FANSA News

Regional Inception Workshop on 'Rising for the Rights: Strengthening Civil Society Networks in South Asia to achieve SDG 6’

The Inception Workshop for the project "Rising for the Rights: Strengthening CSO Network in South Asia to achieve SDG 6" took place for 2 days in Hotel Crown Imperial, Rabi Bhawan, Kathmandu, Nepal from 7 - 8 February, 2023. The workshop kick-started a three-year initiative aimed at reaching the most vulnerable communities, ensuring their rights to equitable, adequate, affordable, and inclusive WASH services.

The two-day inception workshop was organized by FANSA Regional Secretariat. Day one was dedicated to the introduction of the project, opening remarks and sharing Detail Implementation Plan (DIP) of the member countries including the regional secretariat. Day two was devoted to learning and sharing on Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS) from BMGF partners, stories from the ground by community leaders' and group exercises on refinement of the result framework and DIP aligning with the result framework.

The inception workshop was formally inaugurated by all the FANSA Regional, National Conveners and BMGF representative by lighting the light in Sukunda and Panas. 54 participants from all the FANSA regional, country chapters' (except from Afghanistan), BMGF including their partners, and Lumanti Support Group for the Shelter were the attendants of this workshop.

Day one of the inception workshop was begun with an introduction, opening remarks, brief presentations on the project, plans and priorities along with fund flow mechanism. Following this, Country wise Detail Implementation Plan (DIP) were presented, covering brief introduction of FANSA chapters, their plans and priorities for coming three years to execute the project, project activities, summary on financial allocation, opportunities, way forwards, and other updates. Similarly, on the second day of the workshop, comprehensive learning and sharing presentations were delivered on CWIS by different BMGF partners. Through this exchange of learning on CWIS, participants developed a clarity on the concept, principles on CWIS and methodology for their preparation to execute the activities related CIWS. The community leaders from Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan expressed their perceptions, grievances and demands on the access of inclusive sanitation facilities. Furthermore, refinement of the Result Framework was done by dividing the participants into three groups, each group worked in the refinement of the draft result framework, and provided their feedbacks on some of its outcomes and outputs for its finalization. It was noted that result framework would be reviewed and updated by Regional Secretariat considering all the suggestions/feedbacks received from the group work.

Finally, the workshop was concluded with the next step with agreed action points to get them realized by end of Feb 2023 for refinement of result framework, DIPs and other associated actions. Overall, the inception workshop provided clarity to move forward in the implementation of the project to achieve what we collectively committed to the Foundation (BMGF). The workshop was successful to boost the spirits of all the FANSA country chapters to embark on the new journey, and to bring change in the lives of vulnerable communities within the Sout Asia Region.<