They say time flies when you enjoy it! Well, that certainly counts for me. I just came back from a relaxing family holiday in Senegal and I’ve been trying to write a blog for ages now, but every time I had something else to do. A lot of activities have happened since I came back in March from my maternity leave. Already during my first working week, five Waternet colleagues came to SOMAGEP-SA for their first time. Social inclusion, pro-poor and organizational development were discussed between the Malian and Dutch teams. Afterwards I was busy with the yearly planning, finances, reporting, missions, meetings, etc. Aboubacar and I were also interviewed for the YEP Effect 5 (You are leaving this website) (page 8-9). Because the WaterWorX team is growing, I introduced the scrum method to get everyone back on track. 

Back on track, using the scrum method for planning.

End of April I enjoyed a wonderful holiday in Kenya, followed by a WaterWorX Regional Project Managers (RPM) meeting in Nairobi. The last 2 months I was preparing for the mid-term review in September. We organized a very successful Theory of Change workshop with the different WaterWorX teams and directors of SOMAGEP-SA. Furthermore, we organized several activities which you can read about below. Last month, we successfully closed the GeoWaQu project, of which you can read more in Aboubacar’s blog. We received the great news that SOMAGEP-SA is invited to present their experience with Aquarating at the Amsterdam International Water Week (AIWW), and we are looking forward to that! And a few weeks ago I shifted to a new office, alone, but luckily there is plenty of space for Koen, Hadi and group meetings.

RPMs at Nairobi

In the first week of May I represented our Water Operator Partnership (WOP) at the RPM meeting in Nairobi. About 15 (mostly Dutch) project managers implementing the WaterWorX program around the world came together to discuss the program and the mid-term review. It was a great opportunity to exchange ideas on how to implement certain parts of the program, discuss our struggles and our positive experiences as well. But it was especially great to get to know all those people living abroad and dealing with different water utilities. We also put some effort in getting to know each other during dinners, watching soccer and mountain biking through the park. I was invited to give two presentations on our WOP, on Aquarating and on social inclusion. It was a great experience and I felt very welcome, even though I was the only outsider from Waternet.

Exchanging experiences and best practices during the WaterWorX Regional Project Managers’ meeting

Organization & people

Organization & people is the name of the first work package of the WaterWorX program, the most important part for the first phase (till 2021). Over the last few months we have had several activities on this topic. Two leadership trainings were given by Janneke Ottens and Arnold Kuijpers. The topics they covered were strategic planning, organization culture, communication and effectiveness of the organization. Around 20 people in the higher management of SOMAGEP-SA attended the trainings. Besides that, two Waternet missions on the organization development plan were organized and SOMAGEP is working on a strategic plan. The activities of the social inclusion team were also plentiful. It started off this year at the International Women’s Day (8 March) with theater, dance, music, speeches and a quiz. Meanwhile, SOMAGEP-SA received 2 stars on the Mali Musow certification and received a list of recommendations to improve the status of women in its organization. And SOMAGEP-SA hosted AfWA’s (African Water Association) Masterclass on female leadership, which was a great success and attended by several other women from the WaterWorX program. This included a performance by Koen Maathuis on Malian National TV. 

Leadership training for higher management of SOMAGEP-SA

Pro-poor activities

As the main aim of the WaterWorX programme is to provide access to clean drinking water to 10 million people by 2030, a lot of effort is put in place to make this happen. Because already 100,000 subsidized connections are paid for by the Kabala project (the new water plant doubling the amount of water in Bamako and funded by 10 international banks), we help SOMAGEP-SA to implement them and reach out for the poor. Our first main activity was a workshop for almost 100 SOMAGEP-SA employees on 15 June 2019. They all worked at the 3 agencies that would start opening their doors for the subsidized connections that week. Because the connection requests are expected to increase from not even a dozen per day, to 100 per day, it was necessary to inform everyone on the procedure and reduce the number of mistakes. SOMAGEP SA had also designed a phone application that would improve the communication between the agencies and the technicians on the field. This app was developed to improve the communication between the communication department where the requests are made and the field workers, verifying if the customers have indeed the rights to a connections. The app was launched during the workshop. The responses of the participants were positive, and they were glad to finally have answers to all their questions.

