The project aims to establish and develop eight Water Expertise and Training (WET) Centers in Afghanistan, Haiti, Ethiopia, Zambia, Cameroon, Nepal, Cambodia and Laos that will provide leadership, training, technical consulting, education resources and networking services, catalyzing government agencies, NGOs and community groups to implement WASH initiatives that are affordable, simple and effective to improve maternal, newborn and child health of needed communities. Partner organizations include: Seeds of Hope International Partnership (Zambia), Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (Afghanistan), Church World Service (Cambodia), Ethiopian Kale Heywett Church (Ethiopia), Environment and Public Health Organization (Nepal), National Centre of Environmental Health and Water Supply (Laos) and Pure Water for the World (Haiti).
The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: (1) WET Center client organizations implement appropriate high quality water, sanitation and hygiene promotion projects, benefitting to mothers, newborns and children; and (2) 8 WET centres in Afghanistan, Haiti, Ethiopia, Zambia, Cameroon, Nepal, Cambodia and Laos are operating effectively and efficiently to deliver relevant and appropriate water, sanitation and hygiene training and consulting services to client organizations in a gender responsive manner.
Results achieved as of the end of the project (September 2015) include: (1) seven Water Expertise and Training (WET) centres were established in Afghanistan, Haiti, Ethiopia, Zambia, Nepal, Cambodia and Laos to provide training, technical consulting, educational resources and networking services to non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community groups and local government agencies; (2) 32,976 community members (11,957 women; 12,189 men; 4,578 girls; 4,252 boys) have increased water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) awareness; (3) 12,505 (5,577 women and 6,928 men) staff members from over 1,000 client organizations (local organizations, NGOs, United Nations agencies and government) were trained in areas such as: household water treatment and safe storage, low cost sanitation, rainwater harvesting, water quality testing, monitoring and evaluation and community health promotion; and (4) 531 WET centre staff were trained on the critical connection between WASH and maternal, neonatal and child health, gender equality and environmental health risk.
These results have contributed to 4,513,697 beneficiaries having better knowledge of and access to water and/or sanitation services.
