Capacity Development for Urban Water Senior Staff Members, Stakeholders and Influencers in Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA) in Ghana

Citation: Agbenyegah G.K. (2019) Capacity Development for Urban Water Senior Staff Members, Stakeholders and Influencers in Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and Sekondi – Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly ( STMA) in Ghana. Open Science Journal 5(4) Received: 14 June 2019 Accepted: 15 August 2019 Published: 25 November 2020 Copyright: © 2020 This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work Competing Interests: The author has declared that no competing interests exists. It is expected that adequate quantity and quality of service delivery is one of the preconditions that contributes to safe water and sanitation delivery. Yet the human resource gap in WATSAN sector is relatively unknown (S. Cavill & D. Saywell, 2009). This paper outlines a piece of research that was conducted to provide a reliable skill gap assessment and building solution in Ghana to national water utility provider staff members, stakeholders and influencers. The Purpose of the Research is to undertake Training Needs Analysis that will be followed up with Capacity Gap Assessment and Enhancement in urban water management and service delivery in Accra and SekondiTakoradi Metropolitan Assembly, Ghana. The research found significant relationship between staff, stakeholders and influences service quality delivery and customer satisfaction. Therefore, the study was followed up with staff, stakeholders and influencer’s capacity building initiatives and motivation techniques, communication skills, cost reduction strategies, assets maintenance, billing cycles, monitoring and evaluation as panacea to quality service delivery. Furthermore, the study recommended that the management, influencers and stakeholders should reexamine and reprogram the organization’s conceptual framework, vision, mission and operations such as their customer data base system to capture their customer’s profiles and needs so as to deliver customer focused services. Open Science Journal Research Article Open Science Journal – November 2020 2

It is expected that adequate quantity and quality of service delivery is one of the preconditions that contributes to safe water and sanitation delivery. Yet the human resource gap in WATSAN sector is relatively unknown (S. Cavill & D. Saywell, 2009). This paper outlines a piece of research that was conducted to provide a reliable skill gap assessment and building solution in Ghana to national water utility provider staff members, stakeholders and influencers. The Purpose of the Research is to undertake Training Needs Analysis that will be followed up with Capacity Gap Assessment and Enhancement in urban water management and service delivery in Accra and Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly, Ghana. The research found significant relationship between staff, stakeholders and influences service quality delivery and customer satisfaction. Therefore, the study was followed up with staff, stakeholders and influencer's capacity building initiatives and motivation techniques, communication skills, cost reduction strategies, assets maintenance, billing cycles, monitoring and evaluation as panacea to quality service delivery. Furthermore, the study recommended that the management, influencers and stakeholders should reexamine and reprogram the organization's conceptual framework, vision, mission and operations such as their customer data base system to capture their customer's profiles and needs so as to deliver customer focused services.

Introduction
The rapid rate of urbanization in Ghana has brought into focus the urgent need for planned action to manage water supply systems effectively. With increasing populations coupled with existing challenges inherent to conventional urban water distribution, it is becoming difficult to provide reliable water. In order to meet these challenges, there is the need for further capacity building in urban water distribution systems.
Furthermore, effective policies are key ingredients that facilitate access to water and environmental sanitation services. Weak appreciation of policies that seeks to address the needs of all segments of the population and provide for strategies and plans that target poor segments of urban areas hinders scaling up of services. The aforesaid challenges required adequate human capital development for the WATSAN sector in Ghana. These have long been recognized as priority issue.

Problem statement
The on-going water sector reforms in Ghana to promote good governance and improve sector performance have created huge capacity demands in urban centres and slums. Decentralization and devolution of roles/responsibilities from central to local government and other intermediate level bodies has created new administrative structures with new increased roles and responsibilities which require new capacities in terms of financial resource mobilization and management, negotiation and managerial skills, gender mainstreaming, knowledge sharing and development of methodologies and tools. The main purpose of these efforts is to ensure the achievement of target for Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and hygienic sanitation. Capacity building support is required to ensure efficiency and efficacy of these new institutions. The challenge here is to achieve the required balance between investments on water and sanitation infrastructure and capacity building initiative that is conducive for policy and regulatory frameworks and multi-stakeholder partnership building at all levels. A combination of poor planning and design, inefficient operations and inadequate maintenance means that the services that do exist are often of poor quality. Local sanitation problems are often solved at the expense of the wider environment as discharged untreated wastes pollute ground water and surface waters bodies. Compounding the problem is the reality of the limited skilled human and infrastructural resources within the local authorities of these centres and towns to address their impending water and sanitation concerns.
Till date, little systematic attention has been paid to actually quantifying whether there are sufficient human resources to meet the MDGs in the WATSAN sector in Ghana (S. Cavill & D. Saywell, 2009).
Currently, different stakeholders and influencers in Ghana has varying opinions and perceptions of the extent of capacity of WATSAN gap, moreover, the different methodologies, approaches and tools employed to produce these estimations is more problematic. This was the reason of the study so that the approaches and recommendations can be used to address the aforesaid challenges.