The weekend after, we organized the so called ‘pro-poor campaign’ (You are leaving this website). A huge truck with music, flyers and the young water professionals (AJPEA) visited different locations at the low-income areas of Bamako. The purpose was to raise awareness on the great opportunity to get an own water tap within the premises for only 30 euros (normal costs are almost 250 euros per connection). Over 1000 flyers were distributed and plenty of questions were answered. In Mali this is not possible without loud music, some dancing and a lot of laughter. Several stops were made on invitation of the local chief. They arranged chairs and a shed and took place on the stage. They expressed the importance of water, public health and the great opportunity to get a subsidized connection. This was followed by some talks of the agencies and SOMAPEP-SA (asset owner). Then the theater team came on stage and started their great sketch. The campaign was not only about getting new connections, but also about the importance of paying the monthly bills, hygiene, keeping the tap clean etc. Afterwards a short quiz was done and winners received a SOMAGEP-SA t-shirts and caps. Then we waved goodbye while dancing and distributing candies to the kids. These were a very happy two-days of campaigning and we might do it again at the other side of the river in the near future.

The ‘pro-poor water connections’ campaign

Water Safety Plan

This year we made a flying start with the Water Safety Plan (WSP) work package. A WSP has a public health-based approach and looks at the risks and hazards in the water system (from source to tap). We kicked off with an IWA training of 2 SOMAGEP employees in Dakar in April. This was followed by discussions with Unicef and WHO that work together on implementing WSPs in Mali. But most important was the visit of Yvonne Nijdam, WSP expert at Waternet last June. The freshly formed team went with Yvonne to the WSP pilot Kita (150 km from Bamako) and visited the river intake (after a very adventurous bumpy 25 km ride), the production plant and looked into the distribution network. We also very much experienced the need of a WSP, because due to a powercut of around 1,5 hour, most of the city didn’t have tap water for almost 8 hours! Including our small guesthouse, and yes, water = life. After 2 days, we could luckily go back to Bamako and take our very needed showers again. We arranged a workshop together with Yvonne. About 20 people were present during the workshop where we worked in 3 different groups (intake, production, distribution) on the possible risks we assessed during the field trip. The groups also tried to come up with solutions on how to avoid risks. It was a real success! The first week of August IWA came to SOMAGEP-SA to train more people in using the IWA WSP tool. Now the WSP team is fully ready and they will use the coming months to write the WSP according the IWA’s 11 steps.

Clean up day 2.0

Last but not least, on Wednesday 10 July, we had organized the second edition of our clean- up day after last year’s great success. While last year the clean up day was driven by the fact that there was no other actforchange.africa program organized in Mali, and we wanted to put SOMAGEP and the WaterWorX on the agenda. This year on the other hand, the idea came from SOMAGEP-SA itself. The rain makes all the trash thrown in the open side road canals float on the streets and especially the football field around the corner of SOMAGEP looks like an open landfill. So, it was time to organize another clean up day. This turned out even better than last year’s. Over 200 people came to the main site: the football field at Djikoroni Para, just beside SOMAGEP’s main office. All 10 agencies and 5 water plants in Bamako did the same activity that day. There were so many people that we had run out of gloves and nose protection and we filled all the 780 bags with waste. The local mayor was so kind to provide us with a large container for our waste and there were plenty of journalists asking about the cleanup day and our partnership. The head of the board, together with SOMAGEP’s CEO opened the event. Next to many SOMAGEP employees and other organizations, the neighborhood also participated, especially the children from the area who worked without taking any rest. It was great to watch so many enthusiastic participants, but most of all it was great to see green grass again!

The second clean up day in Bamako was a great success!