Our Work in System Strengthening

Joni is the in

His role involves identifying which communities need water systems, the preparation and collection of data, social preparation through community action plans, assessing the urgency of different communities, supporting the implementation of water systems, and monitoring the function of the water systems themselves.

Imagine waking up tomorrow morning and turning on the tap to make your morning coffee and … no water! The whole street is out and no one thought to let you know. In a moment like this, you need your water company’s phone number. No one likes it when services break down. Twoway communication and accountability are essential to make sure service providers do their job (like maintaining infrastructure), and service users know what to expect (like when the water will be out).

WaterAid has been working to improve accountability for water supply in rural communities in Timor-Leste since 2016. We developed a process for community members to meet and rate their satisfaction with their water services against a scorecard. The community volunteer committee in charge of overseeing their water supply and the local government also discuss how well they think they are performing using the scorecard. The groups then come together to compare scores, give each other feedback and identify what they need to do to improve water supply services together. This year, we have worked with TimorLeste’s human rights advocacy organisation, HAK, to take a further step. HAK have analysed trends in the scorecards and raised concerns from communities to Timor-Leste’s national parliament to advocate for policy makers to do their part to keep water services running.

Last year WaterAid introduced a similar process to improve water supply accountability in Cambodia. In rural Cambodia, piped water is usually provided by small businesses who hold a licence regulated by government. Local councils have recently been given roles

“Before WaterAid implemented the accountability program, my company never thought about getting feedback from service users and how they can raise issues to us, and the relationship with the authorities is not so good. However, after the project, our company has a good relationship with authorities and departments, and we can get feedback from the service receivers. Moreover, we can know our weaknesses, and improve them to be good service providers in the water supply” to coordinate and monitor these businesses and encourage people to connect to them, but not everyone understands the new responsibilities. WaterAid worked with the Cambodian Water Supply Association to set up a scorecard process where government departments, water supply businesses and community representatives come together to clarify each other’s responsibilities and give constructive feedback. Everyone benefits from this process:

• Joint council-business promotion of piped water services has led to over 14,000 people connecting to the piped networks in the past two years.

• Councils and businesses have set up subsidy programs to help the poorest households pay water connection fees.

• Water businesses use feedback from their users to improve their service.