Improve and Expand Water and Sanitation Services in Nigeria: The Water and Development Alliance (WADA) III project in Nigeria will improve and expand access to safe, affordable, sustainable and reliable water and sanitation services in Abia and Cross River States, Nigeria. WADA is a unique partnership between Coca-Cola and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) that addresses community water needs in developing countries around the world and is managed by the Global Environment and Technology Foundation (GETF)

Access to clean water and improved sanitation facilities is a daily challenge for many Nigerians. The program is designed to strengthen the capacity of local institutions; construct and rehabilitate WASH facilities; and promote hygiene education in schools, health centers and communities in Abia and Cross River states. Working with the Tulsi Chanrai Foundation (TCF), PfD will collaborate with government and private entities including the state Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA) and Local Government Areas (LGA) to: increase access to and utilization of improved water sources; improve sanitation; and promote appropriate hygiene education in rural communities, schools and health facilities within the selected communities.

PfD will collaborate with the State Governments of Abia and Cross River to improve and expand access to safe, affordable, sustainable and reliable water and sanitation services in rural communities. More specifically, through the WADA Project, PfD will:
• Establish (where not available) and/or strengthen the capacity of the community institutions including WASHCOMs and Environmental Health Clubs (EHC) in schools to drive the implementation of WASH services in their respective communities
• Train and mentor established community institutions – WASHCOMs, VLOMs, EHC, etc. – WASH facility maintenance/repairs and management of facilities/services to ensure sustainability of project interventions
• Rehabilitate and/or construct water and sanitation facilities, including boreholes, latrines, and hand-washing stations in schools and healthcare facilities in 20 rural communities each in Abia and Cross River states
• The project will directly benefit 80,000 men, women and children in the target rural communities: Of these 80,000 beneficiaries:
 56,000 will have improved water access (at the household level)
 440 economically empowered women
 80,000 will have improved sanitation access
 220 economically empowered youth

Capacity Building of Local Institutions on WASH: With a Program Cooperation Agreement (PCA) funding from UNICEF, the program is designed to strengthen the capacity of local institutions to drive community-centered WASH Service Delivery. The project specifically targets five Local Government Areas (LGA) in Bauchi State and two LGAs each in three other states – Delta, Edo and Ekiti. It is funded through UNICEF by 1) DFID-supported Sanitation, Hygiene and Water in Nigeria (SHAWN); and 2) EU-supported Niger Delta Support Program (NDSP) and Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Reform Program (WSSSRP). PfD’s role includes building capacity of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Committees (WASHCOM), WASHCOM Federations and other local institutions to implement and advance WASH activities in rural communities.

The project goal is to strengthen the capacity of local institutions for effective, accountable and sustainable delivery of community-driven WASH and other developments in Bauchi, Edo, Delta and Ekiti States. The specific objectives of the project are:
• To form and strengthen LGA WASHCOM Federations through their role in monitoring and mentoring of community WASHCOMs in the 11 project LGAs;
• To train and mentor 80 selected, active or functional WASHCOMs on expanded roles for community WASHCOMs;
• To support establishment and strengthening of LGA WASH Coordination Forum across 11 project LGAs;
• To generate knowledge management with the development of three case studies and three human interest stories in at least 3 states.

PfD works with the local government Department of Environment (in charge of water and sanitation) and community WASH committees (WASHCOM), focusing on strengthening the ability of communities to identify needs, plan and implement WASH projects. By engaging local leaders who are committed to their own development, PfD ensures the sustainability of the WASH project.

The project currently benefits 2,530 rural communities across the 5 states including formation of WASHCOMs. Also, 11 LGA Coordination Forums and 11 WASHCOM Federations been established and trained in all 11 project LGAs and are currently supporting WASH service delivery in rural communities within these LGAs.

As a part of the MARKETS II Project, PfD strengthened the capacity of 20 agricultural producer associations in financial, administrative and group dynamics in Nigeria’s Delta, Edo and Rivers states, enabling them to effectively manage donor funds, provide valuable services that will enable recipients to increase their productivity. PfD has been collaborating with the MARKETS program since its inception, especially in the development of the Nigerian Agricultural Enterprise Curriculum (NAEC), which PfD has integrated into many of the business development services trainings it has conducted over the years for agricultural entrepreneurs.

