World Bank Extends 4.1b Br Water, Sanitation Loan

The Ethiopian One National WASH Program under the WASH Implementation Framework (WIF) has received a 4.1 billion Br loan from the World Bank (WB) to improve access to water, sanitation and hygiene.

The program was launched in September 2013 to modernise water and sanitation services, improve health, decrease school drop-out rate and make financing for WASH more effective, according to Abiy Girma, the One WASH Coordinator at the Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy (MoWIE).

The World Bank’s money will be used for the construction of water and sanitation facilities in Ethiopia, excluding Addis Abeba.

“We will construct toilets for health centres, public schools and upgrade our water supply by constructing new water wells,” said Abiy.

The WB already provided five million dollars to the project in January 2014 because of a government push; the five million dollar loan is part of the approved 4.1 billion Br effective from July 2014, according to a source who requested anonymity.

The four line ministries – Ministry of Health (MoH), Ministry of Finance & Economic Development (MoFED), Ministry of Education (MoE) and Ministry of Water, Irrigation & Energy (MoWIE) – are the core actors who signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the integrated implementation of a water supply, sanitation and hygiene program in Ethiopia and WASH Implementation Framework in 2013.

“The policy and strategy of the project was designed in 2005 and it passed through many ups and downs because of a lack of commitment from the government’s side,” said the source.

The core policy document of the Ethiopian WASH program, the Universal Access Plan (UAP), aims to achieve 98.5pc and 100pc access to safe water and sanitation, respectively, by 2015.

To implement the project, a taskforce was organised with members from the four ministries, Civil Society Organisations and the DAG Water Technical Working Group,  chaired by Yohannes Gebremedhen, the director of the Water Supply & Sanitation Directorate at the MoWIE.

“The government has gaps in implementing this project. No meeting has been held by the steering committee since the launch of the project and planned regional offices are not yet open,” said the source.

The loan from the World Bank will be provided in four phases for four years, says Abiy.

“We are moving towards implementation after we have secured the money,” he said.

The project was designed for the coordination and implementations of the multi-donor consolidated WASH account, approval of harmonised and integrated annual WASH plans and budgets, coordination of operational WASH structures, preparing harmonised guidelines and core materials for capacity building and facilitating tools and procedures necessary for integrated planning, reporting and monitoring, said Abiy.

This national strategy was launched with the intention to harmonise, align, integrate and accelerate the WASH implementation, in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Growth and Transformation Plan(GTP)targets.


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