By Grace Q. Bryant The Communications Manager and Project Head of Compassion for Humanity (C4H), Weemon Jallahcole, has called on the legislators to formalize the wash caucus into a WASH Standing Committee within the Legislature. Project Manager Jallahcole who spoke in a press conference yesterday, Monday, January 29, at the C4H Headquarters in Monrovia, said that the standing committee will exercise policy and fiduciary responsibilities, including raising political awareness that clarifies multiple overlapping mandates among GoL WASH institutions. According to Madam Jallahcole, the Committee will revise urban WASH policies, plan accountability mechanisms, and consequently increase the WASH public sector investment plan budget; take actions towards centralizing WASH regulations and supporting policy advocacy for sanitation governance. She furthered that if the committee established the WASH Standing Committee, it would exercise policy and legislative functions for committing national budgetary allocations to enhance WASH and sanitation governance in the country. “Processes leading to the establishment of the Standing Committee will include identifying additional legislators to beef up the strength of existing WASH champions; holding consultations with sector actors (including, but not limited to, the WASH consortium), and drafting of a resolution that will proffer the need for the Standing Committee,” Madam Jallahcole told the reporters. She maintained that mobilizing and strengthening public and private WASH and sanitation institutional capacity to form part of the advocacies campaign will improve the sanitation in the country. She informed the press that the project intends to engage members of the Liberian parliament, especially those who are part of the WASH Caucus, to champion the campaign for the establishment of a WASH Standing Committee; engage citizens to support the worthy cause and develop the capacity of relevant institutions. The Project Manager emphasized that the project has two overarching goals, which are the establishment of a house standing committee on WASH within the National Legislature, and strengthening national WASH policies and practices through citizen engagement, institutional capacity strengthening, and budgeting advocacy. She noted that the aim for the project is to identify more champions of advocacy for the establishment of a WASH Standing Committee at the National legislature, with priority of inclusive women, youth, and persons in need of special attention, as well as other vulnerable persons. She explained that the project is made possible with funding from USAID through Population Services International (PSI), under the Country Wide Sanitation Activity (CWSA). She noted that C4H welcomes the government’s inclusion of WASH in her platform, saying, “We acknowledge the challenges within the sector, and we wish to sit with all stakeholders within the sector to enable the government achieve her overall goal.” C4H also commended the government for including WASH as one of the pillars within the government’s national agenda. Madam Jallahcole added that the pillar two of the President’s ARREST platform emphasizes that WASH services remain a major challenge, with the vast majority of the population lacking access to decent toilets and latrines, having to defecate in bushes around towns and villages. “The President also acknowledges in the AREST document that majority of the Liberian population lack access to safely-managed drinking water and sanitation,” she noted.
