The United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office has approved $1,499,070 as funding for the Women for Water and Peace (W4WP) Project designed to scale up interventions under the Freetown Blue Peace Initiative.

The Freetown Blue Peace Financing Initiative was jointly launched by United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), the Freetown City Council (FCC), and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in December 2020. The vision of the initiative is to leverage innovative finance to construct reliable water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities (WASH) as an extension of delivering safe, affordable, sustainable water to the residents of Freetown. At the same time, the initiative demonstrates a successful model for financing sustainable water production and consumption in LDCs.

The project piloted an innovative approach to financing service delivery by building the capacity of Freetown’s local government to access needed resources for construction of infrastructure that would improve access to water in Sierra Leone. During the pilot intervention, UNCDF and FCC mobilized capital for constructing 40 water kiosks and 15 public toilets across the city of Freetown. These facilities would be managed sustainably with business models by private sector partners who would sell the water to communities for an affordable fee.

“Almost all of the limited water sources are managed by male members of the community. This presents a challenge for women who take responsibility for providing water in their households,” noted Madam Fatmata of Purposeful, a women’s right non-governmental organization working in local communities in Sierra Leone.

Assistant Superintendent of Police Samuel Saio Conteh, Deputy Head of Media for the Sierra Leone Police observed, “We receive considerable number of reports on conflicts relating to access to water and mostly involving women and girls as victims and we provide adequate response to protect them. But it is important for structural changes within communities to happen to minimise the frequency of incidences of conflict over access to water,”

In addition to the issues concerning environmental and human security, the lack of governance mechanisms and civic spaces where community members could dialogue and collectively devise alternative approaches to promote the community interests, especially of the female members of the community, presents a real challenge that could undermine current efforts at enhancing access to water resources.

During its 18 months implementation, W4WP will facilitate the construction of 25 additional water kiosks with solar-powered purification systems and empower women in 5 wards to run these facilities sustainably.

The project is implemented in partnership with International Labour Organization along with other local partners and will contribute to reducing the sources of water-related disputes, notably around water scarcity and access, through the promotion of gender-sensitive civic spaces and empower women economically through inclusive livelihoods and decent employment opportunities offered by the water kiosks.

In addition, the project will address the structural power dynamics that expose women to gender and sexual-based violence by putting women in positions where they can build economic capacity while also participating in civic spaces within communities to address the issues they experience.

“We are excited about the massive impact we would be creating through this implementation. Somehow, the Blue Peace Financing Initiative presents tremendous opportunities for LDCs,” expressed Alfred Akibo-Betts, Project Lead, Freetown Blue Peace Initiative.