Citizen voice in Water and Sanitation Reform Rosemary Rop, Water and Sanitation Consultant July 24 th 2007

2 Policy makers Service providers Citizens / consumers Citizen Voice Governance and Accountability Framework

3 Goals of the Citizen Report Card  Improve relationships between stakeholders  Improve stakeholders understanding of urban reforms and issues affecting them  Use the CRC to strengthen citizen voice and put in place mechanisms for dialogue on urban water, sanitation and solid waste reforms

4 Principles of Process in Kenyan pilot (i) Consortium based, facilitated by civil society organizations, but involved service providers, the board, the regulator, the line ministries responsible for water, sanitation and solid waste (ii) Done in parallel in the three cities with an oversight consortium at National level

5 Principles of Process (iii) – Qualitative  44 Focus Group Discussions held in the three cities in February 2006  Views from Middle, low income and high income residents  Views from leaders, women, men and youth

6 Principles of Process (iv) – Quantitative  Research International  Collected Field Data  Entered Data  Analyzed Data  Produced survey report  Launch of CRC May 29 th 07

7 Survey – What did it investigate?  Access and usage  Quality and reliability  Costs  Transparency  Satisfaction  Priority improvements  Demographic information of household

8 The Report Card Nairobi’s non-poor are generally satisfied. Consumers like the taste, smell and colour of water Consumers on the network are receiving bills every month. All consumers want increased reliability of the water supply. More than half retreat their water The poor are paying higher prices for lower levels of service & lack adequate access to sanitation services Kisumu leads in consumer service but overall, Consumers want better customer service & information from providers and policy makers. Satisfaction with sanitation and solid waste services is lower than water services.

9 Water Supply: Benchmarks for Water Coverage Time spent by the poor fetching water outside the home Problems encountered when fetching water in scarcity times

10 Water Supply: Benchmarks for Coverage  None of the three companies achieves a score of ‘good’ in terms of coverage  Hours per week of service are also below the benchmarks, especially in Mombasa

11 Water Supply: Reliability & Quality  The poor are most vulnerable to scarcity  The non-poor invest heavily in storage tanks to cope with scarcity  Kisumu residents experience the most scarcity Figure: Scarcity from main source in the last year

12 Impact of CRC  Policy makers and service providers have made public commitment to address issues facing consumers  Bi annual monitoring meetings to be held to assess progress  Water Service Regulatory Board institutionalizing the methodology through piloting partnership with consortium in 3 cities  Will embark on Nation wide CRC in line with Water Act 2002

13 Policy formulation Budget preparation Budget Review Public Expenditure Tracking Citizen Voice Project Implementation Monitoring of services Citizen feedback Ultimately citizen engagement aiming for 360 degrees

14 Thank You