WASHable: Participatory design and community engagement Network on WASH in Lusophone and Francophone African Countries

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The deeply connected history of humans and water presents complex sustainable development challenges. Access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene is recognised as an important human right. However, in countries in sub-Saharan Africa there are still large parts of the population who live in poverty without clean water, and even basic toilet facilities. Unsafe water, sanitation and lack of hygiene leads to a rise in infectious diseases and deaths, especially of young children. French-speaking (Francophone) and Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) countries in Africa, such as Cameroon and Angola, are affected the most as there are significant inequalities between people living in cities and the countryside and between the richest and poorest; and there has been very little research and investment.Solutions developed for other sub-Saharan countries will not necessarily work in French-speaking and Portuguese-speaking, such as Angola and Cameroon, due the ethnic, social, cultural and language differences that are found in these. Yet, understanding of social, cultural and religious practices have a great impact on the development and adoption of any water, sanitation and hygiene solutions and interventions.Engaging the local communities as well as the local government and other organisations such as NGOs in participating in the development of sustainable and acceptable by the wider community solutions is critical. Important is also the involvement of women and children in this process, as they are mainly responsible for management of household water supply, sanitation, hygiene and household wellbeing.However, there is currently limited knowledge and capacity within African research institutions on how to support this type of positive engagement with communities and co-design solutions with them. The WASHable project, a collaboration between Lancaster University (UK) and the University of Buea (Cameroon) and the Catholic University of Angola, will develop a research network that will provide knowledge exchange and capacity building, addressing the need for African academic organisations to open their doors and work with, in and for their communities. This will be achieved through a series of training and knowledge exchange workshops on arts and humanities approaches held in the UK, Cameroon and Angola, that will focus on engaging communities, women and schoolchildren in water, sanitation and hygiene research. Furthermore, the project will engage policy makers and lead to the development of new research partnerships that will develop culturally-sensitive and gender-mainstreaming projects aimed at delivering safe water, sanitation and hygiene services for Africa.In addition to this, the WASHable research network will, apart from engaging other Francophone (Ivory Coast, Benin, Senegal) and Lusophone countries (Mozambique, Cape Verde) of Africa, also establish an African-wide network through the pan-African experts (from countries in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia) attending the workshops in Cameroon and Angola.This is the first community-based research network on water, sanitation and hygiene in sub-Saharan, and especially Francophone and Lusophone Africa, and is a steppingstone for longer and deeper research collaborations that will be strengthened and sustained even after the end of the project.