An eleven member delegation from the Kenya WASH Alliance (KWA) paid a weeklong visit to various ongoing WASH related projects in eastern part of Ethiopia. This time the visit was organized by the Ethiopia WASH Alliance (EWA).

Deres Abdulkadir, executive director of RiPPLE, who is also chairperson of the EWA steering committee, said that EWA is hosting its Kenyan counterpart following an invitation made by EWA back in November 2012 when a seven member EWA delegation made a 6-days working visit to Kenya. I wrote a blog about this exchange visit as well.

During its stay here in Ethiopia the delegation had made visits to various projects implemented by EWA members such as AMREF, RiPPLE and ECC-SDCOH. During its visit to AMREF projects in Awash zone of the Afar Regional State, the delegation was able to see school WASH, public toilet and sanitation services, a waste management project for Awash town that also integrates support to an association of HIV positive persons.

The KWA delegation has also been to the Erer water supply project and the joint (MUStRAIN, RiPPLE, & HCS) Kenchera subsurface dam project which is believed to provide multiple services (water supply, irrigation, sanitation, etc.) to the surrounding community members located over 550 km east of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. The delegation has paid a visit to the Meta Woreda water supply and multiple use services project which provides services to 24,000 households. This project, run by the HCS East Hararghe, is probably by far considered to be the largest WASH services NGO project in the country with regards to the size of the target communities.

In addition to observing projects firsthand and interacting with community members on site, EWA members have made ample briefings to the delegation on each project activity. The two sides have also benefitted from a debriefing session by the KWA team on lessons learnt and inputs for improvement on project implementation issues as well as a joint discussion on way forward.

The KWA delegation was drawn from organizations such as AMREF, SASOL, NOSIM, KEWASNET, Practical Action, ICRAF, Kenya Ministry of Public Health, NIA and KWA.

It was learnt that the exchange visit hosted by EWA was made possible through the support of ICCO.

Read also about this event from an Ethiopian perspective here.

Solomon Kebede is Media and Communications Officer at RiPPLE