WaterAid at Africa Water Week: Day five

Phew, what a week! Yesterday culminated in the prestigious AfricaSan Awards where WaterAid partner The Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Ethiopia Movement was announced the winner of the NGO/Civil Society Award.

The award honours individuals and institutions that have supported and mobilised communities to improve their sanitation and hygiene conditions. WaterAid was one of the founding members of the Movement in 2004 and continues to play a significant role in its work, dedicating significant time and resources to help make it such a success so we were thrilled to see our partner honoured in this way.

The WASH Ethiopia Movement has done some great work to engage people by organising very successful events around Global Handwashing Day, World Water Day and the first ever Ethiopia Sanitation and Hygiene Festival. The network has also been successful in influencing the Ethiopian government, particularly on the need to integrate education, health and water policies and services.

Elsewhere, WaterAid's Senior Advocacy and Research Manager in Madagascar, Lovy Rasolofomanana, took part in a debate between water and sanitation experts and African media on some of the key issues raised during the course of the week including financing the sector and climate change.

When the discussion turned to financing, he asked: "Do we have a credible plan for water and sanitation at country level? Even if we get the money, do we have the capacity? We need to think about governance at a local level as well as fiscal decentralisation." He also talked about the strong cultural barriers surrounding sanitation that exist in Madagascar where for example it's considered taboo for a brother and sister to share the same latrine. According to Serena O'Sullivan, campaigns and communications officer for End Water Poverty: "It's been inspiring to see so much progress on the Global Framework for Action this week with new donors and country governments getting involved. There's also been a strong civil society presence, with some excellent examples of strategic advocacy being carried out across Africa. And a lot of interest in the World's Longest Toilet Queue which is taking place on World Water Day next March."

Summing up the week, WaterAid's director of policy and campaigns Margaret Batty said: "The Global Framework for Action on water and sanitation has made unbelievable progress this week. There are 18 African countries interested in signing up so there's now a huge amount of follow-up work to be done with them in the run up to the high level meeting on water and sanitation in America next April."