Development of Information Focal Points (IFPs) on Community Water Supply in Rural Areas

Abstract

At the end of 1998 a training workshop was organized by the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre in The Hague, The Netherlands, with the aim of establishing Information Focal Points (IFPs) within a number of organizations. The partner organizations were NETWAS International in Nairobi, Kenya, WASEP in Gilgit, Northern Areas of Pakistan, CINARA in Cali, Colombia, and the Mvula Trust in Johannesburg, South Africa. The IFP initiative was a sub-project of a much larger project, called the Manage Dissemination Project that aimed to disseminate the results of an earlier four-year participatory action research project undertaken by IRC on community management of rural water supplies. Unlike many other water information initiatives, which often have the catchment as their point of departure, IFPs had the ambitious goal of wanting to access and document water information at a much lower level, namely that of the community. Inherent to this approach was that community-based water information would become institutionalized in the partner organizations, so that even after the research project came to an end, the IFPs would be able to continue their work. This article describes the objectives and outcomes of the above workshop and provides thumbnail sketches of the partner organizations involved in the sub-project. It also discusses the plans that partner organizations developed for implementing IFPs within their own organizations. The challenges that may confront both the partner organizations themselves, and IRC in its role as a supportive institution, are also discussed. The article ends by trying to look ahead on how the IFP initiative may evolve in the future.