3rd World Water Forum: Session Report on "Sharing knowledge and building capacity"

Panelists:

• Pierre Marie Grondin, pS-Eau
• Denis Fourmeau, OIEau,
• Rory Villaluna, Streams of Knowledge
• Yaotree Amegnran, CREPA
• Ninon Machado, IPANEMA-GWA
• Lin McDevitt-Pugh, IIAV-GWA
• Amadou Hama Maïga, EIER
• Félix Adegnika, PDM

The theme of this session was the dissemination of information and knowledge on sustainable water and sanitation management in the developing world. Some wider aspects of water (IWRM, etc.) were also considered. This session was an opportunity for NGOs and research centres, mainly from Africa, but also from Asia, Latin America and Europe, to share their experiences.

This session emphasised the following points:

• Access to information and knowledge is essential for any water and sanitation stakeholders (NGOs, CBOs, local authorities, technicians, etc.) at national and local level, to achieve the objective Millennium Development Goals for better conditions for the poorest population in Africa;
• This information exists, but has not been fully identified by most of the stakeholders and, if identified, its access is difficult;
• The exchange of information between different countries is often limited;
• Internet can potentially be a good solution, but most of the stakeholders in Africa do not have access to it, and when they have access, the quality is often not sufficient for easy downloading

Means to move forward:

• Facilitating identification of the different sources of information, and their access, through Internet (Web portals) or other media;
• Building capacity for local and national resource centres so they will be able to:
• manageinformationand databases,
• be more attentive to the specific information needed by the local partners,
• collect information from different media,
• disseminate information with an appropriate media for local partners (paper)
• Diversifying the kind of media used to share information (Not only Internet, but also CD Rom, books, video, radio in local language, etc.) adapted to each target group;
• Developing electronic conferences for a global exchange and the development of networking, but with two conditions:
• these e-conferences must be done in the main different languages used;
• local relay must play a role to involve stakeholders who have no access to e-mai

• Organising local workshops or using traditional methods (theatre, etc.) to share information and knowledge.

GWA presentation (GWA e-conference group):

Ninon Machado presented the process of the three phases of e-conferences organised in 2002 by GWA, on gender mainstreaming in IWRM, in four languages. Ninon chaired the Portuguese speaking discussion from Brazil. For the whole process, more than 1000 participants took part in the discussion, and gave place to very interesting and complementary exchanges. During the second phase, dedicated to case study presentation, many experiences (showing successes and failures in gender mainstreaming) were collected, and recommendations have been elaborated.

Ninon then explained that the Portuguese e-conference made IPANEMA becoming the focal point on gender mainstreaming for the Portuguese speaking countries.

The e-conference mobilized a lot of people, but mainly people with access to email. Some relay were organised to inform also people without this access, but these were marginal.

The new challenge that the Knowledge Sharing Group from GWA has to take on is to develop new tools, able to touch grassroot level people.

Lin McDevitt-Pugh then presented the new Knowledge Sharing Group project of CD ROM, a Tool Box elaborated in this perspective. This CD Rom aims to develop capacities for the men and women at the community level, who suffer from drinking water and sanitation problems. This material (and his application) will help them to find better solution with other stakeholders concerned. The CD will contain different types of files (pictures, texts, movies, story-boards for theatre pieces, sound), which will be able to be used by NGOs, CBOs in their work with the communities.

A first English version will be draft and tested this year, and then adapted, regarding the languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese and other local languages) but also the cultural patterns (in term of gender and water) existing in each region of dissemination.