Bracing for Impact: African Water and Sanitation Utilities trained on how to plan, monitor and report on the results of Water Operators’ Partnerships
15th November 2019, Kampala, Uganda. GWOPA and AfWA co-convened a training workshop at Uganda’s National Water and Sewerage International Resource Center last week, following the African Water Association (AfWA) Scientific Technical Committee (STC). Eighteen participants from 13 water and sanitation utilities around Sub-Saharan Africa participated in the one-day event to learn how to plan for, monitor and communicate about Water Operators’ Partnerships (WOPs) results by using various tools and guidance materials developed under the Boosting Effectiveness of Water Operators’ Partnerships (BEWOP) initiative.
BEWOP is a partnership between IHE Delft and GWOPA that is helping WOPs be an effective approach to improving utilities’ capacity and performance. In this second phase of the collaboration, the focus of BEWOP has been to convert the lessons learned through documenting WOPs around the world into two types of tools: Process Tools, which support WOP participants prepare for, design, implement and follow through with their WOPs, and Operational Tools, which help transfer knowledge on specific operational topics relevant for water utilities.
The sessions offered interactive exercises to allow participants to test and provide feedback on a selection of tools. One of the key sessions focused on training participants on the soon-to-be-launched Partnership Management Platform (PMP), a WOPs planning, monitoring and reporting online software. This highly demanded web-based tool aims at supporting partners to plan, monitor, communicate, visualize and easily report on their projects. The methodology applied to plan and monitor capacity, among others, allows a more visible tracking of the invisible but important changes that happen and organizational level as a result of the capacity development activities undertaken in the WOP. This aspect is a crucial component that will allow operators to demonstrate that progress is being made in their WOPs, when changes in standard Key Performance Indicators are yet to be visible.
