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WATER COOPERATION, SUSTAINABILITY AND POVERTY ERADICATIONThe current Ethiopian Prime Minister, Ato Hailemariam Desalegn, visiting his olduniversity in Tampere as Foreign Minister in 2012SanitationThe Global Dry Toilet Association of Finland, a professional NGO,was established in 2002. It promotes the use of dry toilets (DT) asa sanitation option through advocacy, research, surveys, seminarsand more. In addition to national activities, the association organizedfour international DT conferences between 2003 and 2012. Ithas also conducted several projects in the developing economiesof Zambia and Swaziland, as well as in Finland and other parts ofEurope. The association tries to raise awareness that water-bornesanitation is not the only option and that alternatives should beseriously considered, especially in areas where water is scarce or therisk of contaminating water bodies exists.EducationThe Finnish-African Water Alumni, consisting of over 100 waterexperts from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Namibia, Tanzania andZambia, is a substantial and unique network. The alumni havegained key positions, for instance in ministries, public institutions,water utilities, consulting engineering companies, privateconsultants, contracting companies, universities, other traininginstitutes, international agencies and even as leading politicians.The positive impact of education is best shown by the fact thatin 2012 a TUT alumnus, Hailemariam Desalegn, was appointedPrime Minister of Ethiopia. Since 2013 he has been the Chair ofthe African Union.Since the programme ended in 1992, North-South collaborationhas been maintained at some level and it will hopefully become moreactive in the future. The challenge of human resources developmentis the long time frame required by the activities. Interestingly, thecollaborating countries in the South seem to have a similar typeof generation gap in terms of professionals. Within the next fewyears many professionals will retire, making it necessary to educatea new generation as soon as possible. A positive development isImage: Virpi Andersinthat the Finnish Government has recently introducedsome programmes that will also promote North-Southcollaboration as part of the general policy of emphasizinginternational education and research.Domestic cooperation in the water sectorThe majority, if not all water sector actors have organizedthemselves under the Finnish Water Forumumbrella organization. 1 It has a mandate to both exportand develop, which makes it instrumental in bringingtogether sector actors and enabling them to cooperatesmoothly in the highly competitive water servicemarkets. The latest social forum for sector professionalsis on LinkedIn at ‘Finnish Water Professionals forDevelopment’ – a discussion forum allowing Finnishprofessionals to engage in professional dialogue fromthe mountains of Nepal to the rural town of Gilgel-Belesin Ethiopia. Horizontal learning and dialogue are stillkey in bridging knowledge gaps.Lessons learnedAllowing for some inaccuracy, the commonly citedresults of the Finnish-funded ODA show that some 6million people been served with safe water supply andmany more with improved sanitation. For example, theWorld Bank recently estimated that almost 700,000people in Amhara, Ethiopia were served with sanitationthrough the Finnish-funded WSP single donortrust fund.An evaluation of the Finnish-supported water sectorODA was carried out in 2010, covering activities from1995-2009. It presented the following key findings:• Finnish cooperation in the water sector contributesdirectly to improved living conditions for thetargeted beneficiaries• some inadequacies were observed, particularly inproject cycle management and the policy framework• in the visited countries, most of the Finnishprojects have proved remarkable successes• upscaling and replication of positive experiencesare also becoming major challenges: they shouldbe incorporated into the design of successiveproject phases.A more recent meta-evaluation compiling evaluationsfrom many sectors indicates that the water sector hasbeen quite successful and suggests that additionalresources should be allocated to the sector for futurecollaboration.Especially in water services, local political, economic,social, technological, environmental and legislativeconditions have to be taken into account. Yet we seemto have many common challenges. One of the mostdemanding ones is the question of ageing infrastructure,its renovation need and related costs. Another commoninterest is to improve services and conditions throughvarious types of reforms and development work. Thus,we have many lessons to learn and share. We are in thesame proverbial boat, so why not fish together?[ 244 ]