PROJECTS > LOWER TANA

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

KWAHO/ADA - WatSan in Lower Tana River

High participation at driving the vonder rig for drilling of
shallow wells in Lower Tana River area.

Location

Lower Tana River - Coastal Province, Kenya

Key Components

Water Supply, Sanitation, Hygiene Education, Capacity Building, Income Generating Activities

Brief description of project goal, objectives and expected results

The programme is situated in Tana River District of the Coast Province of Kenya. It borders Lamu, Ijara, Garisa, Mwingi, Kitui and Malindi districts. The programme has been on going for the last 12 years and has reached 340,000 people. The current project phase Number. 4 will, as in the last phase, concentrate its activities in the lower/southern, central, and upper left of the district. Specifically it will cover parts of Garsen, Kipini, Wenje, Galole, Bura, Witu and Mkowe divisions of Tana River and Lamu districts. The project also would wish to expand to Kiunga in Lamu district and also on a settlement scheme East of Malindi town.

Project objectives

For the 18 months phase the following objectives and goals will guide the implementation process:

To provide communities with relevant training and skills to empower them to define needs and express their demand.
To improve and raise the standards of health and sanitation of the communities by providing relevant training and education and campaigns on health and sanitation and encouraging hygienic disposal of human waste by constructing sanitation facilities. The project will continue with its heightened drive to introduce the Eco-San system as an essential alternative to the VIP toilet.
To provide selected communities with clean, safe, reliable, and adequate and accessible water through the drilling, developing, and equipping of bore holes with the Aridev hand pumps and to construct roofs and water tanks.
To also provide the communities with relevant skills, which will empower the communities to be able to operate, maintain, manage and sustain the facilities.
To raise people's incomes by encouraging these communities to initiate and develop income – generating activities.
To improve the status of the environment by encouraging the communities to protect and improve the environment in which they live.

All the above objectives are aimed at raising the standards of living through improved health and sanitation for the selected communities.

A shallow well with handpump in Lower Tana project area.

Implementing strategy

Mobilisation of communities

meetings with group members
visits to groups and their leadership
seminars and workshops
focus group discussions
initial training sessions
planning sessions
household and baseline surveys
registration of groups
others

Training

community training in leadership and organization
operation and maintenance of facilities
book and record keeping
management
income generating activities
health and sanitation
sustainability
general development issues
and project staff training

The training is carried out at in form seminars and workshops and for the staff training, it is conducted in form of short courses, in-house training and exchange visits with other organisations, and projects within and out of the project area.

Monitoring and evaluation

The project places emphasis on monitoring and follow ups as a way of ensuring quality output
The follow ups and monitoring are both by the project staff and by the communities/groups themselves.
Periodic and scheduled evaluations of the project are carried out from time to time by external evaluators and KWAHO head office.

These evaluations lead to a comprehensive impact analysis of the project. This means that the project will form a list of indicators on every activity it undertakes.

Actual physical Implementation

The project designs uniform facilities that are unique to a certain area usesing locally available human and material resources.
Replication of designs and approaches is applied where appropriate. Frequent assessment of construction is done to ensure high and/or acceptable standards.
Professional guidance and advice is sought from within and without the project where necessary.

Meeting of a women group in Lower Tana project area.

Use of existing groups and structures

Existing groups are competitively selected to be partners of KWAHO in the project
The communities and groups are involved in every stage of project/activity implementation including feasibility study, planning, costing, actual physical implementation, monitoring and evaluation and follow – ups, sustainability, management, record keeping.
The groups and community structures are strengthened through training for better results.
Some of the existing ministries and agencies and departments offer facilitation when necessary. The project as usual seeks very close collaboration with government departments, especially with the Ministry of water and that of health.

Targets groups, Partners and Collaborators

Beneficiaries

The main target groups are communities within the two project areas. These will mainly include women groups in rural communities, and public institutions (schools, health centres, etc) within the areas of operation as identified in the introduction section of this document.

Challenges and opportunities

Challenges

It is important to note that KWAHO's presence in the communities in which she works has positively contributed to behavioural change in some of the areas listed below although some of the aspects still remain a problem:

a) Cultural and behavioural changes
In most African communities, women are viewed as being of less importance in terms of participation in decision-making processes due to traditional beliefs and practices. Religion practices in the Muslim communities i.e. in the Lower Tana also contributes to relegating them to secondary positions in society. However the impact the KWAHO Water and Sanitation programme has had on the communities in the project areas is that there is now a marked change of attitude towards women. The projects have empowered women. With skills acquired from KWAHO training on O & M, women have a bigger say on directing their course of life. They are additionally seeking for ways, which will empower them i.e. in the desire to shift more towards income generating activities such as economic independence for women. This gives them a better say in decision-making mechanisms at the family and community level.

b) Education standards
Low education level for Lower Tana districts is still an impediment to women overall performance and participation in societal development. The programme aims to reduce that gap.

c) Infrastructure - (access roads, telecommunication etc…). Access roads to project sites remains a major challenge. However we note that the infrastructure has improved in the project areas including e-mail facilities, faxes, and one main tarmac road connecting Malindi, Tana River and Lamu districts.

d) Harsh climatic conditions
Being a semi arid area Tana River district has a harsh climatic conditions and the nature of topography is such that accessibility to zones of operations is difficult, especially in Lower Tana.

e) Low incomes
Most of the communities targeted by the two projects are below poverty line.

f) Ethnic heterogeneity of the Lower Tana community makes coordination a bit difficult. This has resulted in frequent clashes between ethnic groups i.e. the agriculturalists (Pokomo tribe) and the pastoralists (Orma).

Opportunities

Despite the above challenges the following are opportunities that KWAHO and ADA should tap into to enhance the success of the project:
a) In addition to the efforts already put in the areas in water and sanitation, there is need for more of such services including expanding to new divisions;
b) There are enthusiastic and receptive communities;
c) Abundance of groundwater for exploitation, and sufficient rainfall for rain harvesting;
d) Availability of raw materials (sand, ballast etc…)
f) Good political will and support from government.

Other interventions

Apart from the physical implementation of projects the programme emphasizes the following areas:

i) Income Generating Activities
This is promoted within the context of gender development. The projects’ support consists of promoting what women groups traditionally do in their areas and in imparting to them skills required for their activities to develop in most sustainable manner.

ii) Networking
This is an important aspect that encourages interchange between the two projects and other projects in their respective areas. The head office co-ordinates networking activities at the national and international levels.

Expected Outputs and Impact of KWAHO/ADA Projects

The following results/impact are expected at the end of programme implementation.

a) Majority of target communities are supplied with clean, safe, reliable water facilities within reasonable distances;
b) The communities will have acquired the capacity (relevant skills) to manage, operate, maintain, sustain facilities and replicate them;
c) The communities will have less incidence of water related diseases;
d) The communities' income will improve;
e) Water committees are well organized to maintain their collective facilities;
f) Water resources in the respective areas of operation are well protected.