy (MoWE). Through this workshop, we aimed to gauge the lessons learned, identify best practices, and formulate recommendations to propel our efforts forward in the coming years, ensuring sustainable and transformative change. We are grateful to our partners JaRco Consulting PLC and Demewoz Consultancy and TA Hub Ethiopia and BMGF for their support.

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Ato Nuredin Mohammed from the Ministry of Water and Energy (MoWE) provided a critical overview of Ethiopia's position in terms of sanitation, highlighting that the country significantly lags behind other Sub-Saharan nations in access to safely managed water and sanitation services. He stressed the crucial need for ongoing support and capacity building for municipal utilities and city administrations, which are essential for sustaining improvements and scaling up successful models. Ato Nuredin emphasized the importance of the workshop as a platform for peer-to-peer learning, where participants can share experiences and best practices to mutually enhance their local sanitation strategies. He set the expectation that the workshop would foster rich discussions leading to actionable insights and collaborative initiatives, helping bridge the gap between current conditions and desired outcomes for urban sanitation. Furthermore, Ato Nuredin shared a vision for leveraging the collective efforts of all participants to drive positive changes in their respective cities and towns, enhancing sanitation conditions to create healthier urban environments.

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For the participants, the key takeaways from the project were:

• An understanding of equity in sanitation approach, considering gender, economic status, and disabilities
• Adopting CWIS as a global strategy to mitigate urban sanitation inequalities, with a focus on sustainability beyond initial project phases, addressing issues like overlapping responsibilities, unclear accountability, and lack of comprehensive management
• A focus on stronger private sector involvement through PPPs to enhance service delivery, with market-based models, financial incentives, early inclusion in strategic planning, and supportive regulatory frameworks
• Access to comprehensive statistics on sanitation coverage in Ethiopia, highlighting the need for improvement in sanitation services and hand hygiene facilities
• Addressing specific challenges in Hawassa, including septic tank overflows, shortage of construction materials, lack of budget allocation, and rise in communicable diseases linked to poor sanitation and using the city as a model for future strategies
• Realising the importance of informed, realistic goal-setting in sanitation planning using detailed baseline data, and addressing common obstacles like budget constraints, inter-sectoral collaboration, and private sector integration
  

For more information on this project, please contact Eunice and Annabella