In January 2015, PfD signed an agreement with Chemonics to participate in its USAID-funded MARKETS II project to provide institutional capacity building to selected smallholder agricultural producers and processors in three states in Nigeria. The Organizational Capacity Assessment (OCA) Tool was adapted by PfD and endorsed by the technical staff of MARKETS II Project which was administered to each of the selected groups. The OCA Tool was designed specifically for the selected smallholder agricultural associations to diagnose the strength, weaknesses and opportunities available to and existing within these groups. The OCA Tool was designed to assess capacity of the associations in six key areas/sections – governance, human resource management, financial management, monitoring, evaluation and reporting, sustainability, public relations and partnership.

The first MARKETS activity was a highly successful program that fostered private sector-led agricultural productivity, advanced agriculture and trade policy reform, improved farmers’ access to new agricultural technologies, and strengthened both public and private institutions. MARKETS II extended the MARKETS model to improve the performance of Nigerian poor rural farmers or smallholders, their incomes and nutrition through proven private sector demand driven market interventions. The program focused on smallholder farmers who cultivate between 1 and 5 hectares of land, up to 80% of whom are women.

Initially, PfD set a target of $20,000 for the Fund’s endowment. In September 2014, it provided that $20,000 as a loan to Gerewa, a longtime local partner operating community development activities in Bauchi State in northeastern Nigeria. With this loan of $20,000, Gerewa has in turn issued 182 microloans to help fund small enterprises – often kiosks for small-scale trading – and for agricultural activities. Sixty three (63) percent of the loans have gone to women, with the loans averaging $110 each. The great majority of borrowers do not have access to conventional bank credit because the banks view them as either too risky to lend to and/or too expensive to monitor. Thus, their only options for credit are moneylenders whose interest rates are typically over 100% per annum. Gerewa, on the other hand, charges about 3-3.3% interest per month on the small loans and also help the borrowers with businessdevelopment skills. Thus, Gerewa will pay PfD approximately $4,000 in interest annually on the $20,000 loan. Separately, PfD is working with another long-time partner, Lift Above Poverty Organization (LAPO), located in southern Edo State. LAPO, amongst its many community development activities, has operated a scholarship program for many years. In September 2014, PfD provided LAPO with $3,125 to fund ten girls with scholarships ranging from $220-500 each; those covered around 40-50% of a girl’s total cost to attend secondary school for a year. The range in scholarship size is needed because costs will vary by location and type of school (public or private). Thus, the separate loan to Gerewa of $20,000 serves as in effect a scholarship endowment, with annual scholarship funds being generated through the loan’s interest. Given interest rates on the loan and with one scholarship and attendant monitoring costs averaging $400, PfD can then provide an additional scholarship every time the endowment grows by $2000 beyond its initial $20,000 ($400/$2000=20%).

At inception of the partnership in 2014/15 academic session, the PfD supported 10 secondary school girls with scholarships. This was increased to 15 scholarships in the 2015/16 school year and for this current year, 2016/17 academic session; Twenty-three girls from low-income earning households were supported by the Anne Johnson Memorial Scholarship Fund. These girls received between ₦28,000 to ₦80,000 for tuition and books.

In February 2012, PfD has partnered with John Snow Inc. (JSI) to implement the USAID-funded Targeted States High Impact Program (TSHIP) to reduce maternal and infant mortality in northern Nigeria. Together, PfD & JSI achieved this through capacity building exercises designed to:

1. Improve community engagement;
2. Improve the quality of local health care services; and
3. Improve health systems effectiveness.

JSI implements TSHIP in 43 local government areas across Bauchi and Sokoto States. PfD supervised the implementation of TSHIP across three areas in Bauchi State: Bauchi, Toro, and Tafewa Balewa. Nigeria has among the highest rates of maternal and child mortality in the world, and these predominantly rural states in northern Nigeria are among the most severely affected: in Bauchi State, under 5 child mortality remains at 260 deaths per 1,000 children, and the maternal mortality rate remains at a staggering 1,549 deaths per 100,000 births.
Partners for Development has improved community uptake of modern family planning, reproductive health, and MNCH services through a combination of capacity building exercises designed to improve the overall efficacy of local health systems in Bauchi, Toro, and Tafewa Balewa. These interventions, carried out with the consultation and full cooperation of local community leaders, included training-of-trainers activities; health education activities for health practitioners and community members on diverse topics such as children’s nutrition, family planning, prenatal care, and malaria prevention and treatment; and connecting community members to services through improving community-based health volunteers’ knowledge of the services available to families.

