Detailed Description
The Sustainable Water Management in Usa River (SUWAMA-Usa River) is a partnership with the objective to improve water security at the sub-catchment level. To achieve this goal, all partners recognized that collective action was necessary. In this case, the partners successfully completed vital points of the Assess Phase of the Water Risk Action Framework.
IWaSP, the Pangani Basin Water Board, and the Water User Association thoroughly engaged with local government authorities at all stages of project assessment and planning. This ensured their further participation in the implementation of the Water Risk and Action Plan (WRAP). Moreover, the close collaboration with public partners ensured that the lessons learnt and experiences from this project can contribute to institutional change and form the basis for repeating this type of project in other rivers in Pangani. From the onset, District, ward, sub-ward officers, and local leaders supported the project and understood the role they had to play.
Building on the lessons learnt in a past partnership (Mlalakua River Restoration project) – and documented in a joint brochure – to avoid missing key actors or issues, the Assess Phase for the SUWAMA/Usa-River partnership IWaSP and key partners was carried out with an extensive stakeholder analysis and contextual knowledge gathering.
The PBWB community development officer and the Kilimanjaro Water Stewardship Platform operations manager conducted a comprehensive community consultation process to draft the Water Risk Action Plan (WRAP). They consulted all stakeholders in the sub-catchment, including 11 villages, where they guided the selection of two representatives for each village (1 woman and 1 man), several NGOs and research institutions, local government authorities, and private sector actors such as hotels and lodges, golf courses, and car washes, among others.
These regular meetings with upstream and downstream actors helped to ensure an accurate understanding of water risks and opportunities to develop a Water Risk and Action Plan (WRAP) that built on people’s commitments.
