1. Introducing Accountability and Transparency to Water and Sanitation Services in Honduras through Enhanced User Participation

In recent years the Honduran municipality of Puerto Cortés has received significant attention for managing its own water and sanitation sectors. National reforms made this possible. This case examines these reforms, with an emphasis on:

• User Involvement in Decision Making. As a result of these reforms, water users in Puerto Cortés now participate in decision making for water and sanitation services at various levels, including by becoming members of the water and sanitation utility itself. Users are also involved in the control and oversight of concession awards, either by becoming members of the local regulatory agency or becoming involved with the utility’s management board.
• Inclusive, Transparent Board Management. More than 50 percent of water users are members of cooperatives that hold stock in a mixed capital utility, establishing a direct relationship between users and the utility operator. This has fostered a climate of trust and transparency, and as a result both groups have committed to improving service. In addition, the bill collection rate has exceeded 93 percent as of 2007.

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2. Advocacy by the Office of the Ombudsman: Enabling Water Reforms Based on Citizens’ Feedback in Peru

This case examines how the Defensoría del Pueblo (National Ombudsman) in Peru amplified the voice of the community by establishing mechanisms for receiving and responding to citizens’ complaints about water delivery. The new system allowed the Ombudsman to use input from the public to improve national public policy and regulations, and in so doing, helped to bridge the disparate interests of service users, water suppliers, and the national regulator.

This type of public inclusion also raised awareness of important aspects of service delivery. Specifically, the Office of the Ombudsman helped water users understand that although the public has the right to access safe and clean potable water, it must also pay the costs of service delivery. In the process, the Ombudsman had to correct the common assumption that water is a free and infinite resource by increasing public awareness of the expenses associated with building and maintaining the infrastructure necessary for water delivery.

Peru has tried to make water services sustainable through reforms, but several factors have blocked the way. Perhaps the most challenging was convincing the public to pay higher prices for water. To make things more difficult, the provision of water services in Peru - and rate setting in particular - had long been politicized. Political actors controlled critical decisions - including rate setting - and as a result, decisions often reflected political priorities instead of the needs of the public. The water boards, along with officials from the decentralized water companies, were responsible for not only managing and operating the utilities, but also for overseeing billing and collections, levying penalties for nonpayment, and connecting and disconnecting users. Despite widespread need for infrastructural improvements and increased coverage throughout the water sector, water officials were often reluctant to implement potentially unpopular measures - such as enforcing rate increases required by the regulator, or disconnecting nonpaying users - for fear of political backlash. The governance situation of water delivery services was therefore untenable and jeopardized the financial sustainability of the decentralized water companies.

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3. Community-Managed Sanitation in Kerala, India: Tools to Promote Governance and Improve Health

The Kerala Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project was a pioneering grassroots approach initiated by the government of India. The project aimed to revolutionize sanitation services in the South Indian state of Kerala, with the primary goal of improving public health. An array of social accountability tools instituted in Kerala addressed the significant governance problems that had hindered water and sanitation reforms in local and national programs.

Challenges to reform included a lack of accountability and transparency and broad corruption, which made local sanitation and hygiene problems more difficult to solve and accelerated the spread of infectious diseases throughout densely populated Kerala. Corruption therefore affected all segments of the population, particularly the poor and marginalized.

The Kerala Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project broke new ground by institutionalizing the integration of local communities with Panchayats (local government institutions). By placing communities in charge of their own sanitation, the project supported the sustained delivery of adequate sanitation and water services in rural areas of Kerala’s four districts. This case study differs from other cases by focusing on sanitation (particularly household latrines) instead of water, and by focusing on the actions of local government and civic society organizations instead of public sector institutions, such as utilities and boards. The project has improved on other sanitation programs by addressing critical sanitation needs and encouraging further cooperation among and between community members and local government.

Moreover, the project has mediated competing interests, enforced obligations, and prevented capture of resources by elites and unscrupulous vendors and community members.

