Culture, Cultural Heritage, Tourism, Architecture, Governance, Education and Training, Cultural development, Economic and social development, Communication, Monitoring and evaluation, Urban Plannning, Infrastructure Engineering
credits: DaiWebStudio

The global objective of this assignment is to contribute to access for Lesotho's people and productive sectors to safe, affordable, equitable, sustainable and reliable water and sanitation services, while maintaining diversity and productivity of catchment areas. The specific objectives of this assignment is to identify and formulate interventions for water supply, water resources and sanitation cooperation under the 11th EDF, contributing to effective and sustainable governance of the water sector at large, and sustainable, affordable, equitable and reliable water and sanitation services. The assignment provides an analysis of the context in the broader water sector in Lesotho (i.e. water supply, water resources, sanitation, hygiene awareness etc.), including the problem areas, public policies, its stakeholders and the current institutional capacity. This analysis provides the basis for an outline of design of interventions, including main activities, and how they will contribute to outputs and outcomes defined above, with indicators and realistic targets for measuring progress. Risks in the sector were identified and mitigation measures were proposed. The assignment included recommendations for most suitable financing and implementation modalities. The scoping study focused on the following: Policy and Institutional Framework  Check whether overarching policy environment in the water sector is up to date and whether further strengthening of the institutional framework is required;  Depending on former, advise on appropriate reforms in the water sector, and on necessary institutional capacity for efficient service delivery in water and sanitation;  Summarise incentives to encourage development of such supportive policy environment and institutional strengthening;  Outline the framework for a training plan for capacity building of relevant institutions and their stakeholders;  Comment on the institutional set up of catchment committees and their mandates;  Review with government resettlement policies in large infrastructural work with emphasis on improvement of living standards for affected communities. Access to Water Supply and Sanitation Services  Advice on sequencing of implementation of the Lesotho Lowlands Water Supply Scheme;  Advice on how best water supply for productive purposes can constitute stimulus to poverty reduction and food security and the development of the enterprise sector;  Advise on the potential social impact of sector reform (including tariff adjustments) and determine the most effective measures to include the poor in new water supply programmes and protect them against adverse adjustments;  Advice on incentive measures to accelerate to rate of connections to new sewerage networks and on expansion of urban sewerage network. Catchment Management  Review the institutional framework to improve coordination and accountability in the broader sector, including mechanism for inter-institutional coordination in Integrated Water Resource Management;  Advise the Government on the focus of the National Catchment Management Strategy (economic value of catchment areas, land use practices, potential for irrigation and energy generation etc.). Financing of new Interventions  Provide overview of possibilities for mobilising innovative financial instruments for water and sanitation infrastructure to industry, commercial centres, households in rural and urban areas;  Advice on how Government can become more supportive in encouraging public private partnerships. Gender and Water  Check the gender mainstreaming in the sector, including gender differentiated access to and use of water supply and sanitation services and gender sensitive indicators on relation with health.

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