I am Yaw Asante Sarkodie, working with the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing in Ghana. I represent that Anglophone (Africa) on the Steering Committee of SWA. I have been part of SWA since 2009.
I am so glad to be here at this first ever SWA Partnership Meeting and I especially enjoyed the debates on the first day after the proposed new SWA framework was presented by the Vice Chair.
Posted by sekumapter on November 15, 2012
http://sekumapter.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/275/
Uganda showed the way to go with regards to monitoring matters yesterday at the “Sanitation and Water For All” partnership meeting in Johannesburg. Uganda, Liberia and Sierra Leone had taken giant strides to ensure that there were good monitoring systems in the WASH sector as well as transparency.
Uganda had taken the brave step to look at what is happening in its sector, documented results and reflected on what these results meant for the water and sanitation sector in the country. This gave a true meaning of both monitoring and aid transparency.
Uganda has been publishing a document called the “Country Sector Annual Review” for a number of years now. The review is powerful, its frank and it highlights progress made in the country without shying away from exposing the challenges faced in sustaining water supply and sanitation infrastructure and investments. The report is particularly clear on the challenges Uganda faces with tariff collection and financing for operation and maintenance (O&M). Sanitation still has some way to go before Uganda reaches full coverage.
The report focuses the Ugandan water and sanitation sector keenly on results. The data is Uganda’s, the ownership of the implications are held by the country and the sector will continue to improve because they are asking hard questions about sustainability and coverage.
Because Uganda and a few other countries are showing what monitoring is about in practice. Monitoring is about asking hard questions on results and having the courage to rethink your previous decisions and investments based on the analysis of these results. Uganda and these and other countries have a tremendous opportunity to actually improve sector performance because they have invested time and energy to determine what seems to be working in their countries and what aspects of their work and investments need to be reconsidered. And they will ask these questions over and over again as future monitoring results will guide them, which in time should lead to better results for villages throughout their countries.
Uganda is also showing what transparency is all about. Its not fooled by the silliness of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) and it’s growing list of agencies that seem to think that transparency means throwing meaningless spreadsheet-numbing data onto a web page (filled with equally meaningless data from other agencies) and having donors and bloggers anoint them as truly transparent.
Transparency is not about unanalyzed data puke. Transparency is about being open, honest and forthright about the results of investments made – it’s about saying that these investments led to these results (good, bad, unclear at this stage…). Anything less is simply fog!
This in a true sense indicates that Uganda is not worried if it’s indicators are the same as each other. Its not worried on how it’s data fits in with global monitoring frameworks. It’s under the IATI radar. It’s simply focused on improving performance so that water flows and people can take a dump in a functioning toilet. The work is hardly perfect, and challenges of course remain in not only sustaining momentum for monitoring but also in ensuring that future investments in water and sanitation are done in a way that take seriously the lessons highlighted. Donors, implementing agencies and governments will need to change and adapt in ways they may not be comfortable with in the short- (or long-) term.
But if monitoring advances and Uganda continues to analyze and show results transparently then changes will most certainly come, as good practices will shine and bad practices will run out of excuses. And that will be good for people throughout the country. Exactly what good monitoring and transparency should actually do.
Posted by sekumapter on November 14, 2012
http://sekumapter.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/uganda-shows-the-way-in-monitoring-and-transperancy-at-swa4a/
Ford's production lines have marked a turning point in human history. Business had to change and whoever did not understand the need for automation and series production was to be crushed by industrialization itself. After nearly 100 years, Skandia marked the official beginning of “the knowledge era”: Leif Edvinson was hired in the early 90's as a CKO (Chief Knowledge Officer) in order to capitalize intangible assets of the organization.
Posted by sekumapter on November 12, 2012
http://sekumapter.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/271/
This week 250 practitioners and policy makers from the Uganda Water and Environment sector met for 3 days during the annual Joint Sector Review Meeting. In my previous blog I focused on the challenge of stagnation in rural water: for the past years we haven’t seen any increase in coverage and functionality and even the spent budget for rural has remained at best at the same level over the years.
Posted by sekumapter on October 29, 2012
http://sekumapter.wordpress.com/2012/10/29/270/
What irritates you in your knowledge work? These are some of my bugbears. Interestingly, although some of them may never be solved, some of them would at least be ameliorated by greater firm-wide awareness of what KM is and how it works in law firms.
Posted by sekumapter on October 24, 2012
http://sekumapter.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/268/
See on Scoop.it – Village water
One of the most quoted WASH statistics was recently “downgraded”. For every $1 invested in water and sanitation, not $8 but “only” $4 is returned in economic returns through increased productivity. This recalculation, says WHO, is mainly a result of higher investment cost estimates and the more complete inclusion of operation and maintenance (O&M) costs. Providing a better insight into O&M costs has been one of the achievements of the WASHCost project.
