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Citizen's Action

What is Citizens' Action?

Women in Ghana
The Citizens' Action projects aim to empower women like Apam Mbilia and her neighbours in Ghana.
Credit: WaterAid / Caroline Penn

Citizens' Action is designed to help poor people gain access to the water and sanitation services to which they are entitled. Through a sustainable, rights-based approach, WaterAid believes that poor people themselves should be able to hold governments and service providers to account through negotiation based on data that they collect themselves. WaterAid and other non governmental organisations will facilitate and support this engagement, rather than mediate on behalf of citizens as is often the case - this is the essence of the Citizens' Action project.

Where are Citizens' Action projects?

The first Citizens' Action projects are already underway in Ghana, India, Nepal and Uganda, with others in Ethiopia and Bangladesh at an early stage. Projects are soon to start in Mozambique, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Mali, with more to follow.

How does Citizens' Action work?

Projects are implemented by citizens and facilitated by partner organisations alongside WaterAid country programme staff. In the first instance local people develop a fuller understanding of:

  • Their entitlements to water and sanitation
  • Their current water and sanitation service situation
  • Who is responsible for policy and service delivery

Then, in order to assess the state of water and sanitation service provision in their area, they will decide upon suitable data collection methods to use from the following:

  • Community scorecards where people rank or score the range of services they have in their area
  • Slum enumeration and censuses which entails mapping accommodation and amenities
  • Mapping access to water and sanitation amenities to show their distribution
  • Report cards which is essentially a market research exercise to assess public satisfaction with services 

What does Citizens' Action aim to achieve?

 

I think water is the most fundamental issue
"I think water is the most fundamental issue and the very first thing that we need as people. Water is life. My people need so many things, I could give you a huge list, but at the top of that list would be clean water." TA Kuluunda, Traditional Chief for the Kuluunda area of Malawi.
Credit: WaterAid / Jon Spaull

Organised action by citizens is vital to the development partnership between the people and those responsible for delivering services. Developing country governments and service providers must respond and be accountable to organised demand from citizens themselves, so that the good intentions of those in power are turned into action. WaterAid is looking to create a wide alliance across the world and at all levels to develop and spread the word about this exciting approach to gaining access to water and sanitation for more of the world's poorest people.

Read our first Citizens' Action for water and sanitation report, Bridging the gap (Adobe Acrobat Document PDF 972Kb)

Read our second Citizen's Action report: Stepping into action (Adobe Acrobat Document PDF 870Kb)

 
Citizens' Action
Nepal
For all the good intentions of governments and service providers too many poor people are seeing their entitlements to water and sanitation unmet. There is international understanding that access to safe, affordable water and sanitation are human rights, and yet poor people see few agencies acting with any urgency. There are the much-trumpeted poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) but poor people rarely see water and sanitation anywhere among the priorities. At the current rate of progress the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of halving the proportions of people without access to water and sanitation will be missed by some distance. In these dire circumstances poor people are asking not only where is the water and where are the toilets, but also, who can be held accountable?
A new source of momentum is needed to ensure that agencies stick by their commitments, that governments put into place the legislation or policies necessary to support service provision and that service providers meet demand. There is an urgent need for action to ensure improved accountability. WaterAid is convinced that poor people themselves should be able to hold service providers and governments to account.