Limited access to water and water sanitation are two of the core challenges Zambia currently faces. In Lusaka, the country’s capital, 70% of the population doesn’t have proper sanitation infrastructure, which has serious health and economic implications for communities and businesses.
In 2016-2017, CLI worked closely with GIZ’s International Water Stewardship Programme (IWaSP) and local Zambian leaders from across sectors to establish the Lusaka Water Security Initiative (LuWSI) and to work toward a vision of a water secure, healthy, and prosperous city. CLI supported the involved actors by building multi-stakeholder collaboration and dialogue capacity, co-designing the roles and responsibilities of key structures – such as the Steering Board, Technical Working Group, and Secretariat – and co-facilitating their initial meetings.
One capacity building, “Collective Leadership for Water Security: Strengthening water stewardship partnerships for achieving common goals” was organized in nearby Uganda for Zambian actors, plus those from 8 other IWaSP countries.
In cooperation with IWaSP Headquarters in Germany, CLI co-designed and integrated the Collective Leadership Compass into the Water Risk and Action Framework (WRAF), a guide for practitioners for forming and executing water stewardship partnerships. The framework supports individuals, teams and organizations to build vibrant and robust “collaboration ecosystems” that achieve water security goals in diverse contexts.
Members and non-members of the Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) were invited to take part in a Stakeholder Dialogues tailor-made course and undertook a detailed stakeholder analysis of the health sector of the Comoros. This helped identify some of the strengths and weaknesses of the different key players, led to intense discussions on roles and responsibilities, and greatly contributed to understanding the context. The tailor-made workshop enabled the group to develop a common understanding of what the CCM is, why it exists, and how each different stakeholder can contribute to its effective operation through proper engagement. This lead-up helped to create a space for dialogue on existing issues, to overcome misunderstandings, and to take joint steps in the fight against malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS.
Participants of this tailor-made Stakeholder Dialogues course comprised both GIZ staff in South Africa and their partners from the public sector, civil society, and community-based organisations who were trained to cooperate more effectively to promote the safety of particularly vulnerable population groups in disadvantaged communities. The participants identified a common vision for the GIZ violence Prevention and Safe Public Spaces programme and established the success factors for meaningful stakeholder engagement.
The purpose of the African Cashew Initiative (ACi) was to strengthen the global competitiveness of cashew production and processing in five pilot countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mozambique, and Côte d’Ivoire). CLI supported the multi-stakeholder initiative and provided stakeholder engagement strategies on various levels. CLI also assisted the contextual preparation and facilitated strategic stakeholder events that brought together actors from public and private sectors, as well as from international civil society organisations.
Small and medium sized enterprises are an important part of the Senegalese economy, yet current laws and government policies do not create an enabling environment for boosting the prosperity of many small businesses. CLI initiated an engagement process to address this situation by analysing the different viewpoints and including key actors that were previously left out. Eventually, a new sense of common ownership developed around the original aim of the initiative.