Resource centre networks on the move in Francophone West Africa

Resource centre networks in Benin and Burkina Faso are in the process of developing their first information products and services.

In Benin, some seed funding from the Dutch Ministry for Development Cooperation allowed CREPA Benin to organise a strategic orientation workshop in Bohicon in July 2008 in the presence of 15 WASH organisations (ministerial agencies, non-governmental institutions and individual consultants). IRC has been supporting this initiative and presented some experiences from other resource centre networks (the presentation is available on: http://www.fr.irc.nl/page/42911).

During two days the participants assessed the current practices and priorities regarding information and knowledge management in the WASH sector and formulated an action plan that recommended the development of a national resource centre network (RCN) composed of a general assembly, a steering committee and a permanent secretariat (CREPA Benin), thereby organising regular and structured sharing of information on water, sanitation and hygiene with a number of sector organisations.

Since the Bohicon workshop, the permanent secretariat has hired a coordinator for the network and the steering committee has met on a regular basis to propose a series of information products and services aimed at sector organisations. During the last meeting, formal terms of reference have been formulated to develop a website, a national news bulletin and a database of WASH sector organisations. These products are the first of a series of services by the resource centre network.

In Burkina Faso, the national representation of CREPA (CREPA Burkina Faso) organised a strategic orientation workshop in January 2009, attended by 24 participants from 16 institutions to develop a strategic action plan for 2009 and beyond. The workshop explored priorities of WASH sector stakeholders and recommended a working group to further develop the priorities. The action plan that resulted from the working group emphasises three areas of work: Collect and disseminate information (from non-governmental sources) about sanitation in rural and peri-urban areas;Develop capacity of RCN members to collect and disseminate information;Strengthen capacities of municipalities to carry out capitalisation of experiences (systematic and ongoing project documentation and dissemination of lessons learnt).

CREPA Burkina Faso, which is heading the permanent secretariat and is one of the organisations financially supported by a new programme of PSO (a Dutch capacity development network) for its activities in the resource centre network, is working on the first services of the RCN: support to capitalisation of experiences by municipalities and the organisation of mutual support sessions on information and knowledge management among RC network members.

IRC will keep supporting both network initiatives and will encourage the documentation of their experiences and sharing at global level, among others within the recently launched sector learning discussion group (available on: http://groups.google.com/group/washsectorlearning).

For more information, contact Hector Kpangon (kpangonhector@gmail.com) for the resource centre network of Benin and Jules Auguste Sow (sowjulesauguste@yahoo.fr) for the resource centre network of Burkina Faso.