Posted by sekumapter on October 17, 2012
http://sekumapter.wordpress.com/2012/10/17/wash-by-numbers-the-latest-on-cost-benchmarks-economic-returns-and-handwashing/
Time vs priority
Ensuring good practices in WASH governance can sometimes be challenging, especially if there isn’t a good strategy and guidance to ensure that services reach those people that need them. I recently conducted an action learning exercise in lomule, a village parish in Bombo town council. This was aimed at monitoring the promises made by the service providers, water user committees and the community during a citizen report card exercise that was conducted three month ago.
Just like most learning meetings, your expectations are on the big picture where people strike on the head and leave no stone unturned. The other question that probably strikes is where should we focus our priorities? The action learning meeting tasked people (service providers, water users and the committees) to report on progress with regards to commitments made. These will further trigger action on the priority areas which would invoke immediate response.
During the two day learning sessions, two things kept on springing up; repairing of a spring and buying more pipes for the borehole. I guess like many of the WASH projects its quite hard to tell where a priority should be put unless invoked by community voices. People asked for immediate repair of the spring at lomule south which according to the water quality test report contained a lot of Ecoli and other things but seemed cheaper to use. Other few members of the community felt it was necessary to start with the borehole since it was clean and had easy access. At the end of it all they agreed to start with the lomule spring.
The inevitable mark in all this is having proper WASH governance structures where community members are aware of their roles and responsibilities and community voices are of impact in WASH governance.
Posted by sekumapter on October 16, 2012
http://sekumapter.wordpress.com/2012/10/16/the-inevitable-mark-in-wash-governance/
See on Scoop.it – Village water
Opens many pages for you to learn about the issues facing children in need through our news, blog and reports (RT @unicefaustralia: Investment in sanitation can reduce disease, increase incomes, preserve resources & keep girls in school #iwashmyhands…
See on www.unicef.org.au
Posted by sekumapter on October 15, 2012
http://sekumapter.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/charitable-work-news-and-publications-from-childrens-charity-unicef-australia/
See on Scoop.it – Village water
New R&D will stimulate water industry innovationProcess & Control TodayGrants totalling over £2.5 million have been awarded for seven major collaborative research and development projects that aim to deliver innovation to help safeguard future…
See on www.pandct.com
Posted by sekumapter on October 15, 2012
http://sekumapter.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/new-rd-will-stimulate-water-industry-innovation-process-control-today/
Being able to communicate effectively is essential in every career. As recruiters will tell you, it’s a skill coveted by employers. However, the ability to communicate well goes beyond being able to express yourself. It’s more than giving a compelling presentation or writing a solid report. It’s part of the talent for developing interpersonal relationships.
Communication plays a part whether you’re trying to generate sales, participate successfully on a team, or simply get along with your office-mates. It’s particularly important when it comes to cultivating relationships with significant people like your boss. The repercussions of poor communication can range from continual team conflicts to poor performance reviews.
One of the reasons we run into problems is because we like to communicate differently. As you may already know our communication style depends a lot on our personality preferences which is explored using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Not surprisingly there’s a big difference between Extroverts and Introverts. Generally, Introverts prefer to communicate via email so they have time to digest the information they’ve received and gather their thoughts before responding to others. On the other hand, Extroverts who often “think out loud” would rather pick up the phone.
Somewhat surprisingly, communication styles are not that different between generations according to a survey conducted by CareerBuilder. The company surveyed two groups of managers and workers – one group aged 25 to 34 the other group aged 55 and over. The majority of respondents from both groups said they preferred face-to-face communication, while a relatively small percentage said they preferred the phone. Although ranking a distant second to in-person conversations, respondents ranked digital communication, email or text, the next-best option. Unfortunately, the survey did not distinguish between a preference for text as opposed to email.
Of course, when it comes to communication there are gender differences as well. Men tend to focus more on what’s being said. Women frequently pay attention to more subtle messages like body language which is something to think about when you’re sitting in all those meetings. Be sure to listen to what’s being said and how people are saying it.
The bottom line is that when it comes to communicating effectively you need to think about the other person’s preferred style. If your favorite client always emails questions you might want to email your response even if you’d rather pick up the phone. If your boss generally sends texts you may want to adopt that as well. On the other hand, if your boss leaves you a voice mail you may not want to reply with a text.
One of the keys to successful communication is to use the other person’s preferred style. What if you’re not sure? It’s simple. Just ask.
Posted by sekumapter on October 12, 2012
http://sekumapter.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/communicate-more-effectively-today/
Sanitation updates mahidul68 Village water
