Soap distribution at school. ©HARP-F partner
The HARP Facility is the largest funding mechanism of humanitarian water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in Myanmar since 2016, with a current portfolio of £22.4 million directly reaching over 314,653 conflict-affected people in Kachin, Northern Shan, Rakhine, Chin and Yangon. As such, WaSH is HARP-F’s largest area of funding.
Partners, with HARP F support, have been able to maintain essential WASH activities throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and related access restrictions and during the military coup this year. by focusing on localised programme design and shifting to remote programming.
Following the coup in February 2021, HARP-F adapted its remaining grants to support those facing the greatest needs. These adaptations will ensure continued or additional support to 177,645 people.
Given the rapid progression of COVID-19 in Myanmar in the summer of 2021, we called on our partners, particularly those who were already rolling out COVID-19 related WaSH activities, to re-focus their COVID-19 support in response to this third wave of the pandemic. Read more
©HARP-F partner
A few things we have learned from our WaSH programmes in Myanmar...
As the only funding mechanism providing multi-year funding for WaSH in Myanmar, we have looked at what we can learn from this approach in Rakhine and Kachin/Northern Shan, and whether it can be adopted in other WaSH programmes in Myanmar, in other sectors, and in other countries. What we know so far:
314,653 conflicted- affected people accessed WaSH services
£22.4 million of grants for WaSH activities, including specific COVID-19 prevention
82% of all IDPs in camps in Rakhine receive essential WASH services, including throughout the COVID-19 pandemic
HARP-F partners
The OXFAM-SI programme reaches 82% of all IDPs in camps in Rakhine with essential WASH services. The programme favoured community-led processes and has been particularly vigilant during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure a principled humanitarian response throughout. Oxfam/SI have supported the creation of camp based committees and built the capacity of camp based staff so that they are almost autonomous and all basic repair and maintenance activities can run via camp based staff. Additional technical support by WASH advisors has been provided remotely via regular calls and exchange of photos of infrastructure etc. One of the aims for the programme this year is to trial even more localised approaches.
Many of the programme’s approaches to engage communities, increase their self-reliance and hand over the management of the WaSH infrastructure to them have been adopted as the standard for initiatives by WaSH humanitarian actors in Rakhine.
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One of HARP-F national partners is working with IDPs in the Kachin and Northern Shan states of Myanmar since April 2009 to support their safe and dignified return and resettlement. The project has been providing food, cash assistance and safe and equitable access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services to over 24,000 IDPs in 25 camps in Kachin and Northern Shan. But beyond this immediate relief, the project is incorporating strategies to reduce IDPs’ dependency on food aid and build their resilience – an approach that has proven particularly valuable during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Building on its work to promote community engagement and ownership of the response, our partner has reformed the camp food committees through 2020 to put them in charge of food distribution and started a similar process wit the camp WASH committees, strengthening their capacity to conduct hygiene awareness sessions and run the WASH maintenance activities. Read more