Objectives of the capacity development
The objectives of the assignment were: • Undertake training needs assessments and present inception reports. • Conduct training sessions on WATSAN management, quality and distribution networks, policies and bye-laws to deepen staff knowledge and other stakeholders on existing water and sanitation policies and bye-laws in Accra and Sekondi Takoradi. • Enhance and reevaluate the capacity of relevant staff and stakeholders to improve the quality and distribution of urban water, WATSAN policies and bye-laws to deliver organisational development (OD) change

Conceptual framework
Emerging themes to effect changes to the research of capacity development A careful reflection of the assignment points out to OD's cycle of change that UND (2008) describes as effective sequencing of organisational interventions aimed at developing capacity. This cycle of change is necessarily schematic and risks oversimplifying processes and shown below: To make the CD intervention to deliver OD change, we put into use the following measures: • Understanding the institutional and organisational context of power differentials, cultural constraints and individual motivations. • Instituting change that will be inclusive. That is , all stakeholders and influencers supporting the change • Creating sense of urgency amongst support for all leaders of change • Crafting and implementing room for divergent views and tolerant for different ideas so as to instill mass commitment for the change process. • Recognitions of obstacles and proposing solutions to those obstacles by target staff members , stakeholders and influencers • Creating room for personal and organisational dynamics such as guidance and counseling. Mentoring, coaching and celebrating • Conveying guiding principles of coalition to steer, nurse and drive the change • Placing value on assessment and measurement system The assignment was executed by observing the model throughout the exercise.
Pyramid of seven essential elements in capacity development McKinsey & Company (2009) model of capacity in nonprofit organisations as comprising pyramid of seven essential elements including three foundational elements: systems and infrastructure, human resources and organisational structure, and culture element which set to connect others. They assert that coordinated CB across all seven elements will help organisations achieve the greatest impact. The above assertions are shown figure 2 below:  Glass (1979) takes on approach that: • Provides CD to make sense of the ' verbal synopsis of studies that are strung out in drizzling lists' • Locates knowhow about CD as specific application of OD knowledge This Literature review draws on CD from development, social policy and philanthropic domains and on OD literature in order to cater for pro poor element to cater for the assignment.
Operational and adaptive capacity development domains (institutional arrangement, leadership, knowledge and Accountability) Earl et al. (2001) distinguish between operational and adaptive capacities. UNDP supported this assertion by expanding it to embrace sectors and levels of capacity where 'the bulk of changes in capacity take place', they went further by stating that every assessment of capacity building (CB) should consider all four domains (institutional arrangement, leadership, knowledge and accountability) as definition of scope of an intervention Honadle (1981) defines CB not as not as one entity but as set of capacities to: • Anticipate and influence change • Make informed and intelligent decisions on policy • Develop programmes to implement policy • Attract/absorb resources • Manage resources • Evaluate to guide future action Honadle proposes that CB framework is the one that addresses each of the above aspects of capacity: it provides way of diagnosing and addressing organisational weaknesses and strengths. Consultant use the above model to emphasise strategic planning, facility management plans and monitoring and evaluation sessions.
Pyramid of Effective Capacity Building Potter and Brough (2004, p.340) also propose the idea of pyramid of capacities, although they relate this primarily to field level interventions in a development context. They suggested that for this to benefit development, it has to be considered in logical order. The authors further suggest that as one moves down the hierarchy, change in capacity becomes difficult and takes longer to implement. The same authors describe evidence informed model developed by the EC technical team that dilated on differentiating nine separate but interdependent components of CB and its effectiveness when organized in logical hierarchy. They stressed that CB is more likely to be iterative rather than a sequence of process. The authors again argue that the model should be used as an analytical tool which will help to identify areas of interventions and can leverage impact. They concluded that: Potter and Brough further argue that using the model as an analytical tool helps to identify where support interventions are needed and can leverage most impact. This model enabled consultants to focus on capacity gaps identified and capacity building initiative shown in findings of this study.
Interdependent elements at organisational level that are essential to organisational capacity Kaplan (2000) also proposes series of interdependent elements at organisational level that are essential to organisational capacity. He suggests that theses form a hierarchy which some are important than others. They are: • A conceptual framework: a competent understanding of the organization's world, without which it will be incapacitated regardless of other skills and competencies. • Organisational 'attitude': confidence to act in and on the world in a way that the organisation believes can have an impact. • Vision and strategy: sense of purpose • Organisational structure: clear roles, functions, lines of communication, decision making process • Skills: individual skills and competencies (but the organisational capacity has to be harnessed sufficiently to harness training) Matters arising from this assertion brought about 'paradigm shift' in thinking about CD -moving the focus from work on more tangible elements at the base of the hierarchy to intangible elements. Kaplan argues that critical elements at the 'top' of the hierarchy are invisible and more impervious to conventional approaches to CB. These interdependent elements at organisational level that are essential to organisational capacity assisted consultants to execute the assignment accordingly.

