FIKRIFAMA

By Global Women's Water Initiative Posted on Thu 06 Aug 2009, almost 17 years ago

You have shared that FIKRIFAMA has over 20 years of experience in water sector work, can you tell us a bit more about them and what have been the highlights of working with them (especially in your vast experience working with other local organizations) and what have been the major challenges?

Capacity of local engineering firms

By Global Women's Water Initiative Posted on Thu 06 Aug 2009, almost 17 years ago

What has been your experience thus far with local engineering firms that you work with? Is their capacity sufficient or have you also helped to strengthen their skills and approaches?

Major obstacles and challenges

By Global Women's Water Initiative Posted on Thu 06 Aug 2009, almost 17 years ago

Your program seems as if everything has been set up for success and carefully planned out. What I am interested to know is what the major barriers are and the challenges that you have seen so far and foresee in the upcoming implementation phase? For example, you explained that most of the systems which are already constructed have a 100% contribution rate from the community, with the lowest being 70%. So, what happened in the case of the 70%?
What are the cultural, traditional, gender, education factors that affect how your projects are carried out and the adjustments you have to make here compared to other places you have worked?
Thanks for your thoughtful answers that will surely help all of us to better understand working in Madagascar!

Major obstacles and challenges

By Protos Posted on Thu 06 Aug 2009, almost 17 years ago

Mariah,
Just some answers in bulk:
1°) Strengthening capacities of local actors has three levels:
- The water users committees (and the whole community) are trained in organisational and management capabilities and technical skills for a selected group of community caretakers. This is done by the local NGO FIKRIFAMA through some basic training tools in Malagassy. Training is on the field including workshops, exchange visits and sofort.
- Local authorities are stimulated and backstopped in order to increase their planning capacities and involvement in local development. There are workshops on specific topics (viability of water systems, comprehensive planning of the water and sanitation sector, vulgarisation of the national water policy...). In the same time, the local authorities participate to meetings in the villages and have to take their responsability with respect to local contribution, water rights, contracting the management of the water systems to the WUC... Those practical exercices learns them how to organize themselves in the sector.
- FIKRIFAMA is a "service providing" NGO. They have worked for more than 20 years on the technical stuff and on community mobilisation. They have to improve their approaches now and to shift from a social constructor to a facilitator of a local development process (in the water & sanitation sector). So we help them to introduce comprehensive approach and tools for health and sanitation, we help them to make a local development plan for the sector, we train them in more sophisticated technical skills (WaterCad, GIS, IWRM...). PROTOS and FIKRIFAMA are building up those capabilities together: e;g. we have experience in the PHAST-methodology, they know the Malagassy cultural and social context - so, together, we can adapt the existing PHAST-tools to an appropriate kit for their context.

2) This kind of a partnership with a local "specialized" NGO is not so easy. They have a long experience - but living on an island, they are not really connected to the new developments we experience on the African continent. Bringing them together with partners in other countries helps a lot to see the challenges and way forward. Last October we have been together with 60 african and latin-american organisations in Mali to share experiences and insights with respect to IWRM, sustainability of water ressources and water services, local ownership in a decentralized context...
I don't have an "administrative and financial" manual, and our team in Madagascar is on holidays. We have a lot of tools and help the local partners to understand them, use them and modify them for their own purposes (that have of course to be in line with our reporting needs).

3) Untill now, FIKRIFAMA has been the constructor of the various water systems. We work together with local engineering firms for more complex studies (e.g. mapping of water ressources and needs) but they also need an intensive coaching during their job.

Hope this helps you a bit. If you read enough French, I can still forward you some tools and manuals; just let me know.
ys - Stef

From Gilles Corcos of Agua Para La Vida

By Agua Para la Vida (APLV) Posted on Fri 07 Aug 2009, almost 17 years ago

I share some of your other reviewers' feelings that the number of persons impacted by the program you propose may be exaggerated or the impact should probably be viewed as rather small. Hygiene education takes a lot longer than a water project so I tend to think of it as a separate project.