PfD surpassed the majority of its targets. In particular, PfD reached:

• 51,207 people through family planning counseling;
• 44,763 pregnant women who are receiving/have received IPT for malaria in prenatal care;
• 31,087 mothers & babies, who were assisted by TSHIP-trained skilled birth attendants.

The success stories PfD has collected from the HALE project illustrate the impact TSHIP’s health education programs have had on community health-seeking behaviors throughout conservative Bauchi and Sokoto States, reducing the number of women who give birth without skilled attendants, and dramatically increasing the number of women who access family planning and antenatal care services.

In partnership with the University of North Carolina, PfD performed a 27-month pilot study in Bauchi State – the Alive & Thriveprogram — aimed at integrating microfinance activities with health initiatives. In Nigeria, fewer than 15% of infants under six months old are exclusively breastfed. By using microfinance meetings as a platform to teach young and expectant mothers the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding – whose benefits greatly increase an infant’s chances of survival – these vital lessons began to catch on. Findings from this study were published in the Journal of Nutrition, describing the benefits of pairing communal programming with educational messaging to produce positive results in new and lactating mothers opting to exclusively breastfeed newborns in their first 6 months of life.

PfD has carried out a microcredit and reproductive health program in four states in Nigeria for the last decade. Building on this experience, from May 2011 through August 2013, PfD and UNC conducted a cluster-randomized controlled trial in Bauchi State to test the effectiveness of a multi-component behavior change strategy to improve breastfeeding practices among microcredit borrowers. The intervention consisted of seven breastfeeding learning sessions held during monthly microcredit meetings, 11 cell phone breastfeeding messages (sent weekly as both text and voice), and songs and dramas about the key messages created by the participants themselves and presented at monthly meetings. The leader of the group was asked to share the weekly behavior change messages with group members, and the group had to create one song or drama per month.

The authors of the study concluded that, over time, the gap between the number of women in the experimental group and the number of women in the control group who were exclusively breastfeeding their babies only widened: as the babies got older, more and more women in the control group switched them on to water and solid foods, while women receiving microcredit and behavior change messages were likely to continue breastfeeding. The researchers concluded that “there were significant differences in exclusive breastfeeding to 3 and 6 months by study arm, and that the difference between the arms widened during this period shows that the intervention was successful at keeping more women in the intervention arm on track when Nigerian women typically introduce other fluids and complementary food to their infants (Flax et al 2014).”

Partners for Development (PfD) began implementing the “Provision of Business Development Services (BDS) to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) in Kaduna state” in July 2008 with a grant of $130,000 for the first year of a three year project. The objective of the project was to enhance local to provide appropriate, effective and cost-effective business development services and support to over 1,000 micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Kaduna state. The small entrepreneurs who took part in PfD’s trainings in Kaduna were mainly engaged in poultry farming, grain marketing, dairy processing and petty trading. The business development trainings were facilitated using the Business Skills Development Curriculum for non-agricultural MSMEs and the Nigeria Agricultural Enterprise Curriculum for agriculture related MSMEs. In addition to impacting entrepreneurs in Kaduna through BDS training and microfinance, PfD used this opportunity to strengthen its local MFI partner’s capacity to provide trainings itself. Since then, the local microfinance lender has become an important local provider of business development knowledge; in turn, the MFI has found that those entrepreneurs who have received BDS training are more likely to pay back their loans on schedule.

Beginning in 2001, with support from the USDA and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, PfD leveraged microfinance to deliver a targeted behavior change campaign. This program provided microloans to over 90,000 women, addressing critical issues such as family planning, birth spacing, mater¬nity care, newborn care & feeding, and post-partum care. PfD engages with com¬munity leaders and key influential groups to help perpetuate the program’s core messages on reproductive health and practices, shifting the responsibility to the entire community rather than allowing the responsibility to continue to rest solely on the women residing within these communities.

