Muhammed Ibrahim is a local facilitator in Ethiopia working on USAID’s Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership (SWS). His job is to improve the sanitation systems in the small towns of Debre Birhan and Woliso using an unconventional approach. He isn’t building toilets or educating people on the need for safe sanitation. Instead, Muhammed and his team are supporting local government staff, residents, and private companies to work together to address complex systematic issues as a collective. This approach is called collective action.

This video shares IRC Uganda's experiences applying the systems approach in delivery of water, sanitation, and hygiene. The video is set in Kabarole District, Uganda.

About IRC Uganda

IRC's priority In Uganda is understanding and strengthening WASH systems at national and district levels. We are committed to helping our partner district, Kabarole, to achieve universal access by 2030. Learn more.

Between April and October 2018, Whave conducted five factor mapping workshops in Kamuli District, Uganda to learn about factors that affect the functionality of rural water services in the area. Factor mapping is a stakeholder-driven activity that seeks to create understanding of local systems and system leverage points by sharing, challenging, and making explicit stakeholders’ assumptions of how issues arise from a complex interaction of unique factors.

In Ethiopia and Uganda, the Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership (SWS) developed and piloted a novel Factor Mapping approach to better understand the complex relationships between factors that influence water, sanitation, and hygiene services. The Factor Mapping process is a stakeholder-driven decision support technique that generates systems-based insights into how factors interact as a complex and dynamic system to affect WASH service delivery outcomes.

The WASH Systems Academy is a new dynamic online platform will be available to assist WASH sector professionals in applying a WASH systems strengthening approach. If you are at the start of your career or are a senior WASH expert that wants to understand what a systems strengthening approach entails and how you can integrate it in your work, this free resource is for you.