Finally, the Kerala project institutionalized several social accountability tools. These tools enhance the prospects for improved governance beyond governmental operations to embrace innovative forms of social development - notably community-led management. It also established mechanisms to enhance gender equity and prevent corruption through public-private partnerships between local government, civil society organizations, the private sector, and user communities. As a result, Kerala has enjoyed significant improvements in development and health outcomes.

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4. Improving Governance in Water Supply through Social Accountability, Communication, and Transparency in Wobulenzi, Uganda

Uganda’s water crisis is largely a result of deficient governance, including dysfunctional institutions, poor financial management, and the inability of citizens to demand change. This case study examines how social accountability tools were used in a pilot program to improve water service delivery in Uganda.

The average potable water coverage of small towns in Uganda (towns of between 5,000 and 15,000 inhabitants) is approximately 51 percent. Some towns, including those with piped infrastructure, have lower coverage owing to a backlog of repairs, replacements, and service renewals and expansion, according to the Ugandan Ministry of Water and Environment (MWE). Some infrastructure is malfunctioning from age, having gone more than ten years without repair.

The government of Uganda has expressed concern that the majority of Ugandans lack access to clean and safe water. It has therefore made water sector reform a priority. Uganda's "Annual Sector Performance Report" for 2006 revealed that the unit cost of water services has increased steadily without a proportional improvement in quality. The discrepancy between the cost and quality of water services is a result of several factors: poor management of water services providers, poor or nonexistent maintenance of infrastructure; the lack of a feedback mechanism through which the public can voice complaints; and a lack of government accountability and transparency. These problems have undermined the Uganda’s efforts to improve water services, particularly in small towns.

Since 2003, the government of Uganda has sought to improve governance in the water and sanitation services sector. In 2006, the multistakeholder Good Governance Sub-Sector Working Group (GGWG) was established within the MWE to improve transparency and accountability.

In 2008, the World Bank Institute (WBI), in partnership with the MWE and the GGWG, launched a non-lending technical assistance program to improve governance in water supply in Uganda through social accountability, communication, and transparency. The program was to be implemented by a local NGO following a competitive bidding process. The Norwegian Trust Fund, the Trust Fund for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development (TFESSD), and the World Bank’s Communication for Governance and Accountability Program (CommGAP) were to provide funding.

The WBI program aimed to promote the use of transparency and social accountability tools in Uganda’s water sector and to encourage effective communication among stakeholders. Furthermore, it sought to institutionalize the use of these tools within the MWE and the Directorate for Water Development to provide training in sustainable social accountability practices to a national level NGO that would implement the program, as well as to community leaders, local authorities, and local providers. Two surveys were conducted to track changes in public opinion about the performance of water service providers in the Ugandan town of Wobulenzi, in Luwero district. A baseline survey was done in August 2008, and a follow-up survey in December 2009. Additionally, the project included a participatory monitoring and evaluation of Wobulenzi’s water providers and supported the deployment of communication tools to facilitate dialogue among stakeholders about water use and services. Feedback from water users was also sent to service providers.

The program had five components:

• Comprehensive assessment of the local context
• Capacity building of the national NGO and community stakeholders
• Implementation of social accountability tools
• Improved communication to encourage good governance and cooperation among stakeholders
• Monitoring and evaluation to measure progress, results, and outputs, and to track outcomes, difficulties, and lessons learned

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Consumer Feedback Partnership Pilot in the Water and Sanitation Sector, Nairobi, Kenya

On July 29-31, 2008, a three day seminar, “Consumer Feedback Partnership Pilot in the Water and Sanitation Sector” was held to introduce the concept of consumer feedback mechanism as a tool for building social accountability in Kenya’s water reforms.