In April 2009, The David & Lucile Packard Foundation and Partners for Development (PfD) granted PfD a $1.5 million Program-Related Investment. PfD used this loan capital to implement microfinance activities in several Nigerian states through nine Nigerian microfinance institutions (MFI); they, in turn, distributed small loans to local individuals and groups to support agricultural and petty trading initiatives. This approach allowed PfD to remain lean while engaging qualified Nigerian organizations, utilizing their local knowledge and networks and enhancing their skills in loan and organizational management.
Separately in Nigeria and from 2001-2011, PfD had secured from the Foundation five different reproductive health grants. Thus, from the PRI’s inception in 2009 PfD integrated the two programs: it disseminated RH and family planning information to women of reproductive age through borrower groups. With the PRI capital, PfD:

• Oversaw the issue of over 77,000 small loans of about $300 average size, mainly to women (93%).
• Multiplied overall lending to end-borrowers by more than 15 times: total loan volume in the five year period was $23,409,123.
• Integrate microfinance and reproductive health and family planning programming into its other programs, such as Alive & Thrive, TSHIP, and EASE, reaching over 42,000 microloan beneficiaries with important health information.

The Packard Foundation’s support was integral in PfD’s ability to participate in research on breastfeeding promotion with UNC-Chapel Hill. A study completed in 2014 by UNC researchers in partnership with PfD concluded in The Journal of Nutrition that women receiving training in microfinance are nearly 50% more likely to exclusively breast feed at six months (64% of respondents) versus those mothers not involved in microfinance (43% of respondents).

In Nigeria, most rural families work in small-scale agriculture, either as a primary source of revenue or as a source of supple¬mental income, and they must face challenges of having limited access to credit, information, markets, and social services. With support from USAID, PfD’s “Expanded Access to Services for Agricultural Enterprise” (EASE) project has enabled local community-based organizations to provide loans, business skills training and targeted technical assistance to 11,000 farmers and processors of agricultural products. For this project, PfD provides guidance local partner organiza¬tions in how to strengthen targeted value chains by training these organizations on how to conduct workshops for value chain stakeholders. PfD builds capacity of its local partners so that they are able to provide business develop¬ment training and financial management services to farmers and other small business entrepreneurs.

PfD has a 12-year history working in Nigeria. Over this time, PfD has cultivated a strong network of partners. Implementing projects across this network—increasing the number and quality of services local organizations can offer through training-of-trainer programs and sustained engagement—both allows PfD to quickly scale-up its interventions and increases the sustainability of projects like EASE. Responding to the early success of EASE, in 2011, PfD won a $600,000 extension grant to expand services into Sokoto State in order to extend financial inclusion, business development skills (BDS), and agricultural skills to an additional 2,000 beneficiaries over 18 months (by the end of the program, EASE reached 2,413 individuals in Sokoto).

14 of the 15 local partner organizations PfD collaborated with in EASE’s implementation focus on the advancement of women and children’s well-being. PfD helped these organizations expand their services into microfinance, increasing the opportunities for financial inclusion for women in the conflict-affected, culturally conservative states in which EASE operated. Overall, 77% of EASE’s total 16,539 beneficiaries of BDS training were women. PfD’s technical trainings were so popular that more than twice the number of people expected sought tailored agricultural sector technical assistance; ultimately, 1,217 beneficiaries received training in crop production, diversification, processing, and storage, as well as training in organic farming and the careful use of agro-inputs, depending on their needs. In terms of microfinance success, 7,137 borrowers leveraged $1,319,438 worth of microfinance loan capital over the life of the project, as successful repayment allowed PfD’s partners to continuously relend their original funds.

With support from United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Partners for Development (PfD) implemented a 13-month program to increase the prevalence of HIV/AIDS prevention services for pregnant women, to prevent them to passing the virus on to their children in the womb. The project helped reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV in the Ughelli North area of Nigeria by improving the availability of, access to and use of quality of HIV testing and counseling services, the provision of antiretroviral drugs, and strengthening the state’s health system response to HIV by building the capacity of 26 health facilities in area.

Through this support and with leveraged funds from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), PfD renovated, upgraded and equipped (with modern automated equipment), the laboratory of Central Hospital Ughelli to be able to perform HIV diagnostic services; trained over 150 health care workers (doctors and nurses) to provide HIV/AIDS management services in these facilities; and worked with its partners to identify key weaknesses, and subsequently improve the way the hospitals acquired and handled sensitive testing equipment and life-saving medications. PfD also established referral linkages between the primary health facilities and the secondary facilities, as well as between skilled/traditional birth attendants and health facilities.

As a result of PfD’s UNICEF-funded interventions:

• 8,475 women received counseling and testing for HIV/AIDS
• 168 HIV+ pregnant women receiving complete course of ARV prophylaxis
• 168 women/HIV+ women received counseling and support to help them feed their infants and retain HIV- status in their children
• 157 children received ARV prophylaxis