Stakeholders in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector in the Northern Region, have established a platform to enhance sharing of ideas and knowledge on how best to synchronize projects and initiatives for efficient service delivery.
The platform dubbed: "Regional WASH Knowledge Management System" through the learning alliance approach, is to promote vibrant sector dialogue at the local level, with the aim of contributing to the shared vision of a knowledge-driven sector that provides improved and sustainable WASH services.
It is being facilitated by the Northern Region Office of the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) in collaboration with some sector organizations including Sustainable Services at Scale (Triple-S) Netherlands Development Organization (SNV) and WASH Alliance - Ghana.
Other members of the platform include relevant government institutions, non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations and the media.
The formation of the platform has been informed by an environmental scan by some sector organizations in the region in 2011, which noted weak systems and structures for capturing and sharing of experiences and best practices within the WASH sector.
It also revealed that much of the information on the sector had not been captured nor shared, and the little available was held at individual organizational level making accessibility to the public difficult.
Speaking at the first multi-stakeholder meeting of the platform members in Tamale on Tuesday, Mr Eric Chimsi, Country Coordinator of WASH Alliance-Ghana, said the learning process would help bridge the gap between people on the ground, organizations at district or community level with responsibility for service provision and support, and national policy makers.
Mr Chimsi said the uncoordinated manner in which sector organizations undertook their individual initiatives resulted in a duplication of functions and called on them to move away from piloting of projects implementation of existing initiatives for effective service delivery.
He said there was need for communities, who were major beneficiaries of WASH projects, to be responsive towards its (WASH) initiatives for success and expressed the hope that the involvement of local level institutions in the platform would help achieve this.
Alhaji Ahmed Ewura, Regional Engineer of the CWSA, who deputized for the Regional Director of CWSA, said the platform was aimed at eliminating inefficiencies within the sector and called for commitment of members to ensure the success of the platform.
He said "With a rapidly changing WASH sector, it is imperative that the sector is able t respond appropriately to these changing circumstances through learning, innovation and scale-up."
He said learning enabled the sector to anticipate, respond actively and influence a rapidly changing environment.
Presentations were made on topics such as: "Exploring Knowledge Management Systems" and "Learning Alliance Approach" to educate participants on how to go about documentation of issues in the sector to promote sharing of knowledge.