IRC Ghana in collaboration with the Asutifi North District Assembly and ANAM partners have organized a week long training in Kenyasi for selected district staff to undertake a district wide WASH service monitoring of water facilities, assess performance of Water and Sanitation Management Teams ( WSMTs) and evaluate the state of WASH in schools and Health Care Facilities (HCFs).
About 16 staff were trained as enumerators for the exercise to collect data using survey forms with mostly multiple - choice questions loaded on smart phones with a free open source data platform called mWater to be used for data collection, monitoring, and analysis and reporting.
As part of the ANAM initiative, IRC Ghana in collaboration with the ANAM partners undertake annual joint tracking of progress of the masterplan implementation.
This involved the collection of water service monitoring data (asset data and service provider performance data) form on all water facilities and household's survey in the district. The data is used for informing decisions by different stakeholders related to corrective actions, planning or regulation of service providers to improve service provision.
The WASH service monitoring data collection round is on the back of similar exercise undertaken in 2017 and 2019.
In an interview with IRC Ghana Water Expert, Jeremiah Atengdam, the WASH service monitoring training was to euip the selected assembly workers to undertake the monitoring of water and sanitation services in the district to collect data from water facilities and assess performance of Water Sanitation Management Team (WSMT) who are managing water and sanitation across the district.
He explained that the data to be collected will assist ANAM partners to establish the current service levels in the district in terms of what progress has been made since the previous exercise was conducted in 2019.
Jeremiah who facilitated the training stated that this years’ service monitoring may use improvements in the service levels as compared to last year because the district assembly and its partners have provided new water infrastructure and training of WSMTs.
He added, WASH service monitoring is an integral part of the jointly developed Monitoring Evaluation Learning (MEL) framework, which provides a framework for tracking progress made on the masterplan implementation.
