Releasing trapped knowledge : feedback on a decision support tool in WASH : paper prepared for the West Africa Regional Sanitation and Hygiene Symposium, 10-12 Nov 2009, Accra, Ghana

More communities need access to tools and support so they can make their own decisions about how to meet their water, sanitation, and hygiene needs. Currently, in most places, technical support providers have expertise in a limited range of solutions and approaches and are available to apply only those often-inappropriate approaches. Residents, communities, practitioners, and municipalities need a Community Choices Decision-Making Support Tool to help them select, adopt, and maintain the most suitable technologies, financing mechanisms, and management approaches based on their own unique preferences. A Decision-Making Support Tool is an accessible and flexible system that combines information on a user’s situation with information on available technologies and approaches, and then helps a practitioner select the best way to meet their needs. Such a resource will fill a key gap in the effort to meet long-term, global WASH goals. In the first phase of our work, we are conducting a learning effort in West Africa in partnership with the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and their partners UNICEF and WaterAid. At present our core objective is to initiate shared learning dialogues with West African local governments, practitioners, and NGOS on the needs, opportunities, and challenges of a Community Choices tool; begin to conceptualize a Decision-making support tool in the sector; and discuss the content, user interface, communication and dissemination for an ideal Community Choices Tool in the WASH sector in West Africa. (authors abstract)