Kigali: African Countries Commit to harmonize and Standardize Water and Sanitation Data Reporting

The African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) member countries have agreed to harmonize and update the reporting system of water and sanitation data in order to have accurate data which will lead to the sustainable management of the continent’s water resources.

The agreement was reached on Wednesday, 23rd May 2018 following a three days workshop which took place in Kigali, Rwanda where AMCOW member countries  identified key issues on the current data reporting system in member states.

The AMCOW Water and Sanitation data reporting started in 2016 and since then a big number of countries are not yet able to provide updated data which allow the AU heads of states and Government to decide on which policies to be put in place in order to spearhead the sustainable management of water resources while at the same time ensuring access to hygiene and sanitation services to the continent’s population.

Representatives from at least 55 African countries who have been in Kigali up to Wednesday 23^rd May 2018, have agreed to review data submitted or update them for those who were not able to submit them on time.

The AMCOW secretariat revealed that at least in 2016, 42 countries provided their data among 55 countries while the 2017 saw the number of reporting went down to at least 33 countries having reported their data.

However during the three days’ workshop it came out clearly that there is the need to strengthen capacity of country teams because that’s where data come from, so there is a need to put a special focus on indicators building capacity of understanding of more than one person at a country level so that there is an effective working across sectors.

In their recommendations, AMCOW country representatives mentioned that “There is a need to build awareness on the knowledge of WASSMO (Africa Water Sector and Sanitation Monitoring and Reporting system) because monitoring team at the country level sometime face confrontation because people at high level are not aware of what WASSMO is and all the responsibilities and its importance of the Pan-African water and monitoring system so there was a recommendation to build that awareness to strengthen it.”

It was also noted that monitoring requires resources and for that it is important to institutionalize the monitoring at a country level so that they are able to budget for it and raise resources required to make it effectively functioning.

As a move towards the accurate reporting and standard data submission, all representatives of AMCOW member countries were given well equipped Laptop machines with required software so that they are able to harmonize all water and sanitation data from across the continent.

In an interview with Emmanuel Chimezie Uguru from the AMCOW Secretariat highlighted that in past M&E focal points from member countries used to report their countries ‘data using Excel sheet reporting system considered outdated to the new web based IT reporting system.

“AMCOW member countries are mandated to report the situation of the management of water resources to the Africa union Heads of States annually. In the past MDGs there were the manual based system of reporting. Excel was used to monitor the situation of water and sanitation resources but now with the transition to SDGs that led to the development of Water and Sanitation Sector Monitoring System (WASSMO).” Uguru said.

He explained that “Basically this system is like the upgraded version of monitoring system. It is an online system whereby you can update data from wherever you are and this system was developed with consultations of all relevant stakeholders, member focal points, and member states, partners as well as institutions that is funding the project.”

The major project funding is the African Development Bank and the Africa Water Facility.

The system is designed to actually give reliable situations of what is happening in water and sanitation sector and data from this system will be used to generate report that is submitted to the African Union annually, according to official from the AMCOW Secretariat.

Mr. Uguru also noted that “The essence of this monitoring Exercise is to give our leaders the clear picture of what is happening in country level for them to be able to better give or decide on issues that affect member states at the national level.”

Commenting on Computers donated by the African Development Bank, Modeste Tuyishime an M&E from Rwanda’s Ministry of Environment said that “We have a number of data parameters that we collect every year and submit them to AMCOW. For that we use computers and we have highlighted challenge capable tools to do our job and AMCOW responds to us through African Development Bank (AfDB) by giving computers to the National M&E Focal persons and those computers will help us in our daily work and the work is going to be done well considering with the past reporting system.”

In his closing remarks, the Director General of Rwanda Water and Forestry Authority Prime Ngabonziza who was speaking on behalf of the Rwanda’s Minister of Environment Dr. Vicent Biruta who was not present due to other conflicting schedule, called up on AMCOW member countries to fast-track the data submission to AMCOW while at the same time requesting them to have the same understanding on the reporting framework.

“This web based monitoring and evaluation platform is a powerful tool to use evidence based informed the decision making for AMCOW member states mainly at policy level and to provide information for accountability and performance improvement.”

He highlights that the platform will facilitate the member states standardized their reporting adding that “We are therefore called to bring together our efforts to make sure that the system is operational and producing high quality data in the reports.”