Nigeria: EU Support to Response, Recovery, and Resilience in Borno State

Feb 5, 2019 | Action Contre la Faim
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Action Against Hunger (AAH) has been working in Northern Nigeria (i.e. Jigawa, Yobe and Borno States) since 2010 to achieve long-term, sustainable and scaled impact on undernutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and general health outcomes through a multi-sectoral approach. Our national AAH Strategy aims to deliver sustainable reductions in the burden of undernutrition in priority Local Government Areas (LGAs). WASH interventions include water supply system rehabilitation and new drillings, rehabilitation and construction of sanitation facilities and hygiene promotion in camps, schools, health facilities and communities at large. AAH’s teams also respond to disease outbreaks (cholera) and are implementing a WASH’Nutrition approach in order to reduce the detrimental effect of insanitary conditions on the incidence and prevalence of undernutrition.

PROJECT BACKGROUND AND DESCRIPTION

The past nine years of violence between the Nigerian armed forces and non-state armed groups in North East Nigeria have caused mass displacement and drained state and community resources. At its peak (October 2015), 2.2 million individuals were displaced by the conflict. Following a steady decline during 2016-2017, the total number has risen again to >2 million in October 2018.1 Borno State hosts the vast majority of both internally displaced persons (1,475,605) and returnees (683,012). Furthermore, the conflict has overburdened services in areas that were under-performing prior to the crisis, and the damaged infrastructure and depleted services in newly accessible areas cause further challenges in delivering support to those in need.

This EU-funded project responds to the need of building resilience and sustainability in Borno State and of enhancing the capacity of public institutions and affected communities to anticipate and react to the challenges of poverty, social cohesion, climate change, and crisis/security. Responding to the needs of the conflict-affected populations in Borno State requires a comprehensive and integrated intervention across multiple platforms of service delivery and system strengthening. The project therefore covers multiple sectors at once in the targeted areas: the health and nutrition sector, WASH and renewable energy systems, and the social protection, livelihood and income generating sector. Based on the level of needs and gaps in operational response presence, the project intervenes in Northeastern Borno, and more specifically Kukawa, Nganzai, Monguno and Damboa Local Government Areas (LGAs).

The project focuses on transitioning between ‘emergency’ and ‘development’ in a sustained manner. Since this transition is rarely a linear chronological process, a flexible and phased approach is followed to support immediate needs while at the same time implementing recovery and longer-term interventions. To this end, AAH works alongside authorities to ensure they are strengthened to be able to deliver the basic services to their population. The participation of LGA officials and public institutions is required in the planning, design, implementation and assessment of the services or infrastructure to be strengthened through this intervention as well as their management upon the intervention’s conclusion. While the ultimate expected level of sustainability will be dependent on factors such as resources and security, the project plans to work closely with institutional and community structures to ensure that they have the technical capacity to deliver an effective response with minimal external support.

Beyond authorities, the project will seek to empower conflict-affected populations, in particular women, to make them more resilient. This will be done through empowerment of affected populations on their health, nutrition and sanitation practices, support to sustainable livelihood and income generation, and support to community cohesion and gender equity.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

Overall Objective

Contribution to long-term resilience among populations and public institutions in North East Nigeria.

Specific Objective

Improved nutrition security of conflict-affected populations through uptake of critical household health and hygiene behaviors and through improved government’s capacity to provide primary health care, water, sanitation and hygiene services, support safety nets and livelihoods sources.

Rationale for the WASH Governance analysis

Due to the conflict, Borno State and its LGAs have limited resources (human, technical and financial) and capacities to deliver their local development mission. It is therefore necessary to support redeployment and strengthen these actors in their capacities and to mobilize them on their mandate of planning (including early warning and contingency planning), and building resilience of their population. This project component will result in a re-appropriation by the local authorities and public institutions of their domain of competences in the areas where the crisis has weakened their capacities for surveillance and action. The diagnosis produced will inform the most appropriate ways to strengthen their capacities.

Based on the WASH governance study, a plan will be prepared with LGAs, the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA) and the Borno State Environmental Protection Agency (BOSEPA) to address the identified gaps and challenges. The plan will include capacity building and supportive supervision, including but not limited to water quality monitoring, mapping and surveying water points, establishing and supporting water user committees (WUC), and aiding in the operation and maintenance of community infrastructure.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Overall objective

The WASH governance study will contribute to AAH’s understanding of the environment it operates in. The study shall broadly look at the efficiency, effectiveness and engagement of all relevant stakeholders, thereby building on the OECD principles on water governance, and particularly on those principles that are essential in emergency situations.

The study will conduct an analysis of the institutional and regulatory framework (particularly on State level); map the interests, coordination mechanisms and influence that stakeholders may have over AAH’s WASH program in Borno; assess the capacity of existing institutional actors to ensure longer-term sustainability of the WASH interventions and describe existing community and locally-based resource management structures.

Specific objectives

• Based on the abovementioned mapping exercise, the study will:
• Identify the gaps, grey areas and overlaps in the WASH institutional environment linking the State to LGA level, and the LGA to ward/community level;
• Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the WASH committees (WASHCOM) as predominant water management model in the intervention areas, and the extent to which they can meet the life cycle costs of different infrastructures (notably solar-powered, hybrid and generator-powered systems, thereby differentiating between CapEx, OpEx and CapManEx);
• Develop, in consultation with key institutional stakeholders, a (financially) sustainable governance model for rural and peri-urban water supply systems in line with the legal and institutional framework;
• Develop a capacity-building strategy (eg competency-based trainings, water point information system) for water resource management at State and LGA levels;
• Identify opportunities for advocacy by AAH to influence the sustainability of WASH interventions in Borno state.