Also your presentation seems to deal with irrigation water as well as drinking water and it is not clear to me how these essentially different uses of water are dealt with and separated in your management scheme, ( it takes about a hundred times as much water to raise fundamentally the economic level of a family by providing irrigation as it does to provide clean water for its consumption needs).
I am quite open to read the details (especially the technical details) of your project in French even if it is 80 pages long, as I am of French birth.

From Gilles Corcos of Agua Para La Vida

By Protos Posted on Fri 07 Aug 2009, almost 17 years ago

Bonjour Gilles,
I just added the Technical and Financial File written in 2007 (in French).
I can garantee you that the number of persons impacted is not exagerated ! On the other hand, I do agree with you that the level of impact is not the same for all of them. The proposal submitted to the PWX is just for one year and just for two villages, but it's part of a larger program PROTOS is implementing together with FIKRIFAMA in the 6 municipalities. This program is designed for 4 years (and we have the objective to continue with a second phase of 3 years). So, if we are talking about the hygiene and sanitation component it's not limited to the one year or the time needed to build the water scheme !
On the longer run, we are working on IWRM since we think that different water uses and water users have to be considered to garantee sustainability of water ressources and water services. In this 4 years program, we just make a mapping of water ressources and water uses/users and sensitize stakeholders on the importance of IWRM. So we are not building irrigation schemes. But the idea is to extend our activities in the second phase to other water services and needs (such as irrigation, may be also fish breeding, erosion protection, water recycling for agriculture...).

Beneficiary Numbers and Increased Government Capacity

By Lifewater International Posted on Sun 02 Aug 2009, almost 17 years ago

The number of people recieving other benefits is quite high, which is ascribed in part to increased government capacity with regard to water management in the project region. Even in consideration of the statement on government interaction, I am still not clear on how local government will be engaged or how capacity will necessarilly be built in a replicable, scalable way. Could you elaborate on that as well as on the beneficiary definitions applied here? How are beneficiaries, particularly those recieving other benefits, defined and counted?
Thank you very much.
Sam Moore and Kiera Emmons, Lifewater International

Beneficiary Numbers and Increased Government Capacity

By Protos Posted on Mon 03 Aug 2009, almost 17 years ago

The project submitted to BPR is a part of a 4 years program that works on four levels:
1°) New (or rehabilitated) water supply schemes for villages - the submitted project aims the construction of such a scheme in the village of Alakamisy (1st round - 4,340 beneficiaries) and of Antambolo (2nd additional round if funds are available - 3,500 beneficiaries).
2°) Training of water committees, sensitization of water users, hygiene training, improving management capacities of all local players in all the villages that already have a water system or those where a water scheme is build during the 4 years program (30,000 beneficiaries).
3°) Strengthening of local government with respect to the water sector: planning capacities (mapping of water ressources and water supply schemes and needs, sectorial plan for the next years) and management skills. E.g. : the six local governments decided recently to start up a commun technical support service for the water users committees of the 6 municipalities; the individual WUC remain responsible for daily operation and maintenance while the intercommunal service assists them for more complex interventions. This component concerns the whole population of the 6 municipalities (51,500 people) since it contributes to an improved management of all water services and water ressources.
4°) Implementing capacities at the level of the Malagassy NGO and this especially on innovative approaches and tools: PHAST, C2C, IWRM, social engineering tools...

Capacity for scaling up is therefor build on three levels:
- the 6 municipalities that can - together with the WUC - make water sector sustainable for the whole population;
- the local NGO (they build 10 to 15 water schemes each year in different regions of the country);
- innovative tools and approaches that are made available for all players in the national water sector - since PROTOS is an active member of the regional and national WASH-committee.

Beneficiary Numbers and Increased Government Capacity

By Global Women's Water Initiative Posted on Thu 06 Aug 2009, almost 17 years ago

You have a very impressive comprehensive approach that really seems to have sustainability as a defining factor!
Points 3 and 4 in your "Expected Results" section focus on strengthening local government and civil society organizations and strengthening the techinical, methodological and organizational capacities of FIKRIFAMA, will you plesase describe for us the actual, on the ground methodology for doing this (i.e. week long workshops, time frame and participation, etc.)?