The House Committee on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) will tomorrow, May 29, 2024 hold a consultative meeting with sector stakeholders drawn from the Standing Committee on WASH and Environment, WASH Caucus, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), WASH Consortium, CWSA and partners and. WASH MACs.
Others expected to be in the meeting are Liberia CSOs WASH Network, other key traditional WASH Actors and Stakeholders for acquaintance so as to explain the terms of reference of the Committee in order to align expectations, and demystify the roles and responsibilities of the Committee in line with sector challenges, as well as broadening the scope of understanding of Committee members.
Meanwhile, the USAID Countywide Sanitation Activity (CWSA) and its national partner, Compassion for Humanity (C4H)-Liberia have extolled members the House of Representatives for promptly establishing the WASH Standing Committee within the Legislature.
This advocacy intervention, according to a C4H Liberia release is in response to the persistent calls from the WASH Sector for the establishment of a national oversight body of WASH at the Legislature.
The aim of CWSA is to eliminate open defecation in Liberia, focusing on four key result areas: improved sanitation governance, adoption of key sanitation behaviors, strengthening the sanitation market, and increasing sanitation financing.
The project is managed by a consortium led by Population Services International (PSI) and includes partners (Concern Worldwide, Athena Infonomics, and Gusceman, Inc.).
The WASH sector has been engulfed with many challenges, including fragmentations amongst state institutions with WASH services in their statutory mandate; limited political will for granting full enforcement of regulatory authority; inadequate appropriation of state resources towards activities of the sector; and a negligible absence of standalone policy on sanitation.
These sectorial challenges have had untold consequences on the health and economic wellbeing of the country at large, and especially, densely populated communities. In the country today, over 25 percent of the Country’s population lacks access to safe water and only 17 percent has access to improved sanitation services (JMP, 2028). Still worse, Liberia loses US$ 17.5 million annually due to the effect of poor sanitation on public health and productivity (PADP 2018).
There is a general agreement amongst sector stakeholders that the sector challenges remain persistent due to the absence of legislative frameworks that could provide oversight and fiduciary responsibilities for WASH sector.
This has also necessitated advocacy and communication actions, which led to the establishment of the Standing Committee in the House, and following successful establishment of the Standing Committee, there is a need for sector actors and other stakeholders to interface with members of the Committee as a means of acquaintance, and review together the terms of reference of the Committee to solidify its functions.
In 2023, under the USAID sponsored CWSA, the PSI-led consortium of INGOs managing the Activity awarded Compassion for Humanity (C4H), a national-level civil society organization (CSO), to lead advocacy initiatives alongside CWSA.
The grant aimed at formalizing the WASH Legislative Caucus into a Standing Committee. Under the sub-grant arrangement, C4H has responsibility for coordinating national and subnational stakeholders to advocate for the establishment of the Standing Committee, which WASH sector actors envisage as the genesis of structural response to the many sector challenges.
As envisaged, the advocacy strategies have achieved the ultimate result, midway into the project implementation period. On April 9, 2024, a Standing Committee on WASH and Environment was established by members of the House under the 55th Legislature.
The formation of the WASH Standing Committee is a fulfillment of the advocacy efforts of C4H under result one of the USAID-funded CWSA and to achieve this milestone, C4H conducted extensive consultations across various sectors, engaging the WASH Legislative Caucus, the WASH Consortium, relevant government ministries, agencies, civil society organizations, and development partners.
These consultations provided crucial insights which led to immediate support from the WASH Caucus members. The WASH Caucus is an ad hoc arrangement at the Legislature with no legal oversight over the sector.
The advocacy efforts of C4H and other partners exposed the gaps within the WASH sector such as heavy reliance on donor funding for projects and the detrimental effects of sector fragmentation on coordination and functionality.
This led to several commitments which resulted in accelerated efforts to formalize the WASH Caucus into a Standing Committee by House Speaker Cllr. Fonati Kofa in less than six months, giving it a legal status with a statutory mandate under the laws of Liberia.
This not only signifies a notable accomplishment for the WASH sector but also represents a crucial advancement towards enhancing governance and advocacy for increased financing.
CWSA and C4H recognize the leadership of the Standing Committee Chairman, Maryland County District 2 Representative, Anthony F. Williams and Co-Chairman, Grand Bassa County Representative, Thomas A. Goshua.
C4H, along with CWSA and other development partners, MACs, CSOs, and WASH stakeholders, acknowledge their collective support in this endeavor. In recognition and appreciation of this milestone, C4H Liberia, in collaboration with the WASH Standing Committee Secretariat and Liberia CSOs WASH Network, is organizing the meeting.
Compassion for Humanity (C4H) Liberia is a National Non-Governmental Organization that focuses on the following goals which are to contribute to the promotion, culture, strengthening and sustenance of all aspects of democratic governance, and advocate for the promotion of human rights, gender equality, women political participation, women access to justice and empowerment.
Others are to build the capacity of youth and empower them for community and national services, promote the culture of public participation and engagement to influence public policy and impact change in critical sectors at both national and local levels, and build the internal capacity of C4H Liberia and other partners CSO and CBOs in the organization’s areas of expertise.
