The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council and WaterAid in West Africa are supporting the West Africa WASH Journalists Network.
Published on: 02/08/2011
In Africa today, limited access to information presents a major challenge to improving and sustaining service delivery of sanitation and water services for poor communities. Supported by active and dynamic civil society organisations, these communities are becoming actors in their own development and are asking for platforms to share their stories, voice their needs and ask their governments to stand up to their commitments. The partnership between people strongly affected in their everyday lives by the lack of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), the media and civil society organisations is critical to influencing policies at regional scale in West Africa, while strengthening citizen’s participation in the delivery of WASH services. In this way people’s voices can be amplified and the capacity of the media in turn can be strengthened by the relationships with civil society organisations.
To respond to this challenge, the West Africa WASH Journalists Network (WASH–JN) was formed in late 2010 with the objective to leverage the voices of the poor and influence policy change and accountability through the collective power of media in the region.
The West Africa WASH Journalists Network is a network of networks, comprising national WASH Media networks from 13 West African countries – Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. Its strategic objectives are:
The activities of the Network include the production of compelling reports on WASH focusing in particular on poor people’s perspectives in order to achieve increased attention from all citizens and decision-makers, capacity building of member journalists to ensure better quality of reporting, strategic partnership with WASH organisations for an enhanced quality of data collection and dialogue within the WASH sector.
The network, which is open for wider participation, encourages strategic use of media by sector organisations and is available and open for any collaboration involving documentation work, interviews, capacity building and linking with established regional, international and global media platforms. It is currently supported by the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (www.wsscc.org) and WaterAid in West Africa (www.wateraid.org) and is looking for more financial partners.
Newly elected members of the West Africa WASH Journalists Network’s Coordinating Mechanism François Koami Amegnignon from Togo and Celia Faconam Dede from Mali are discussing future activities. Accra, Ghana, April 2011. Photo: Tatiana Fedotova, WSSCC
Racine Kane, Senegal, Coordinator of the WASH-JN, roots_kane@yahoo.fr, +221 77559 93 58
Babatope Babalobi, Nigeria, General Secretary of the WASH-JN, babalobi@yahoo.com, +234 8035897435
Tatiana Fedotova, Communications Officer, WSSCC, tatiana.fedotova@wsscc.org, +41 22 560 81 77
Apollos Nwafor, Regional Advocacy and Policy Advisor, WaterAid in West Africa, apollosnwafor@wateraid.org, +233 302760440
Blog: http://www.wash-jn.net
Twitter: http://twitter.com/washjournalists
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/washjournalists
Mailing list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/washjournalists
Email: washjournalists@yahoo.com
