Sanitation & WASH
Baseline Studies & Community Mobilisation — GASSLIP, Greater Accra
- Client
- African Development Bank
- Funder
- African Development Bank
- Year
- 2020
- Location
- Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GASSLIP programme communities)
- Client type
- Development Partner
- Region(s)
- Greater Accra
The assignment
The Greater Accra Sustainable Sanitation and Livelihoods Improvement Project (GASSLIP) — financed by the African Development Bank — was one of the largest urban sanitation and WASH investments in Ghana at the time of implementation. The project targeted underserved communities across Greater Accra, combining sanitation infrastructure with hygiene behaviour-change and livelihood components. Devtplan Consult was engaged to conduct the project's baseline studies and lead community mobilisation across the target communities, establishing the pre-project situation and preparing communities to engage effectively with the programme.
Our approach
The baseline comprised a household survey covering a representative sample of communities in the GASSLIP target area, measuring sanitation access, open-defecation prevalence, WASH knowledge and practices, hygiene behaviour, livelihood indicators, and willingness-to-pay for improved sanitation services. Devtplan supplemented the household survey with a community-infrastructure mapping exercise documenting existing sanitation facilities (toilets, washing stations, solid-waste points) and a qualitative rapid assessment of community governance, social dynamics, and potential bottlenecks to programme implementation. In parallel, Devtplan led community mobilisation — establishing community-level WASH committees, training committee members in basic facilitation and record-keeping, and preparing communities to receive programme interventions through participatory hygiene and sanitation transformation (PHAST) sessions.
The outcome
The baseline report provided the AfDB and project management team with a comprehensive pre-project profile of WASH conditions across the target communities, including a community-by-community dashboard of key indicators that would serve as the endline comparison set. Community mobilisation activities established functional WASH committees in all target communities, with documented membership, roles, and initial action plans. The combined baseline-and-mobilisation approach meant that communities were not only measured but were actively prepared to drive programme uptake, contributing to high initial coverage rates for the sanitation infrastructure components.
Key figures
households surveyed across target communities (illustrative)
WASH committees established (illustrative)
WASH indicators tracked at baseline
Figures shown are illustrative for this demo.
"The GASSLIP baseline is the kind of assignment that shows what it means to do development research properly: primary data, community voice, and a product that actually drives programme decisions."