Regional Anchoring Strategy

1 The importance of anchoring

In the second phase of Dutch support, the Sustainable Cities Programme (SCP) and the Localising Agenda 21 Programme (LA21) intend to improve its assistance to its partners through decentralisation at regional and national levels. For this purpose, SCP identified and engaged specific Dutch organisations with defined expertise that could provide this specialised support. The IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre was identified on basis of its expertise on information and knowledge management on water supply, sanitation and hygiene promotion, its facilitation of multi-stakeholder participatory planning and management processes and its support of Southern water and sanitation institutes. IRC will be in charge of implementing the Basic Urban Services (BUS) initiative.

One major interest of the SCP is to ensure the sustainability of the EPM interventions at local level. The integration of the EPM process in the normal routine of relevant local organisations is the ultimate aim of institutionalisation. Anchoring is one of the identified strategies to achieve it. In a wider perspective, anchoring can be seen as a way of enhancing synergies, improving co-ordination and information exchange, increasing use of local know-how and expertise, enhancing replication opportunities, creating ownership of a process, improving chances for sustainability and creating conducive environments for resource leveraging for local and national initiatives.

In more than thirty-five years of experience, IRC has built successful strategic alliances with key training and capacity building organisations all over the world. Lessons from this experience will be used to ensure the conditions of sustainability of the BUS initiative and feed into the regional anchoring strategy presented in this paper.

2 Relationship between anchoring and the BUS initiative

The provision of clean water and adequate sanitation is one of the most critical identified needs that developing country cities are facing now[1]. Solutions require efficient and flexible approaches that consider the involvement of public and private partners[2] at different levels. Likewise, the situation of poverty affecting unserved or poorly served populations demand new abilities from local authorities to motivate the building of strategic partnerships and alliances that promote improved provision of basic services as a strategy for poverty reduction. For SCP and LA21 partner cities that have identified basic services as key priorities, anchoring is presented as a strategy for ensuring sustainability and continuity. For that purpose, BUS needs to identify and strengthen suitable national organisations that could fulfil that role.

IRC's vast experience supporting information management and capacity building of partners in the water and sanitation sectors, shows that while an anchoring organisation may play a leading role on some aspects of the planning and management of BUS, other local organisations may also have complementary capacities and expertise that should be incorporated at some stage in the initiative.

[1] Specifically the seventh Millennium Development Goal refers to ensure environmental sustainability through the facilitation of basic infrastructure and urban services.

[2] For specific BUS purposes, target private partners are small and medium sized enterprises that could include small CBO enterprises.

For the national and/or regional anchoring organisation, the implementation of the BUS initiative could help enhance its own capacities and strengthen its own institutional development at various levels. At local level, considering that the anchoring organisation has an already defined interest in enhancing BUS initiatives, the demonstration projects and replication initiatives could enhance changes in local legislative frameworks and call for increased support from other major programmes and initiatives. In the long-term this will result in increased benefits for the most vulnerable target population and a stronger recognition of the work and influence of the anchoring organisation in this sector.

3 Roles and responsibilities of anchoring organisations

As defined by the SCP, an anchoring organisation is the most appropriate national and/or regional institutional home in which to secure BUS specific activities and methodologies developed through the project. Besides the necessary institutional commitment and administrative assistance that is expected from an anchoring organisation, some areas for specific support are:

• substantive support on BUS related matters to the working groups established by the EPM process,
• specific tools for monitoring and measuring progress of BUS activities
• documentation and dissemination of experiences
• if available specific use of EMIS and GIS for BUS initiatives

The following areas of intervention will be considered with priority when defining the precise roles and responsibilities for anchoring institutions:

• Capacity building
• Information and knowledge management
• Expertise on basic urban services (water and sanitation)
• Advocacy and policy making at national and international levels
• Regional outreach of activities
• Research and documentation
• Act as supportive network for the BUS experience

4 Criteria for selection

The project envisages the selection and appointment of at least six regional or national partners' organisations to act as anchoring organisations. The process of selection of these organisations will include the preparation and agreement of the selection criteria, specific terms of reference and the definition of the selection process.

Through the consultative and multistakeholder decision-making and planning approach established by the EPM process, it is possible to identify certain partners that are strategically placed to take the "lead"and in the medium term can ensure the sustainability of the national or regional process . For the SCP, this local leadership is expressed in terms of capacities -expertise, financial and human resources- as well as mandate. The identified capacities and expertise of the anchoring organisations could therefore give a measure of their scope and degree of influence in the area of their competence. For BUS these requirements will be translated into the following:

• Institutional flexibility and openness to work with other local organisations that have complementary capacities to the anchoring organisation. This process will promote building up synergies and the efficient use of existing local know-how in order to reach out the main stakeholders of the BUS initiative -local authorities and the poor- in a more effective manner. In practice, this will translate into building strategic alliances and partnerships with other national organisations that could provide other or complement the main services of the anchoring organisation.
• Capacities for financial leveraging and resource identification to ensure financial sustainability.
• Proven expertise and recognition of its work in the water and sanitation sector at least at national level.
• Institutional mandate and sustainable development plan consistent with BUS proposed principles.

