Maji Na Ufanisi - Water and Development

Maji Na Ufanisi (Water and Development) is a non-profit, membership-based, registered Kenyan Non- Governmental Organization (NGO). Since its inception in 1997, the organization has stood out as a key player in improving the lives of thousands of people every year by providing access to clean & safe water, Improving sanitation, hygiene, and waste management. Maji Na Ufanisi have over twenty-seven (27) years of experience in scaling up a wide range of WASH technologies and implementing Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene interventions in Kenya's urban, rural, and ASAL areas. The organization’s interventions capitalize on WASH as an entry point in addressing fundamental human rights issues such as access to good health, clean water, sanitation, while creating community's resilience to climate change as well as improving their livelihoods. Maji Na Ufanisi targets marginalized communities as beneficiaries of our water, environment, sanitation, hygiene interventions, as well as climate change projects that build community resilience. Our WASH interventions have a direct impact on the environment and climate change among other thematic areas. MnU driving vision is' Water for All' in tandem with the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our vision motivates us to work hard to have a population with easy access to dignified living. This means the availability of good sanitation services, safe and accessible water as well as living in secure environments. These are fundamental rights that should be available to all. MnU's mission is to "Be the leader in the Water Sector, influencing policy, building knowledge, and articulating best practices for sustainable water resource development and management in Kenya'. Our mission is why MnU exists, to be an active and leading player in water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) activities, particularly for the disadvantaged population across the Country. MnU is committed to addressing the bottom-of-the-pyramid water, sanitation and hygiene, climate change and resilience, livelihoods issues while making sure we are leaving no one behind (LNOB) by targeting women, children, youth, persons with disabilities, minorities and other vulnerable groups. The organization’s advocacy works focuses on crosscutting themes in water governance, natural resource management, gender, and influencing policies inclined to WASH-related issues. MnU is also alive towards global goals and trends on human rights. MnU is a trusted partner of many communities, National and County governments, development agencies, and the private sector. We are uniquely placed as a knowledge broker with membership-based cities that enable us to capture and share knowledge in relevant ways for our diverse audiences. We are influential at the national and county level where we work and globally are considered a "go-to" agency by those seeking to improve lives for men and women living in or vulnerable to poverty. Background MnU (Water and Development) is a membership-based, registered Kenyan Non- Governmental Organization (NGO). The establishment of MnU in 1997 was occasioned by the need to continue the WASH initiatives Water Aid UK was implementing in the Kenya. Water Aid UK (https://www.wateraid.org/uk/our-history) is a Non-Governmental organization which was working in Kenya working to implement WASH activities across the Country. However, it closed its operations in 1997 and exited the Country for strategic reasons. Consequently, MNU was henceforth born to Step up engagements as an independent membership-based registered organization. By so doing, it assumed all the activities and responsibilities from water aid; it, therefore, benefitted from the already established networks, the high technical skills, and the vast experience. MnU has continued to excel in various programs since it took over. We are doing all it takes to reach out to the most disadvantaged population in Kenya to improve safe water access, tackle sanitation and climate change, and better handling of waste management, both liquid, and solid waste. The ripple effect of the interventions is the reduction of disaster risks. MnU's supreme governing body is the Membership which consists of professionals across the key sectors that are logically linked with MnU's core programs, i.e., the provision of sustainable Water, Sanitation, Hygiene solutions, and Climate change. It is from this Membership that the directors of the MnU board are elected. Below the MnU board is the MnU management, led by the Executive Director, and two senior managers in charge of Programmes and Finance & Administration, respectively. MnU has two offices: The Head Office in Nairobi and MnU Sub–Office in Mombasa City. How do we add Value? Kenya remains one of the countries that continue to have water scarcity as an immediate challenge to the growing population due to its low water supply of renewable water. Expanded demand for safe water and sanitation, waste management, and climate change are among the issues that the organization seeks to intervene in. The challenges stem from the current population explosion, drought, increased pollution of fresh water, negative climate change impacts coupled with overuse / depletion of precious natural resources that help recharge rivers and others water aquifers. MnU has been a front-runner in trying to assist the government in achieving the 2030 goal and being in line with the Kenyan water Act 2016, which states that every person in Kenya has the right to clean and safe water in adequate quantities and to reasonable standards of sanitation. MnU Key Achievements Over the years, MnU has gained extensive experience in community organization and building social capital, which is crucial for the successful implementation and sustainability of community-managed WASH initiatives. Recently, MnU has expanded its focus beyond WASH service provision to become a key player in climate change programs, WASH governance, and advocacy in Kenya. This is achieved through its engagement with Kenya Water and Sanitation Civil Society Network (KEWASNET) (https://kewasnet.co.ke/), National Environment Civil Society Alliance of Kenya (NECSA-K, http://necsakenya.org/), and other like-minded networks. Over the last 26 years, MnU's interventions have been in three broad categories, namely • Capacity building of