Role of community empowerment in increasing access to sanitation and hygiene : paper prepared for the West Africa Regional Sanitation and Hygiene Symposium, 10-12 Nov 2009, Accra, Ghana

Budgets are allocated for water, sanitation and hygiene in the LGAs but are not really reaching the communities. Community members are not aware of projects in the budget for water, sanitation and hygiene. Service providers do not get feedback from community members on the quality of service provided. WaterAid Nigeria supported a civil society coalition in Ekiti State to work in her focused LGAs and communities to empower community members on their rights as well as track budgets for water, sanitation and hygiene. CSOs capacity was built on Budget Tracking and Citizens’ Action to enable them raise awareness of consumers and service providers on their entitlements, rights and responsibilities. It involves assessing the level of services and quality of projects by service providers (scoring). Scorecards are generated from the reports and are exchanged between the consumers and service providers. They dialogue about any differences through an interface meeting while also jointly proffering solutions. The LGA has recorded increase in allocation and release of budget for sanitation and hygiene activities leading to increase in toilets in schools. There is also a remarkable increase in support to communities for the construction of latrine. Open defeacation has stopped leading to reduction in water related diseases in the communities.(authors abstract)