Methodology and technical approach
The assessment tools employed included review of personnel appraisal records, job descriptions, interviews, administration of questioners and focus group discussions so as to ascertain the true reflection of the capacity gaps in the following WATSAN conceptual, technical and human relational areas: Urban water and sanitation management operation and maintenance (

Findings and emerging issues
The findings were intended to support and sustain conceptual, technical and human capital development and investments in the WATSAN sector for water access and safety for the urban residents in Ghana.
The following table summarizes some of the emerging categories of staff capacity gaps, activities appropriate to address the above challenges, time frame, required resources and expected outcomes. Customer satisfaction, accurate data fed into the system. Improvement in the metering ratio, reduction in unaccounted for water and improvement in the revenue Leads to strategic metering of bulk supply areas to enhance overall accountability for the water distributed.
Facilitate the purchase of customer meters to enhance the utilities' revenue base and reduce wastage Implication of findings and conclusions (synthesis of issues arising from capacity assessment and development study) Analysis of the study shows that skills required by WATSAN employees have both the numbers (quantity) and as well as ensuring that staff are well trained (quality) to meet the SDG target 6: deficiencies in one aspect cannot be remedied by substituting improvements in another i.e. overstaffing with under qualified people to try and increase access to safe water and improved sanitation (S. Cavill & D. Saywell, 2009).These skills and competences were given special attention during training sessions and followed ups to staff work places were also made to verify impacts the training had on their performances.
Motivating staff members on the SDG 6 could provide the incentives for installing new facilities to improve and increase access to the unserved pro poor areas rather than the operation and maintenance of existing facilities to ensure that access is maintained for those already connected. Facility Management P and Monitoring and Evaluation Plans were developed during the training so as to enhance skills and competencies of the participants.
Linking the review and development of various corporate plans (strategic, business, investment, financial management, human resource management and development plans) with national water environmental sanitation policy, technical guidelines for water and sanitation sub-sector that is not done well by senior staff members is a huge recipe for lack of direction for senior management in strategic planning and implementation. This may also contribute to policy disconnect in the sector and sessions on the above topics were incorporated into the training to build the capacity of the staff. Sample corporate plans were developed by individual participants.
Training in customer care by handling and keeping data on customer concerns, interface, analysis and loyalty by the customer care unit and front desk officers will enable company maintain their customers thereby leading to higher revenue. Since this is not well done now and does not happen by accident, it is recommended that periodic refresher courses be offered to the staff members and customer care soft wares were also to propose to track performances.
Urban Pro poor areas should not be disadvantaged in terms of provision of service and personnel quality. The primary purpose of the capacity building strategy is to enhance the skills of non-engineering employees that are responsible for serving customers. However, lack of capacity in the field of engineering staff and private sector spare parts suppliers, latrine artisans, pump mechanics, suppliers of equipment such as pipes and fittings and so on to provide materials, equipment, works and services to communities will also be a bottleneck to achieving the SDGs. Informal or alternative providers could also be considered since collectively they have a big share of the water and sanitation markets in many countries. Sessions were devoted to the aforesaid topics during the capacity development initiative. Further recommendations were made for continual capacity development study and enhancement so as to instil sustainability.