Community-Based Organizations - CBOs - which support poor urban and slum and rural communities and aim at promoting and securing poor people's rights and access to water, improved sanitation, and hygiene education. The declaration of rights to these crucial services by the Constitution of Kenya has primarily occasioned this. • Enabling urban poor slum dwellers and disadvantaged rural communities to access clean and affordable water, improved sanitation, and hygiene education; • Rehabilitating water and sanitation and providing hygiene education in public primary schools, which have high numbers of students from nearby urban and rural settlements. A nutshell observation of some of the programs that the organization has achieved over time include: • A program in Mombasa county, Scaling Up the Youth Managed Business WASH model in Mombasa County (WASHEM) where 10,000 people directly benefited from the program, and 40 youths got direct formal jobs. • Strengthening citizens' influence on WASH in the newly devolved governance system in Mombasa and Taita Taveta counties in Kenya, with more than 3500 beneficiaries as direct beneficiaries. The program's core purpose and mandate of the charter were to promulgate and formulate means and measures designed to achieve equal opportunities through affirmative action that is necessary for persons with disabilities. • Coordination of actors, Service delivery, and; Policy impact, which was done in partnership with the Civil Society Urban Development Programme (CSUDP), resulted in 900 civil society organizations for advocacy being created. • Bangladesh water and sanitation benefited 25000 people by constructing Watsan facilities in seven informal settlements in Mombasa. Through the program, a CBO was formed, registered, and helped to run the project for sustainability purposes. Organizational Capacity MnU's successful implementation of WASH projects in Kenya has been possible due to the organization's highly qualified and experienced staff in project design, implementation, financial management, project monitoring, and evaluation. Another critical factor is the robust collaboration MnU has developed with poor and marginalized urban and rural communities, civil society at large, government service delivery and regulatory agencies, the private sector, and funding agencies. MnU's successful project track record has given the organization an in-depth understanding of the water and sanitation sector in Kenya, which is demonstrated by the frequent invitations of MnU to join National and County governments in discussing, developing, and implementing water sector plans, strategies and policies. MnU is also a member of several water and sanitation networks, e.g., KEWASNET, the national umbrella organization for civil society organizations in the WASH sector in Kenya. The cooperative relationships Over the last 15 years, MnU's major donors have been the Embassy of Sweden (SIDA) and Danish People's Aid (DPA). In addition, MnU has also received funding from a variety of international, national, public, and private organizations and institutions, e.g. Department for International Development (DfID), the Netherlands Development Organization (SNV), United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UN-HABITAT), Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), Rotary Club of Denver Southeast, Ford Foundation, Christian Aid (CA), CORDAID, The Coca Cola Foundation. One of the recent projects that MnU has recently been involved in was the Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme, a joint GOK-UN-Habitat project which had a budget of US $1.5 million. Also, for the last ten years, the Embassy of Sweden has funded the MnU WASH program and Civil Society Urban Development Programme (hosted at MnU) with a combined total budget of US$60 million. Current strategy and its prospects MnU's WASH & natural resource management strategy builds on the notion that all people are legally entitled to have adequate water supply, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) supplied by the government per international human rights. MnU's strategy emphasizes the need to encourage and persuade national and county governments to continue providing adequate access to WASH for its people, fulfill their duty bearers, and be responsible and accountable to their people. MnU is rolling out its post-Covid-19 pandemic 5-year (2023-2028) roadmap to ensure that the organization will continue operating optimally and remain critical a leader in the Kenya WASH sector. The main focus will be on the following four significant areas; - • Institutional strengthening and development – ensuring an effective and credible platform, networks, and partnerships between government, civil society, funding partners, and citizens. This will enable MnU and like-minded stakeholders to continue positively contributing to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development goals, which aims to ensure that all people in all countries benefit from socio-economic development and to achieve the full realization of their human rights. • Organizational Strengthening - ensuring MnU maintains efficient internal mechanisms, strategies, procedures, and capacities to deliver on its mission and mandate • Addressing effects of climate change - To further the organization’s agenda of addressing negative impacts of climate change, MnU will continue to rolling out programs aimed at tackling climate change and therefore ensuring food security. Globally climate has become one of the most pressing issues in human life. 80- 90% of natural calamities is as a result of climate change resulting to bad weather conditions such as drought, floods, and storms. A recent study done by WHO (World Health Organization) indicates that a staggering 4.1 million Kenyans are facing food insecurities and water scarcity, especially in ASAL areas. MnU, therefore, intends to be one of the forefront actors that are willing to offer immediate interventions in trying to alleviate the social and economic impacts that climate change has had in the country. Climate change in all spheres should be treated as a life-threatening issue that requires everybody to participate in changing the narrative. This is the reason why MnU intends to use schools as its base of community sensitization, the key pillar for effective awareness creation. schools are the epicenters from which communities can be