The political crisis and insecurity existing in Mali since 2012 has had a negative impact on the country’s water and sanitation sector. Normative frameworks are non-existent or unknown, polices and laws are not enforced, water quality is hardly monitored and budget commitments are unclear. The lack of knowledge about the human rights to water and sanitation has led to poor accountability, and civil society organisations (CSOs) lack capacity to advocate and lobby for better services. Within the above context, the Watershed empowering citizens Mali country programme focuses on two main issues: (1) water quality and waste management and (2) universal access to sustainable water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. So far the programme has been able to enhance the capacities, credibility and audience of water and sanitation CSOs, including the Alliance Citoyenne Pour l’Eau et l’Assainissement (ACEA-Mali). A multi-stakeholder forum has been established and coalitions of CSOs, local government and media have been strengthened, which can mobilise stakeholders, including Parliament. Because there enough water and faecal sludge disposal is not seen as a problem in rural areas, there is little incentive to integrate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and water resources management (WRM). Watershed is trying to stimulate integration by developing a handbook and guideline in combination with collaboration with CSO networks and donor-funded programmes. Issues emerging from the Watershed Mali programme include how CSOs can influence decision makers to increase national WASH budget allocations infragile states, how to harmonise the institutional and legal frameworks of the WASH and WRM sectors, how to encourage innovation. A joint presentation by Afou Chantal Bengaly (Wetlands International) and Ele Jan Saaf (SaafConsult) at the WASH Debate "Sustainable WASH service delivery and local WRM in fragile states: how far can you get?", in The Hague, the Netherlands on 20 November 2019.

1. Watershed Mali – Strengthening civil
society for sustainable WASH-IWRM in
Mali
Prepared by
Afou Chantal Bengaly
Ele Jan Saaf
Watershed program
Wetlands International-Mali

2. Empowering citizens!!!!
Let’s reflect about
Water and Sanitation
in Mali
We do
have rights
to water
and
sanitation,
isn’t it???
Yes, of
course we
do
have…….
Okay!!! So
let’s build our
capacity to
undersdand
them well and
advocate for
it… Well
said!!!!

3. State of Play
Since 2012 Mali has been in a state of political crisis and
insecurity that led to profound negative impacts on :
• Weakening more the water and sanitation situation,
• weakening institutions
• reduction of resources allocated to the water and sanitation
sector,
• Infrastructure deterioration,
• Difficulties to implementing projects have caused a
tangible reduction in rates of access to water and sanitation
in the conflict regions.

4. Why Watershed program in Mali?
1) Water quality, waste management and the related institutional
weakness;
• Normative frameworks to guarantee water quality are non‐existent
or unknown to organisations and civil society
• Policies and laws that help to coordinate the management of solid
and liquid waste and help to protect water quality in water bodies are
not enforced
• Water quality is hardly monitored regularly and systematically
• Budgets commitments from the government towards adequate waste
management and better protection of water quality are unclear.

5. Why Watershed program in Mali?
2) Universal access to sustainable WASH services and related
governance issues..
Insufficient investments in WASH facilities due to limited
public resources and non‐transparent budget spending
• Lack of knowledge of human rights to water and
sanitation and related obligations for parties involved
leading to poor accountability of authorities and operators
and limited demands or complaints from citizens
• Poor capacities, skills, abilities and means of CSOs to
properly advocate for strategic issues related to WASH
services.

6. Some key achievements
• Credibility and audience of the Water & Sanitation civil
society organizations with the authorities
• Emergence of a citizen dynamic for the defense and
promotion of the Water & Sanitation sector: ACEA-Mali
• Creating space for exchange and sharing of experiences
between municipalities (multi-stakeholder forum)
• Strengthened, functional coalitions capable of mobilizing
stakeholders, including Parliament
• Initiation of civic sanitation day

7. Our approach
• Capacity building of civil society, local government,
media
• Production of evidences in the form of studies,
analysis notes, video documentaries, policy briefs..
• Lobbying- advocacy through dialogues, face-to-face
meeting, round table, multi-stakeholder forum, policy
influencing (Water, Sanitation, Water Code, etc.) field
visits, newspaper articles, radio broadcasts, visibility on
national TV, creating pressure groups for advocacy,

8. Challenges of integrating WRM and
WASH in Mali
• Institutional disconnect at commune level;
• Water availability in Mali is not really a
concern, hence attention to ecosystem
impacts as a consequence of WASH
projects is limited;
• Disposal of faecal sludge is mainly a
problem for water resources in urban and
peri-urban areas.
8

9. Specific approaches for Lobby and
Advocacy on WRM&WASH in rural areas in
Mali
• Development of handbook and guidelines to
address the integration WRM and WASH at
rural level, incl. illustrations and guiding
questions – to be provided in local languages
as well as French.
• Close cooperation with networks of CSOs
such as CN-CIEPA/WASH (National
Coalition of the International Drinking Water
and Sanitation Campaign).
• Linkages with other programmes of e.g. EKN,
Swedish Funding, AFD, GiZ, etc.
9

10. 10
Reflections
• How can CSOs influence decision makers to increase national budget
allocation for water-sanitation works / infrastructures in accordance with
policies, programs and strategies in fragile state?
• There is a need to harmonize the institutional and legal framework of
the two sub-sectors in order to intensify collaboration within the
government and other stakeholders and to develop joint programming
strategies and evaluation of WASH proposals .
• The government should encourage the capitalization of technical and
scientific knowledge and sharing with other stakeholders in the water
sector in order to test other innovative hypotheses for the welfare of the
water resource.

11. Thank you
Twitter: #WatershedMali
Youtube:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg7PWVd4DZ0&t=21s
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUZY2m_aKWY&feature=youtu.be
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzmlz_QLuAE&feature=youtu.be
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8lHoeva_AA
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUZY2m_aKWY&feature=youtu.be