To ensure the sustainability of the experience, BUS considers that the national and/or regional anchoring organisations may have to show strong relevance according to the following criteria.

* In terms of mandate and institutional goals:

• Clear institutional mandate in relation to the strengthening of the water sector and the empowering of all relevant stakeholders including marginalised groups.
• Flexible, participatory work and inclusive approach promoted.
• Willingness and capacities to expand areas of expertise and action

* In terms of capacity building:

• Relevant experience with implementation of training and capacity building initiatives for different audiences, ranging preferably from community groups to municipal officials and professionals.
• Experience with the development of curricula and training modules, short and long term programmes, specifically on BUS.
• Sufficient flexibility and interest to work efficiently with a variety of partners.

* In terms of information and knowledge management and exchange:

• Relevant experience with information needs assessment of various stakeholder groups.
• Relevant experience with information management and knowledge reuse.
• Relevant knowledge and information management expertise.
• Experience with documentation and production of publications
• Existence of a documentation centre either of traditional, virtual or hybrid format[1].
• Existence of an information specialist within the staff.
• Capacity to market products and services efficiently (marketing strategy, outreach strategy)
• Specific experience with versioning and dissemination of information to diverse audiences.
• Experience or interest with e-conferencing and distance learning

* In terms of networking and partnership building:

• Recognised leadership, expertise and proven record of good working relationships with diverse partners at national, regional and/ or international levels.
• Proven working relationship with international partners and programmes.
• Proven experience with developing and implementing strategic partnerships at local level in terms of partnership effectiveness and efficiency
• Adequate level and quality of networking hardware (access to E-mail, Internet, PCs, etc).
• Proven experience on network facilitation at least at local level.
• Clear institutional networking objectives.

* In terms of methodology:

• Experience with guiding participatory processes and consultations.
• Recognised leadership and expertise in the urban water and environmental sanitation sector.
• Field experience with disadvantaged groups either through research, documentation or implementation of field initiatives.
• Familiarity and interest with gender mainstreaming.
• Strong research capacities in BUS.
• Strong experience with monitoring and development of indicators.
• Experience with setting up demand driven programmes.
• Experience with institutional strengthening of other organisations in the country or region.
• Multicultural sensitive approach.
• Capacity to develop innovative approaches emerging from opportunities created by major national reforms such as decentralisation.
• Experience with strategic planning processes.
• Experience or interest with the development of EMIS and use of GIS.

* In terms of advocacy and policy making:

• Experience with lobbying for policy changes at national level and if possible international exposure.
• Experience with joint organisation of advocacy campaign/ activities.

* In terms of organisational structure:

• Strong administrative structure at national and/or regional levels.
• Proven effective financial management (accountability and transparency)
• Qualified and sufficient human resources.
• Gender sensitive human resources policy.
• Multidisciplinary members of staff.
• Clear strategic planning, management and assessment procedures in place.
• Regular evaluations and impact assessments carried out.
• Solid governance structure.
• Financial security and financial independence (where does the main funding come from?)

5 Support and guidance provided by IRC

The anchoring organisations may need to develop or strengthen certain understanding and skills to fulfil their tasks as planned in the BUS initiative. It will be very difficult to find an organisation that fulfils all the criteria mentioned above and therefore IRC is prepared to facilitate the necessary capacity building and institutional strengthening support to improve their performance according to the following areas:

• In relation to information management and brokerage including improved information collection, documentation, case studies development and BUS applied research.
• In relation to project management and methodologies including action plans development, BUS up scaling proposals development, process monitoring, participatory consultations and capacity building for BUS and gender responsiveness in BUS.
• In relation to contents of water and environmental sanitation approaches including application of participatory methodologies, appropriate technology options, monitoring approaches and building up of public private partnerships in the sector.
• In terms of technical support including, if feasible, use of GIS in pro-poor BUS interventions in collaboration with SCP.
• In terms of advocacy including improved contacts with global partners and dissemination of IRC advocacy experiences at national and international levels.

[1] Virtual resource centres rely mainly on electronic means to collect and distribute information. To access the information effectively, clients of virtual resource centres must meet certain specific technological conditions. BUS is aware that in Southern countries accessibility to electronic means is not as widespread or efficient as in developed countries. In consequence, BUS promotes delivery of information according to local conditions in the most efficient format.