Securing sustainable and inclusive-WASH in Timor-Leste

In Timor-Leste, a group of children enjoy clean and safe drinking water from a community tap point. (WaterAid Timor-Leste) 

Despite progress made in recent years in increasing access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in Timor-Leste, this has been especially challenging in many rural and remote areas. Disparities in WASH access and in the quality of WASH services between rural and urban communities, and for people from marginalised groups including women, people with disabilities and the poor, have meant that not everyone has benefited equally.

But over the past five years, the Water for Women project Beyond Inclusion: realising gender transformational change and sustainable wash systems with WaterAid has been working to improve this situation.

Supported by Australia, WaterAid has been partnering with the national government, communities, rights holder groups and municipal governments in Liquiçá and Manufahi, alongside local implementing partners, to transform WASH services and systems.

The project has directly benefitted more than 61,200 people, who now have improved access to WASH in their communities, including more than 30,120 women and girls and 70 people with disabilities. 

At the community level, gender dialogue modules facilitated alongside WASH delivery have helped to shift social norms that limit women’s participation in community decision-making and leadership in WASH. Gender dialogue modules facilitate discussions between women and men to build a shared understanding of the way things are done in relation to WASH, and how this can be changed to be fairer, encouraging participants to develop insight into the benefits for the whole community as a result of change that makes gender roles and relationships more equal.

“As a young woman, I want to increase the awareness and the capacity of the community to access WASH and to collect water. Women always think that “this is my job”. The development in WASH sector must integrate with gender equality and social inclusion, how to create the conditions that [make WASH accessible] for women, girls, and people with disabilities.”

- Ms Esmenia Laura, Director of Grupu Feto Foinsa’e Timor-Leste (GFFTL) and Chair of the National Platform for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (PN-BESITL).

Sanitation and hygiene promotion activities have also been facilitated at the household level to educate and encourage behaviours related to toilet usage, investment in sanitation, and to foster good hygiene practices like handwashing with soap. Households have also been supported to access the materials needed to build their own permanent toilets.

At municipal and national levels, the project has focused on strengthening sector functioning and coordination, with a strong gender equality, disability and social inclusion (GEDSI) focus. WaterAid’s Community Scorecard process has effectively enabled community members, including people from marginalised groups, to provide feedback on WASH issues and service expectations to decision-makers. Municipal governments have credited this process with raising the status of WASH across the districts.

“We worked collaboratively with other departments and with NGO partners to collect data and develop a strategic plan which now provides us a guideline for WASH action in the municipality,” explains Sr Domingos Soares, Director of Municipal Water, Sanitation and Environment Services (SMASA), Manufahi municipality.

The Beyond Inclusion project was one of 20 Water for Women WASH projects to be delivered by civil society organisation partners in 15 countries in Asia and the Pacific from 2018-2022. Over the course of this first phase of the Fund, Water for Women supported more than 3.4 million people with improved access to inclusive WASH.

Some project highlights include:

• supporting Liquiçá and Manufahi municipalities to achieve district-wide Open Defecation Free status
• supporting 24 sucos to achieve ‘area mos limas’ (ALMO) status, meaning they are ‘clean hands areas’ where every household has access to facilities for handwashing with soap
• supporting the development of Five-year Municipal WASH Strategic Plans by multi-disciplinary stakeholders, including rights holder organisations - governments have ownership of this process and for the first time, have allocated specific budgets for rural WASH O&M and achieving hygienic suco status
• strengthening GEDSI in WASH, with women’s rights groups and organisations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) actively involved in the PN-BESITL
• increasing participation of women in community decision-making and leadership roles and helping to shift the division of household labour between men and women to become more equal.

Building on this project, Water for Women is partnering with WaterAid and partners from 2023-2024 to deliver the project, 'Haforsa Ligasaun ba Igualidade, Resiliensia, Adaptasaun no Sustentabilidade ba BESI' (HALIRAS BESI). This project is using collaborative, inclusive and climate-resilient approaches to address the challenges of climate change and improve the operation and maintenance of rural WASH services in Manufahi and Liquiçá. It is also supporting actors from other municipalities to understand, adapt, and trial these approaches further.

An inclusive community is an essential building block of climate resilience. Socially inclusive and cohesive communities are naturally more resilient, including to shocks from a changing climate, and they are more likely to have effective and sustainable water and WASH services and systems. Climate change will escalate risks and exacerbate impacts, particularly on vulnerable populations – inclusive water and WASH are critical connectors for community resilience and the ability to adapt and respond to increasing climate hazards.