 George de Goetje van het embassie van Nederland en Benin, hij werkt met Communitiesanitation en Hygiene. Ik denk dat hij een beetje een experiment wil doen, dus ik laat George hier over de vloer zien en zien wat er gebeurt. Ik ben George de Goetje van het embassie van Nederland in Benin. Misschien kun je nu een beetje met jouw neighborhood gaan, want je hebt al zo lang te leren. Ik zou suggesten dat je een minuut van mijn tijd speelt met elkaar om te zeggen wat je het meest impressieve vraag hebt op het moment. Als we allemaal hier zitten, heb je al iets voorbereid in je hoofd. Go ahead, talk to your neighbor en talk to each other. What is the most impressive question that you have? Go ahead. Okay, good morning. It's 5 minutes to 12. My name is George de Goetje. I'm working at the Netherlands Embassy in Benin in West-Afrika, where I'm responsible for a water and sanitation program. It's a bilateral program that covers around 15 million euros a year. That program is a preparation for sectoral support. It means that we plan together and we check together, but then the whole implementation part is done by the Benin government itself. We have our contract or our convention, I should say, with the Ministry of Finance as the primary entry point. From there it goes down the chain of public finance. The thing that we do at the end is justification on the basis of efficiency and whether the expenditure was done legally. Even if it wasn't either of those, we don't pay for it. So it puts a large responsibility on the shoulders of the implementing governmental agencies. Apart from that, there's also two other activities that's happening, and that's also finance with Dutch money. They were programs that are organized through our Ministry in The Hague. One of them is support to UNICEF and the other one is support to the Global Sanitation Fund, which is done by the collaborative council on water supply and sanitation. One major thing that's happening in Benin is decentralization, which means that apart from developing the sector, which is drinking water, sanitation and water resources, urban and rural, there's also this change in who does it happening. What's the problem? Well, there's a few. One of them is there's a very large scale open defecation. There's roughly 77% on average in the country, which means that in the north you'll talk about over 90% open defecation. There's a lack of hygiene causing reinfection of already clean water. We did a study in recent years that was together with the Germans, where it was shown in Benin that even if the source was clean, at the moment of consumption still a very large percentage, up to 90% is reinfected. Another major problem is illiteracy. The heads of family in particular are not able to read and write. So that really limits your options when it comes to informing people and communicating. In the north, again, you talk about 90%. Even in the main urban centers, you talk about a considerable percentage of the heads of family who are not able to read or write. Another thing is that there is a major lack of capacity, both at central level and at the level of the municipalities to implement programs. It also means that there's not really a functioning governmental structure for changing behavior, which is what you're talking about and what is needed if you want to change the effectiveness of your drinking water and sanitation interventions. So what was the intervention logic that was embraced by the Benin government so far? One of them is change of behavior with help of CLTS, to be implemented by NGOs in particular. The other part of logic is households should create their own latrines, either financed or by using their creativity for using local material. There should be latrines provided to schools and public places. These places, NGOs and contractors are contracted and instructed by central and local governments. And the results, and that's I think where also the community health clubs might be interesting, should be led further by in particular local government. Dat was the intervention logic. Another element in there by the way is data. That is introducing a system that's called aquaflow. You might be aware of that. Interesting system for collecting information at local level. We think that it's particularly interesting because it allows local actors to create trusted information. We also think that the ones who generate primary information should have an interest there. One of the elements that could be introduced is a municipality to be eligible for funding if they have their information well organized. For instance through this aquaflow system. So what were the experiences? One of the experiences was that there was quite a bit of confusion about whether CLTS was working in Benin or not. Er had been some applications by some organizations who did it in an sort of improvised manner and didn't get any results. And what you then get is that people say well we've done that, it didn't work. And that causes a lot of problems in a small country like Benin. What happened in the last year is that we managed to push together all these different initiatives that I talked about. So the bilateral program, the intervention with the help of UNICEF. The upcoming intervention with the global sanitation fund. And we said put all that together and learn together. And maybe you don't have the capacity here in the country at the moment. But at least through this GSF experience that has already been ongoing for a while. And through what UNICEF has been doing over maybe about 10 years now. There should be in your network enough experience to bring that in and to share that with what is happening in Benin. People went on a study tour to Madagaskar. I think there is this week also a presentation of what Madagaskar has been achieving. People from Madagaskar came to Benin to train there. We organized a regional seminar about CLTS and its next stages. Where we got people from all around Africa. In fact, coming to Benin, which also had its effect on the professionals over there. We had a visit of Kamal Kar and two of his facilitators, who were French speaking because he is not. To show the thing there and to do some of this. Now I lost the word again. Triggering, thank you. The triggering of communities applying CLTS there. Like the thing I mentioned earlier, this study showing the reinfection of water in Benin. This was a very important thing. So showing that it works locally. Showing it on the spot that something is working was very important. We all know how things have been proven elsewhere. But the people that are in their office at the ministries usually don't have the exposure that we have been having. And they do not automatically believe what people are saying. So when this minister was telling you, do it now here. A very fantastic reaction, but it's not the usual reaction that you get. We had a problem with something that is in fact working elsewhere. Sometimes they do these ministers meet somebody who is in the same position in another country. And who helps them to convince them. Another experience is that since we said, okay, there is already this bilateral program. Put the other programs that are there under the same steering committee. In a ministry, I have my project and everybody has his own project. And they don't talk to each other because that's the way to sort of single out your own money. And therefore your own control for every interest. We said don't do that, put it all together. We wanted to work together and to have it all together. We pushed both UNICEF and the collaborative council to do that program under the same platform. And then what happened was that the ministry said we go even further. We want all the donors that are working in sanitation in rural areas to work together and to bring all those activities under the same umbrella. We were very happy with that. Another experience is that's now ongoing. It just started in fact the program of UNICEF. They gave six months contracts to implementing NGOs with a result criteria at the end. And if it's not achieved, there's no more continuation of their program. So there's a big pressure there on the implementing part for these implementing NGOs. I think that's something you can only do if you work with these type of structures. You won't get that with government agencies. And you do need to make a sort of going to scale change. That is the thing we think is essential at this moment. That you go from this 90% open defecation to a much smaller percentage and that people start to change their behavior at scale. So some conclusions. We think that our observation is that local proof is essential for really making the case and bringing change. We saw a major change after the report that I talked about on the reinfection of water after having a clean source and then at the moment consumption still finding 90% reinfected with fecal bacteria. We knew it, but it wasn't known in Benin. Showing it in Benin was an extremely important step in convincing government in taking action, especially when it comes to basic hygiene sanitation. The pushing for coordination by different funders can really lead to results. Very important. Capacity development is something that is needed throughout the chain. It is not just central government, it is not just local government, it is not just NGOs, it is also the financial sector and it's also the builders. Financial sector because microfinance is one of the elements that we think is necessary if you want to make it possible to build their own latrines at scale. Another one is that in the contract that we have with UNICEF there was a sustainability clause, which was I think very interesting. I saw how UNICEF in Benin was struggling with the Ministry of Health about having a sustained result for 10 years because that's what's in the contract between the Netherlands and UNICEF. They were really struggling and the Ministry engaged itself to assure that the continuation of the support of these communities is assured for that period of time. So they engage themselves. Whether it's going to work, we have to see. But you saw that this kind of sustainability clauses does have an effect and it increases the awareness at the Ministry level for what they're doing and that comes an end to the funding for interventions like these. And also I think the output-based one-time interventions as I said being implemented by NGOs can be a very effective way of bringing change to be complemented with governmental interventions. I think that's what I want to tell you now. Thank you very much, George.