The Environmental Health Project (EHP) has recently concluded six years of USAID-funded technical assistance in the Dominican Republic with the National Water Supply and Sewage Institute (INAPA) [1]. The objective of the technical assistance was to create an enabling environment at the national level through activities aimed to reform and strengthen INAPA, in order for INAPA to support and sustain community-owned/managed rural water supply and sanitation (RWSS) and hygiene systems. A key portion of EHP's assistance concentrated on reforming and capacity building of INAPA/Acueductos Rurales (INAPA/AR), a department within INAPA responsible for rural communities and rural water supply. Technical assistance efforts comprised: advocacy and policy-related efforts including strategy development; development of three key documents (tools) used in numerous workshops and ongoing coaching of INAPA staff and collaborators; and field activities at rural communities to familiarize INAPA staff with a total community participation (TCP) model. The model promotes community-owned/managed RWSS systems and uses NGOs to implement projects. Among the lessons drawn from this experience, which may be relevant to other similar efforts:

• Achieving policy reform that is supported by the president of the country and his high-ranking political appointees was relatively simple. Translating the new policy into changes in institutional behaviours and functions in INAPA, however, proved more difficult than expected and required more resources and time than originally planned. The technical assistance skills required for this effort related more to organizational development and change than WSS sector expertise.
• Successes achieved in reforming the rural WSS sector and INAPA/AR were constrained by lack of success in reforming the urban WSS sector, including the majority of the work done by INAPA. EHP has long advocated that reform of the WSS sector in countries needs to look explicitly at the rural sector. It also appears that the inverse is true: reform of the rural sector without also reforming the urban sector is very difficult.

[1] Johnson, E. and Perez, E.A. (2002). Creating an enabling environment for community-based rural water supply, sanitation and hygiene promotion systems : case study : reforming the Rural Department of the National Water Agency (INAPA) in the Dominican Republic. (Strategic report / EHP ; 4). xii, 33 p. Arlington, VA, USA, Environmental Health Project. http://www.ehproject.org/PDF/Strategic_papers/SR...

Contact: EHP, info@ehproject.org

Source: EHP, 4 feb 2003

Tags: governance