The WASH Systems Academy is a dynamic online platform developed to assist WASH sector professionals in applying a WASH systems strengthening approach. Interactive and and free—the WASH Systems Academy is available to all. Listen to podcasts, watch animations, connect with others in the forums, create your own materials and more.
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 report provides a synthesis of various rural water studies and systems analyses undertaken in two rural woredas (districts) in Ethiopia: South Ari, in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region (SNNPR), and Mile, in the Afar Region. The Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership conducted these assessments with representatives from local government and the USAID Lowland WASH Activity. The baseline studies include an asset inventory, service delivery assessment, life-cycle cost analysis, sustainability check, organizational network analysis, and factor mapping.
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. This SWS report presents a synopsis of findings and methodology from the factor mapping and learning (IFML) process.
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.
The Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership undertook an organizational network analysis to study interactions across WASH sector actors in Kitui County, Kenya relating to information, skills, resources, and authority relationships. The study sought to identify the position of organizations in the network and understand network gaps, successes, challenges, and actors’ perspectives on possible solutions to achieve rural water sustainability.
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.
This Sustainable WASH Systems study analyzed combinations of conditions that influence regular payments for water service in resource-limited communities. To do so, the study investigated 16 communities participating in a new preventive maintenance program in the Kamuli District of Uganda under a public–private partnership framework. First, this study identified conditions posited as important for collective payment compliance from a literature review.
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.