effectively reached through easy and effective climate education. The organization will also train communities on how to adopt innovative ways of doing agriculture in the face of harsh climatic conditions. Food security and climate programs go hand in hand with water and sanitation programs which MnU will continue to support. • Research and policy advocacy - wishes to continue promoting and securing poor people's rights and access to safe water, improved sanitation, and hygiene education through capacity building and policy advocacy. Through ensuring public participation while working together with duty bearers and the private sector actors, MnU will build capacities of community-based organizations who in turn will empower and enable communities to influence relevant planning and policy processes and demand quality services. Theory of Change MnU's Philosophy and Approach are based on the knowledge that, ultimately, actual development is in people and their ability to take increasing control over the resources and decisions that directly affect their lives. This means that direct community participation is ideal for positive social change. MnU will use its growing body of knowledge on what works on the ground to influence decision-making and accelerate implementation by creating the capacity of local institutions to franchise practical and applicable implementation models while redressing social imbalance through its gender mainstreaming and social inclusion programs. The four-track process will facilitate the achievement of water, sanitation, and hygiene-related national development targets more effectively than working independently and mitigate the risk of poorer outcomes through systemic evaluation and monitoring programs that improve subsequent implementation. 1. Evidence-Based Policy advocacy- in densely populated informal settlements and peri-urban areas, problematic market WASH infrastructure, MnU will hold on to its existing successful initiatives in Mombasa and Nairobi as the proof-of-concept to drive policy direction towards supporting and enabling this kind of initiatives at national and county levels. For ASAL areas and rural livelihoods, the success, and lessons from the previous programs' successes in Kenyan ASAL regions will serve to demonstrate how building the capacity of Community-Based Organizations to promote sustainable approaches and inform policy and practice for both national institutions and County Governments 2. Creating capacity of Community-Based Organizations to replicate, scale up and accelerate uptake and implementation of financially sustainable and efficiently managed urban WASH and ASAL social enterprise models that account for climate variability and provide for adaptation to promote resilience approaches. MnU will have pilot projects in crucial implementation areas that will serve as direct learning and reference models for CBOs that are active in the particular counties. This will ensure that implementation is undertaken by an increasing number of local organizations, strengthening both the capacity of local implementation and they are ensuring that as MnU exits particular projects, adequate knowledge of the complex (infrastructure) and soft (management) systems is in place. The local private sector will be essential in creating the value chain on which CBOs, youth, and other entrepreneurs depend to implement their activities successfully. 3. Gender mainstreaming and Social Inclusion through the engagement of MnU has previously hosted Women & Youth Leadership Centre to promote the capacity of women leaders at the political and technical management in national and county government institutions and entrepreneurial youth to evaluate and inform program and budgetary development processes. MnU has already achieved significant success in Mombasa and Nairobi in creating youth enterprises that profitably manage WASH despite the meager service charges aimed at creating affordable access to the poor, which will serve as models for similar initiatives in other counties. 4. Circular Economy – MnU will explore the impacts of municipal waste on communities as an opportunity to capture Value in the developing circular economy in poor urban, rural and peri-urban neighborhoods. MnU will utilize innovative approaches to develop appropriate business models for investing communities in solid waste management systems that will increase the economic empowerment of youth and women groups involved in waste management. The organization will, in the process, support solid waste management streams and logistics to WASH service providers (WSPs) in respective counties. MnU monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) Maji Na Ufanisi (MnU) ensures monitoring evaluation and learning (MEL) is an integral part of project design and is strategically positioned for monitoring the performance of the programs and reporting on progress towards their results. It includes the program’s development hypothesis and results framework with critical assumptions, illustrative interventions, a set of well-defined performance indicators that includes baseline and expected values for each program year, a description of data collection and analysis methods, an evaluation plan, a knowledge management and learning plan. The process of developing and implementing our evidence-based strategy, including analysis of options, engagement of stakeholders from three main groups; government, community, and private sector and other civil society actors. This guarantees that linkages and dynamics exists within the functions of a WASH, results encompass sustainable outcomes that are aligned with country strategic plans and donor specific education and WASH-specific priorities. The process also lays emphasis on monitoring system performance and evaluating outcomes. The MnU’s theory of change is an evidence-based and problem-solving logic framework that is constantly reviewed to identify any gaps in logic and learn whether the assumptions made are holding true, or if certain aspects of the implementation are contributing more to an objective than others, or if changes in context are impacting implementation. MnU and through sharing of its knowledge and experiences, assists sector stakeholders to make decisions and implement programs according to the latest evidence and best practices by ensuring that knowledge is shared locally, regionally and globally.