Strengthening Inclusive and Climate-Resilient WASH Accountability in Zambia
The Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR) is active in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector through Strengthening Inclusive and Climate-Resilient WASH Accountability in Zambia, a partnership with WaterAid Zambia running across four districts in Southern and Western Provinces.
JCTR focuses on building the capacity of community members in advocacy and social accountability, equipping communities to monitor the water and sanitation services they already have, produce their own evidence on how those services are performing, and present that evidence, through dialogue, in front of the councils, water utilities and committees responsible for them. The Centre does not sink boreholes or build latrines. Public money has been allocated for WASH; the questions this work asks are whether it reaches communities and whether communities have the means and the confidence to demand that it does.
This is consistent with how JCTR has worked for more than four decades. The Centre has previously used the same approach on water, health and education services in Livingstone, Monze, Mongu, Kabwe, Ndola and Kasama, where multi-stakeholder dialogue between communities and duty bearers led to water supply being extended to townships that had never had it.
Zambia's WASH deficit is severe and falls hardest on those least able to absorb it. The 2024 Zambia Demographic and Health Survey records that around 32 per cent of households lack basic water access and 64 per cent lack basic sanitation. Among the poorest fifth of households, 60 per cent have no basic water service at all. The shortfall extends into public institutions: 21 per cent of schools lack basic water, 13 per cent of health facilities have no water service whatsoever, and only 31 per cent of the population has a handwashing facility with soap and water on the premises. Eleven per cent still practise open defecation.
Financing is the other half of the picture. WASH sits at roughly 1 per cent of the national budget against the 5 per cent benchmark set under the Eighth National Development Plan. Southern and Western Provinces carry the additional burden of recurring drought on already fragile water sources. But the gap communities feel most sharply is an informational one. People routinely do not know which WASH projects were approved for their ward, whether the money was released, or who is answerable when a borehole fails or a school latrine is never built. That is the gap this work addresses.
A toolkit built with communities, not for them. JCTR co-designed a WASH Social Accountability Toolkit with duty bearers and community representatives in Monze and Nkeyema, alongside a State of WASH assessment for each district. It carries three linked instruments: a Community Score Card for rating water points and school facilities, a CDF WASH Budget Tracker for following Constituency Development Fund money from allocation to delivery, and a Ward Development Committee prioritisation tool for turning identified needs into funded submissions to the council. It exists in print and digital form and is accompanied by a Training of Lead Trainers manual.
Training that cascades. In March 2026, Ward Development Committee members, community monitors and local journalists in Monze and Nkeyema completed the Training of Lead Trainers and returned to their communities responsible for passing the content on. Between late May and early June, a second round in Choma and Mazabuka reached 97 participants, 46 of them women, drawn from Ward Development Committees, CDF committees, councillors, health and education service providers, and local authority staff. Much of that training focused on how to get WASH onto the CDF agenda at ward level, which for many communities is the largest single pot of money realistically available for water and sanitation.
Communities monitoring on their own. Between 1st and 3rd July 2026, trained monitors deployed independently across all four districts for the first time, without JCTR staff directing the exercise. They scored 25 water points and involved 616 community members in the process. Digital tools on KoboToolbox and paper forms were used side by side; in Nkeyema, where the network could not support digital capture, the paper fallback carried the whole district. Choma covered 7 water points across Mubula, Simacheche and Sikalundu wards with 135 community participants. Monze covered 6 water points in Manungu ward with 80 participants. Mazabuka covered 6 water points in Mazabuka Central with 127 participants. Nkeyema covered 6 water points in Munkuye ward, paper-based, with 274 participants. In total, 25 water points were scored across four districts, with 616 community members taking part.
The findings then went back to the duty bearers. Community interface meetings were held in Monze and Nkeyema on 9th and 10th July, and in Choma and Mazabuka on 20th and 21st July. Community representatives, not JCTR, presented their own findings. On the other side of the table sat the Southern Water and Sanitation Company, the Western Water Supply and Sanitation Company, town councils, District Health Office representatives, Ward Development Committees and CDF committees. Duty bearers acknowledged the evidence and made documented commitments to follow up. Each session also walked communities through the Grievance Redress Mechanism, so that a water problem can be formally escalated and tracked rather than raised once and forgotten.
At the national level, on 3rd July, JCTR joined WaterAid Zambia, the NGO WASH Forum and the Local Government Association of Zambia to build an evidence-based WASH submission for the 2027 national budget. That afternoon, the same partners appeared on ZNBC television to discuss WASH, social sector performance and decentralisation ahead of the general election and the transition to the Ninth National Development Plan. Ward-level scorecard evidence and national budget advocacy are deliberately run as one argument rather than two. Linking WASH to civic participation, the Electoral Commission of Zambia facilitated voter education at each district forum ahead of the August 2026 general elections. The connection is not incidental. Monitoring a borehole and choosing a councillor rest on the same proposition: that public office carries obligations citizens are entitled to enforce.
The community evidence itself is revealing. Six indicators appear on the scorecards used in all four districts, which allows direct comparison. Scores run from 1, very poor, to 5, very good. On water available daily, Choma scored 4.86, Monze 3.33, Mazabuka 4.00 and Nkeyema 5.00. On source protected from contamination, Choma scored 3.86, Monze 3.83, Mazabuka 4.33 and Nkeyema 2.33. On access for persons with disabilities, Choma scored 2.14, Monze 4.00, Mazabuka 2.83 and Nkeyema 1.25. On safety for women and girls, Choma scored 4.17, Monze 4.17, Mazabuka 4.67 and Nkeyema 1.80. On water point committee functioning, Choma scored 3.71, Monze 3.80, Mazabuka 3.33 and Nkeyema 1.60. On duty bearers acting on complaints, Choma scored 3.67, Monze 3.83, Mazabuka 2.50 and Nkeyema 2.33.
Two patterns stand out. Daily water availability scores well almost everywhere, and that deserves to be said plainly. But the interface meetings added nuance the numbers alone missed: in Nkeyema, where availability scored a unanimous 5, communities explained that the solar-powered system in fact runs only twice a day for limited hours. The weaknesses are more consistent. Access for elderly people and persons with disabilities is poor in three of the four districts and severe in Nkeyema. Responsiveness to complaints is the weakest indicator in both Mazabuka and Nkeyema. In Nkeyema, five of six sites recorded no functioning water point committee at all, including the one serving a health facility, and safety for women and girls scored 1.80, among the lowest figures recorded anywhere in the project.
What has changed so far is measurable. Communities in four districts now hold their own documented evidence on the water points they depend on, generated without external facilitation. Duty bearers who had not previously been asked to answer to residents in a structured setting have done so on the record and have made commitments that can be tracked. Communities in Monze and Nkeyema are consolidating their grievances into formal submissions to their local authorities, moving from complaint to documented claim. Mazabuka Town Council has entered a structured conversation on developing a citizen engagement strategy with a dedicated grievance mechanism, following the models already operating in Monze, Choma and Nkeyema. The toolkit and trainer manual were distributed, and those trained are spreading the knowledge to their communities.
