Southern Africa Regional Programme (SARP)
IRC's focus in the Southern Africa region is to strengthen intermediate levels [province, district, municipality] capacities of the various actors involved in pro-poor WASH governance taking place in a local IWRM context.
The Southern Africa Regional Programme (SARP) consists of two main components:
- Enhancing regional knowledge networking, so as to facilitate and support organisations and networks to effectively address the key WASH issues;
- Knowledge development, innovation, documentation and sharing, initially mainly in South Africa but also in other countries in the region, on a number of prioritised thematic areas.
WASH News Southern Africa
News feed maintained by information specialists from IRC and partners.
Mozambique
With various partners in Mozambique IRC is working on a range of themes including water financing, governance, knowledge management and transparency and accountability.
South Africa
With various partners in South Africa IRC is working on a sector wide approach and local governance so that the water sector has more impact on the WASH MDGs.
CSOs from Southern Africa exchange sanitation knowledge in practice
"This workshop raised questions about the Amalooloo toilets in South Africa. As we are also getting these toilets in Zambia I hope that you keep us informed about these problems on the ground”, Elisha N’gonomo, Director of a large civil society organisation Village Water in Zambia, asked the South African participants on the last day of their Civil Society Learning Journey and Capacity Building Workshop in Roodeplaat, Pretoria, South Africa.
Partnership with UCLGA
IRC Southern Africa Regional Programme is building a partnership with the United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLGA) Water and Sanitation Focal Point Network (FPN). This work compliments IRC’s local governance focus on tools to support the provision of sustainable water and sanitation services, where the Municipal Assistant is one of the tools IRC has been researching with a view to promoting it as best practice.
Decentralisation practice
Implementing the decentralisation of water and sanitation services is a key topic in many developing countries. Decentralisation involves transfer of functions, assets, staff, infrastructure and budget from the national level to the local level. Here we are publishing case studies and papers from decentralisation in practice from countries in Southern Africa. Experience in South Africa illustrates that this process is not an easy one, even though they successfully undertook the process as part of the sector wide approach (SWAp) in a collaborative manner.
SWAps
Building the water sector in Southern Africa through collaboration by involving key stakeholders and using the sector wide approach (SWAp).
The Southern Africa regional team is sharing lessons about SWAps in the water sector with other countries on the continent. A set of SWAp presentations and materials (including outputs from SWAp processes) are currently being prepared and assembled as part of a Water Sector Swap package.
