Commencement of UWASNET Regional Meetings

With support from its funding partners, UWASNET has started conducting regional meetings for its members and partners in the ten regions of West Nile, Lango & Acholi, Mid-Eastern, Karamoja, Teso, Busoga, Mid-Central, Central, South Western and Rwenzori.

These ten regions were originally aligned to the Ministry of Water and Environment’s decentralised Technical Support Units (TSU) structures to facilitate and ease coordination of UWASNET members operating all over the country and strengthen membership engagement.

To strengthen members’ engagement and coordination, UWASNET members are grouped as per the regions they operate in and are coordinated by a Regional Coordinator, a member organisation elected by the regional members.

As part of facilitating learning, sharing and networking among CSOs, district local governments, private sector, communities and other key stakeholders at regional level, regions are supposed to conduct quarterly regional meetings. The agenda of the regional meetings is informed by the member organisations, the Secretariat, the district local government and other tropical issues arising in the Water and Environment sector that needs members’ attention.

This year, UWASNET mobilised support from its key partners namely GIZ under the Civil Society in Uganda Support Programme (CUSP), USAID funded Uganda Sanitation and Health Activity (USHA) under the ‘Strengthening the coordination and amplification of CSOs’ voice to influence the Water and Sanitation subsector policy and practice’ programme, SIMAVI under the WASH SDG 6 Programme and Plan International under the WASH SDG 6 Programme to support ten regional meetings.  

The objectives of the regional meetings include;  

1. Train members on the WASH scorecard and its implementation
2. Facilitate members’ learning, sharing and networking and election of their respective Regional Coordinators and District Focal Points
3. Disseminate the Menstrual Hygiene Management guidelines, CLTS protocol & National Road map to accelerate basic sanitation and end open defecation
4. Facilitate the dissemination of the overarching WASH SBC brand, messages and materials developed under the “Living Freshi” brand.
5. To orient CSOs on Kobo tool to facilitate data collection for the annual CSO Performance Report

The following roadmap was developed to facilitate the implementation of the regional meetings

The following roadmap was developed to facilitate the implementation of the regional meetings

1. June 19^th – 26^th, 2022 – West Nile regional meeting in Arua City
2. July 4^th – 9^th, 2022 – Lango & Acholi regional meeting in Gulu City
3. July 11^th – 14^th, 2022 – Mid-Central regional meeting in Masaka City
4. July 18^th – 23^rd, 2022 – Mid Eastern regional meeting in Mbale City
5. July 26^th – 27^th, 2022 – Central regional meeting in Kampala City
6. July 28^th – 29^th, 2022 – Busoga regional meeting in Jinja City  
7. August 2^nd, 2022 – South Western regional meeting in Mbarara
8. August 4^th, 2022 – Rwenzori regional meeting in Kabarole City
9. August 9^th, 2022 – Teso regional meeting in Soroti City
10. August 11^th, 2022 – Karamoja regional meeting in Moroto City

The Secretariat will work hand in hand with the Regional Coordinators to mobilize members’ participation in the set regional meetings.