🔊 Listen to this article

Training and capacity building have long been established as critical components of global water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) policies, strategies, and programs. To this effect, expanding capacity building support for WASH in developing countries is one of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals. There are many training and capacity building methods and tools available; however, there is a large gap in the kind and number of trainings that need to be conducted in promoting sustainable WASH and the actual requirements of the communities. This gap is felt even more acutely among the CSOs who aid in WASH service provision and the PRIs who have a large role to play in the implementation of WASH programmes.

An essential part of the WASH training is related to WASH governance. Sustainable WASH services depend on governments meeting their commitments and carrying out essential functions at federal, regional, district, and community levels.  Mostly, WASH capacity building comprises of the WASH specific sectoral issues such as the need and necessity of linking sanitation and health, adoption of safe and hygienic WASH practices, the limits and scarcity of water as a resource and various others. Training on good governance practices, accountability and transparency, budget tracking in WASHhas not yet gained as much traction as it should have  had especially in India which has a complex federal structure. Policy developments in the past few years in the country have deepened and drawn attention to all the tiers of the federal polity. It has, hence, underlined the importance of local/sub-national governments.

Recent efforts in this direction were observed by the two capacity building workshops that CBGA conducted on water and sanitation in the districts of Ganjam and Samastipur  in Odisha and Bihar respectively in June and July 2018[1]. These workshops ascertained the need for understanding WASH governance amongst PRIs and CSOs . It was interesting to note that while the objectives of the training were similar, the responses varied in both the States.

The learnings from the workshops are summarized below.

Need for an understanding on State polity and its fiscal and federal structure

Understanding the overall State’s polity, institutional and economic framework aids in the capacity building process. The two states of Odisha and Bihar have different socio-economic features because of which results and responses of the PRI training differ. Moreover the fiscal and federal structure of the States although being similar, their Panchayati Raj Acts differed. These simultaneously threw up numerous challenges and possibilities of engagement with the PRIs. CSOs need to be aware about the economic and political background of their project States so as to effectively engage with local governments. Further, CSOs need to develop skills for identifying WASH governance issues such as gaps in access to services, low levels of accountability, regulation mechanism etc. This understanding would be essential towards increasing effectiveness in future training programmes.

Greater awareness on relevant policy pronouncements and new schemes

Statewise policy pronouncements such as the GO (government order) which the Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water department of Odisha brought out stating that 30 percent of the fundsfrom the 14^th Finance Commission and 4^th State Finance Commission should be used for water and similarly in Bihar, where the PRIs were instructed to use 80 percent of the funds for water and sanitation need to be factored into the training modules. This updated information could go a long way in making the training relevant to the PRIs.

Knowledge of local language and flexibility to adapt

A crucial point to be taken into consideration which was also observed in the training was knowledge and use of the local language. In Odisha, the trainers knowledge of Odiya, made it easier for the participants to engage and communicate actively. It was also noticed that many times the sessions did not go as planned due to delay of participants as well as some government officials, however, the trainers innovatively shifted and modified some sessions.

Stress on specificities and complexities of the target group

For a training to be effective, the target groups specificities and complexities need to be kept in mind. This makes the training more nuanced and highlights social dynamics of the group. For instance, in both Bihar and Odisha, it was observed that women were not actively speaking and the training relied on the trainer’s skills of engagement to make them participate. Further, the tendency for some participants to dominate the sessions had to be gently quelled by the trainer so as to make the sessions more inclusive. Grasping the various specific characteristics of the target group at the outset of the session could greatly enhance the outcome and quality of the training.

As WASH takes centre stage in India like in other developing countries, in the SDG era, insights like these are crucial towards enhancing the quality of capacity building efforts targeting important stakeholders like Panchayat representatives and CSOs, who are closer to the site of implementation.

 

[1]http://www.cbgaindia.org/event/capacity-building-workshop-orientation-planning-budgeting-water-sanitation/

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author, and don’t necessarily reflect the position of CBGA. You can reach Trisha Agarwala at trisha14@gmail.com.