ACP-EU Water Facility: Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion for the Millennium Development Goals

The specific objectives of the 10th European Development Fund ACP-EU Water Facility are:
• To help achieve the water and sanitation MDGs which are to halve by 2015 the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, vital in themselves but also key prerequisites for reducing child and maternal mortality (MDGs 4 & 5) and combating diseases (MDG 6)
• To contribute to improving water governance and management of water resources and to the sustainable development and maintenance of water infrastructure.

Significant progress has been made over recent years in helping people gain access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation facilities. Trends indicate that most countries are on-track to meet the MDG drinking water target, except in sub-Saharan Africa. The world is not on track to meet the MDG sanitation target. Most countries not on track are in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia. In recognition of the large sanitation deficit, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation.
Progress in water supply and sanitation should not be viewed just in terms of achieving the specific water and sanitation MDGs. Access to improved water supplies and sanitation facilities, coupled with improved hygiene practices such as handwashing, are prerequisites for achieving most of the other MDGs, particularly those on child mortality reduction, achieving universal primary education, combating diseases and promoting gender equality and empowering women.

This Call for Proposals  addresses the first of the abovementioned specific objectives. The purpose is to provide funding for:
• Water & sanitation basic infrastructure and hygiene promotion  projects, focussing on the most vulnerable and needy in rural and peri-urban areas, promoting the use of small-scale appropriate technologies, and leading to improvements in health, education & socio-economic development.
Each water, sanitation and hygiene (WSH) project must have the active involvement of local partners (Non State Actors  and/or local government) in project identification, selection of activities & implementation.
In addition, those WSH projects which include capacity development of local people, NSAs or government staff aimed at enhancing ownership and project sustainability are encouraged.

Sectors or themes
The specific theme is:
Improved safe drinking water supply and improved basic sanitation, and hygiene promotion, coupled with active involvement of local partners (NSAs and/or local government) in project identification, selection of activities and implementation.
Location

Actions must take place in ACP countries.
Type of action

Each action (project) must contain all of the following three activities:
i)  Construction/rehabilitation of improved safe drinking water supply
ii)  Construction/rehabilitation of improved basic sanitation facilities
iii)  Hygiene promotion
In exceptional cases, projects only on sanitation and accompanying hygiene promotion could be eligible if full access to improved drinking water sources in the target population already exists and can be demonstrated in the proposal.
With reference to activity (i) above, access to water supply services is defined as the availability of at least 20 litres per person per day from an "improved" source within 1 km of the user's dwelling. An improved drinking water source is defined as a safe drinking water source or delivery point that, by nature of its construction and design, is likely to protect the water source from outside contamination, in particular from faecal matter. Safe drinking water is water with microbial, chemical and physical characteristics that meet WHO guidelines or national standards on drinking water quality. The following Joint Monitoring Programme (WHO-UNICEF) classification is used to differentiate improved from unimproved drinking water sources:

The types of activity which may be financed as part of an action are:
- Construction/rehabilitation of improved safe drinking water supply & improved sanitation facilities and related activities such as awareness raising, community mobilization and social marketing
- Hygiene promotion programmes including Knowledge Attitude and Practices (KAP) type surveys of hygiene promotion interventions
- Capacity development activities for local people, NSAs and government staff directly related to enhancing local ownership and project sustainability e.g. training of local artisans to maintain water & sanitation infrastructure or training government staff in the mapping & monitoring of water resources in the geographical location of the project
- Monitoring of water quality, quantity and yield (of e.g. boreholes & wells)
- Protection/replenishment of local water resources
- Mapping & monitoring of local water resources (in particular groundwater), including analysis of data, and sharing of findings for the implementation of IWRM (Integrated Water Resource Management).