Minutes of the 6th Informal DP Water Group Meeting

29.04.2005 – GTZ/KfW Conference Room

Participants: Ato Brown (World Bank), Pippa Bird (DFID), Dominick de Waal (WaterAid), Rebecca Budimu (UNICEF), Nat Paynter (WSP), Kaori Matsushita (JICA), Rie Kawahara (JICA Consultant), Kunio Fujiwara (JICA Consultant), Susanne Hesselbarth (KfW Consultant), Femke Griffioen (FAO), Sam Turay (African Development Bank), Petra Larsson (EU), Hanno Spitzer (German Embassy), Sam Agbo (UNICEF), Joerg Hartmann (KfW)

1. Self-Assessment of Group

The group discussed its development over the past 8 months since the first meeting in August 2004. It was generally seen as having contributed to a better exchange of information and good practices as well as alignment of donors behind a common agenda.

In order to become a stronger partner of the Government, and in order to contribute more systematically inputs from the water sector to macro policy debates (Mkukuta, JAS, budget support), the group feels it should, and is ready to become a regular Sector Working Group in the DPG context. This point will be raised by Germany in the next DPG meeting on May 2nd. Pippa Bird and Joerg Hartmann will present draft group ToR for the next water meeting to discuss, using other Working Groups’ experiences and keeping in mind the need for managing group members’ workloads.

2. Systematic dialogue mechanism with Ministry

In its new structure, the group should be better prepared to move dialogue with the Government to a new level. The draft letter to the Ministry of Water, calling for a structured format for dialogue was endorsed by members with some minor changes and will be sent out by KfW on behalf of the group. KfW will follow up concerning a meeting with the PS and call a pre-meeting of group members who will be available at the time to participate in the DP delegation. Experiences from other sectors and countries on an appropriate way to set up the future sector reviews etc. should be collected before the meeting. It is hoped that the delegation will be able to report on the first meeting with the PS during the next DP water meeting.

3. AOB

Water and Sanitation Program (WSP)

The WSP has completed its fact finding in Tanzania and will likely set up an office in DSM by September with Nat Paynter who currently works from Washington.

Rural Water Supply Mwanza / Mara Regions

Rie Kawahara reported on the recently started project preparation study financed by JICA. A discussion ensued as to the future relations between such area-based programs and the national rural water supply program, based on conditional district grants and possibly to be financed directly from the national budget. It was agreed to follow up on this issue, since it is a good example for the need to coordinate and harmonize approaches while different financing modalities coexist in the sector.

MDG Costing

Susanne Hesselbarth reported on a new attempt at identifying the costs of attaining the water MDGs in Tanzania, in cooperation between the UN Millenium Project, the German Development Institute (DIE) and KfW. The consultants will look at the technology mix, delivery mechanisms, local absorption capacities and constraints etc. in order to identify realistic scenarios that should be of practical use for the Government and DPs in the sector.

Next meeting

The next meeting was proposed to take place in approx six weeks (early June).