The workshop brought together stakeholders in the water and sanitation sector to begin the process of institutionalising a consumer feedback mechanism in the form of water action groups (WAGs) as proposed by Kenya’s Water Services Regulatory Board (WASREB). The Water Action Groups will work in partnership with WASREB and service providers to monitor and provide constructive feedback on service delivery issues in the water sector. The proposal to institute WAGs came in response to findings of the Citizens' Report Card on Urban Water, Sanitation and Solid Waste Services in Kenya, 2007.

The workshop was organised around participatory learning sessions that drew from international experience to examine and discuss tools for strengthening social accountability. Participants also discussed the role of communication in building partnerships for strengthening social accountability, the foundations of learning alliances, and the critical need to document experiences in this learning process.

It was attended by 65 participants including senior officials from the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, WASREB, representatives of utilities, residents associations and civil society organisations from the four cities taking part in the pilot of the consumer feedback mechanism.

The seminar was jointly hosted by Kenya Water Services Regulatory Board (WASREB), the World Bank Institute (WBI) and the Water and Sanitation Programme for Africa, (WSP-Africa). Special thanks for the generous support from the Norwegian Government for the trust fund managed by WBI.

The objectives of the seminar were to:

• Begin to design a year-long partnership learning process to implement the proposed consumer feedback mechanism in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu and Kakamega.
• Develop a foundation for a communication program to be used by WASREB.
• To orient the water sector stakeholders on the concept and tools of social accountability and how they have been initiated in different countries and within the water and sanitation sector.

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Improving Governance In Water Provision Through Social Accountability, Communication And Transparency In Uganda

This Social Accountability project is being implemented by Network for Water and Sanitation

(NETWAS) Uganda from May 2008 to June 2009 in partnership with the Wobulenzi Town Council, Luwero District Local Government, the Ministry of Water and Environment, and the World Bank Institute. The project is focusing on improving governance in the water sector through transparency, social accountability and communication approaches and by engaging communities in the Town Council to work in partnership with the service providers to improve the quality of water service delivery. A hybrid methodology known as the Citizen's Report Card (CRC)/Community Score Card (CSC) and various communication tools and mechanisms are being used to promote social accountability.

In Wobulenzi, there are two different private water providers: one is a provider hired by the government through an OBA contract, and the other provider works under a normal private system. The OBA Approach (Output-Based Aid) is a strategy that involves delegating service delivery to a third-party, typically private firms, but also public utilities, NGOs, and community-based organizations, under contracts that tie disbursement of the public funding to the services or outputs actually delivered. Since NETWAS is applying the CRC/CSC to these both providers, this program will be able to compare the impact of the OBA approach in terms of utility performance and effectivess in improving water provision to the non-OBA provider in Wobulenzi, and give them both feedback for improving their performance.

The Citizen’s Report Card (CRC) survey that has been applied in Wobulenzi will provide service providers in both Wobulenzi Town Council and Bukalasa Agricultural College with feedback from the community about the adequacy, efficiency and quality of water services, based on their own experience. Later on, through the Community Scorecard Process (CSC) both community members and service providers will (i) identify priority areas for improvement in the quality of service delivery based on scores – areas with poor/low scores will be given priority for action; (ii) generate suggestions for improvement in service delivery; (iii) work jointly to identify and implement specific actions to improve the quality of water service delivery within a set timeframe and using available resources. The community in Wobulenzi will be able to monitor progress in service delivery through constructive feedback to water providers.

Objectives

The aim of this project is to promote better governance in the water sector in Uganda by fostering transparency, social accountability and efficient communication activities. The specific objectives of this program are:

1. To help local stakeholders understand and apply social accountability, communication and transparency concepts and mechanisms to improve governance in water service provision.
2. To support local stakeholders in designing and implementing effective communication mechanisms to promote a permanent, sustainable and constructive way of providing feedback from users to providers as well as informing users about service provision.
3. To help institutionalize these processes within the Ministry of Water and Environment and the Directorate for Water Development.
4. To train district-level users’ organizations, community leaders, local authorities and local providers in social accountability concepts and practices for the long-term sustainability of social accountability initiatives.

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