Liberia Water Safety Planning Training

Water provision (i.e. access to water) in Liberia has progressed well to meet the MDGs. Despite this progress, to-date, Liberia has never conducted water safety planning (WSP).

The International Water Association (IWA) arranged a 5-day water safety planning training event in Liberia in September 2016. Emanti Management was appointed to facilitate the training. The purpose of the training was to capacitate key stakeholders in the Liberian water sector in developing and implementing water safety planning.

The training followed the World Health Organisation (WHO)/IWA approach and used the existing training workbooks and presentations with minor modifications to make it more country relevant. Approximately 40 participants from various key stakeholders attended the training. Each of the typical WSP modules were discussed with associated examples and exercises by participants in groups to gain further insight and understanding of WSPs.

The training also included a site visit of the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation (LWSC) water supply system. System components visited included the source (St Paul River), the treatment plant and a booster pump station in town (distribution network). At each of these components the purpose and functioning of the component was explained, and typical hazards/hazardous events related to the components were discussed.