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West Africa Water Initiative (WAWI) |
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| History of the Initiative | ||||||||||||||||||
| The World Summit on Sustainable
Development has formally endorsed the "partnership" model as
an important means for action. Organizations around the world are stepping
forward to strengthen existing alliances and foster new collaborations
to advance progress on achieving Agenda 21 and Millennium Declaration
goals.
As part of this global movement toward partnership,
the West Africa Water Initiative (WAWI) was born. Inspired by the vision
of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Initiative grew from years of
experience with the international NGO World Vision and other partners
in Ghana to provide rural water supply and sanitation as the entry point
for community development. |
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In 2002, the Hilton Foundation made a bold commitment to expand its long-standing efforts in Ghana, Mali, and Niger and to add a peri-urban as well as rural focus to its work. While the core emphasis of the Hilton Foundation remains the link between water and human health—in particular diseases such as trachoma, guinea worm, and diarrhea—the need for attention to a broader water management context has been recognized and embraced. Several other leading organizations in international water management were invited to engage with national and local governments, citizen groups, and communities in West Africa, and jointly address critical human health needs, poverty alleviation, and sustainable development through better management of water resources. |
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| > | Where Does WAWI Work? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| WAWI currently focuses its work in three countries in West Africa: Ghana, Mali and Niger. Most of the activity is focused in rural areas, with two new activities to be started in peri-urban Bamako (Mali) and Tamale (Ghana). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| > | WAWI Goals,
Objectives and Expected Outcomes
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are several specific objectives and expected outcomes of WAWI as shown
in the table below to support the overall goal of improving the health
and well being of families and communities in Ghana, Mali, and Niger.
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| > | Country-Specific Activities | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| > | WAWI Partners | ||
| The current members of the alliance represent a broad spectrum of institutional types, including a private foundation, a bilateral donor, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), universities, a public international organization, and a non-profit, private sector industry association. All the member organizations have broad international reach and significant strengths to bring to the table. The Initiative will collaborate closely with governments and other local actors who will be core participants at all stages of activity design and implementation to maximize the impact of water-related investments by public and private actors alike. | |||
| – | Conrad N. Hilton Foundation is a private charitable foundation devoted to the alleviation of human suffering and provision of humanitarian assistance in the United States and abroad, focusing on areas including blindness, early childhood development, domestic violence, and homelessness. The Foundation is the primary external donor and will serve an important coordination and oversight role for its grantees. |
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| – | Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development, a research and academic institution, will support community mobilization and water development in the context of sound natural resources management, pursuing action research and pilot activities in sustainable agriculture, environmental protection, and rural development. |
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| – | Desert Research Institute, a research and academic institution, will undertake hydrogeologic analysis and modeling for well siting and water source sustainability. |
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| – | Lions Clubs International Foundation, the grant-making arm of a worldwide private voluntary service club organization, will provide funding and in-country volunteers to carry out a targeted trachoma prevention campaign in Mali as part of its blindness program. |
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| – | UNICEF is an international organization within the United Nations system committed to helping children living in poverty in developing countries. It works in several priority areas of action including water and environmental sanitation. The organization will focus its efforts on rural school-based sanitation and hygiene, well rehabilitation and alternative water source development, and advocacy and enabling environment activities. |
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| – | U.S. Agency for International Development, a bilateral assistance agency, will provide additional donor funding to WAWI partners and help strengthen the integrated water resources management orientation of the Initiative through support to areas including livelihoods and income generation, policy and enabling environment, gender mainstreaming, and hydrologic information management in both rural and peri-urban settings. |
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| – | WaterAid is a private U.K. charity dedicated to the provision of domestic water, sanitation and hygiene promotion for the world's poorest people. It will be the principal implementer of peri-urban water supply and sanitation efforts within WAWI, in addition to supporting rural sanitation and hygiene capacity building and outreach. |
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| – | Winrock International is a nonprofit organization environment and development organization. It will work with the Desert Research Institute to provide capacity building to strengthen government hydrologic management systems. |
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| – | World Chlorine Council is a global network of national and regional trade associations and their member companies representing the chlorine chemistry industry. It will provide a product donation of PVC pipe for tubewells, chlorine disinfection, and outreach materials in the target communities. |
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| – | World Vision, a Christian relief and development organization, will take the lead in well drilling, pump installation, and alternative water source development, along with community mobilization to facilitate local ownership and sustainable management of systems. It will also establish a broad-based regional training program to support "hardware" and "software" components of the overall initiative for WAWI partners and counterparts. |
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| In addition to these core partners,
the Initiative will work with other collaborating institutions with
which they have had a long-standing relationship, including Helen Keller
International, the Carter Center, and several USAID implementing organizations
in the region.
WAWI partners are committed to working together as a well-orchestrated and tightly coordinated group of organizations with combined resources and complementary skills—leveraging funding from public and private sources, gaining cost efficiencies, increasing advocacy power with government policy makers, and learning from one another's experiences to develop more innovative and effective models of action on the ground. |
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| > | For More Information | ||
| WAWI is not a grant-making alliance and will not consider unsolicited proposals for assistance. The partnership is flexible, however, and may consider expansion both within West Africa and to new geographic areas over time. Institutions with resources and interest in collaboration, in West Africa or elsewhere, are encouraged to contact individual WAWI partners or send an e-mail to smurray@usaid.gov. | |||
