Following the 2020 Finance Ministers’ Meetings, Sanitation and Water for All, together with UNICEF, USAID, Water.org and WHO, has organized a series of four webinars for capacity development on finance and funding for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). This webinar series will focus on maximizing value from existing public funding and mobilizing more funding, ensuring no one is being left behind.
The webinars will build on the Handbook for Finance Ministers: How to make public investments work, which was launched in 2020. The Handbook is a call to action for ministers of finance with inspirational case studies and forward-looking sector perspectives. It has been widely praised for its hands-on solutions for countries facing different challenges. The handbook focused on four critical intervention areas with the potential to mobilize more resources:
This webinar series will focus on the first two of the four critical interventions covered in the handbook: How to maximize value from existing public funding and mobilize more funding, ensuring no one is being left behind. The specific topics and dates are listed below:
Webinar 1: Demystifying tariff discussions: the good, the bad and the ugly
Tuesday, 1 June 2021
Co-conveners: USAID and Water.org
- Session 1: 11:00 CEST | 9:00 Dakar | 16:00 Bangkok – English and French
- Session 2: 16:00 CEST | 9:00 Mexico City | 15:00 Abuja – English, Spanish and Portuguese
This webinar will provide practical examples to better understand the political economy of tariffs in both urban and rural contexts. The speakers will address the three facets of tariffs:
- The ugly truth of low tariffs: inequalities and low coverage;
- The bad: lack of incentives to improve performance and low willingness to pay;
- The good: examples from countries that are addressed the issue and how they did it.
Webinar 2: WASH affordability and financial sustainability – How to make WASH services more affordable through improved monitoring?
Tuesday, 8 June 2021
Co-conveners: UNICEF and WHO
- Session 1: 11:00 CEST | 9:00 Dakar | 16:00 Bangkok – English and French
- Session 2: 17:00 CEST | 10:00 Mexico City | 16:00 Abuja - English, Spanish and Portuguese interpretations
On 3 May 2021, a report was launched with global recommendations for how to better measure and monitor WASH affordability, published by UNICEF and WHO under the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) and the UN-Water Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water (GLAAS). The report draws on several countries' case studies and an in-depth review of concepts around affordability, including the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation. The report concludes that while there are both definitional and data challenges to the monitoring of affordability, it is critical to start taking steps to better understand, analyze and address affordability in the WASH sector and beyond.
This webinar builds on this report, by inviting countries and other constituencies to respond to the proposals for improved global and national monitoring of affordability and how countries and service providers can better respond to affordability concerns to leave no one behind. It also stimulates reflection on how to integrate affordability monitoring for multiple human needs.
Webinar 3: Why track WASH expenditures through WASH accounts? Learning from country experiences and an overview of new materials and tools
Tuesday, 15 June 2021
Co-convener: WHO
- Session 1: 11:00 CEST | 9:00 Dakar | 16:00 Bangkok – English and French
- Session 2: 16:00 CEST | 9:00 Mexico City | 15:00 Abuja – English, Spanish and Portuguese
The development of WASH accounts is increasingly being recognized as good practice, supporting elements of SWA’s framework, such as building sustainable financing strategies and transparency and accountability, which aids the mobilization of resources.
This webinar will relay the experiences of early-adopting countries, together with the perspective of donors on the value of, and challenges inherent in developing, maintaining and using WASH accounts to influence policy and decision-making.
The webinar will also be practical: it will introduce soon-to-be-released online tools and resources that will make implementing WASH accounts easier than ever before.
Webinar 4: Leaving no one behind – How to influence budgets to include gender, age and disabilities?
Tuesday, 22 June 2021
Co-convener: IBP
- Session 1: 11:00 CEST | 9:00 Dakar | 16:00 Bangkok – English and French
- Session 2: 16:00 CEST | 9:00 Mexico City | 15:00 Abuja – English, Spanish and Portuguese
The WASH sector has significantly improved the process of budget tracking, but much work still remains to ensure gender, age, and disability-inclusive budgets. Therefore, this webinar will reach beyond budget tracking by addressing how we can influence budget allocations for those left behind. The speakers will bring examples from districts and countries which have succeeded in the process to influence budgets and generated an impact on gender, age, and disability-inclusive budgets.