A central role for government in monitoring sustainable WASH services

Participants at the IRC Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery symposium, Addis Ababa, April 2013. Photo: Ermias Woldeamlak

Governments are not only investing more in national monitoring systems, but their leadership in country monitoring is also now generally accepted. With this acceptance, however, come expectations about good governance and transparency. Monitoring is politics: agendas and power influence what is monitored and how the results are used. National systems, too, go beyond WASH sector monitoring and should include data from donors and NGOs as well.

Photo: IRC/Petra Brussee

These are some of the conclusions we can draw from a symposium attended by over 400 participants from UN agencies, government, donors, NGOs and research institutes.  Hosted by the Government of Ethiopia and organised by IRC and its partners, the Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery symposium was held from 9 to 11 April 2013 in Addis Ababa.

Symposium presentations and discussions focussed on six main themes: monitoring finance, government-led and country-wide monitoring, project monitoring, ICT for monitoring, monitoring sanitation & hygiene, and global-regional-national WASH monitoring.

2013 Budapest Water Summit, 08-11 October 2013, Budapest, Hungary

The objective of this high-level summit is to take stock of the various developments, in and outside the UN system, in preparing water-related goals for the post Rio+20 development agenda. The expected outcome is one overarching SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on water and sanitation that corresponds and responds to multidimensional challenges.

Confirmed speakers include  Hungarian President Mr János Áder, UN Secretary General Mr Ban Ki-moon, the heads of OECD, UNEP, UNIDO, WMO, WHO, UNDP and FAO, Prof. Jamie Bartram, Ms Catarina de Albuquerque, Andris Piebalgs, Prof. John Briscoe and Julia Bucknall.

Organised by: Government of Hungary in collaboration with the World Water Council and UNESCO

Theme: The Role of Water and Sanitation in the Global Sustainable Development Agenda

Drawing the threads together: sustainable services and behaviour changes

Agencies, donors and NGOs alike need to regard sustainability as a critical mission and to re-think fundamentally their role in the sector, conclude the organisers of the WASH Conference 2011. The conference, which was held in Brisbane, Australia, from 16-20 May 2011, attracted 237 people from 40 countries.

The recently published WASH 2011 synthesis report provides an overview of the key messages on: functional and environmental sustainability; institutional sustainability; behavioural change and social sustainability; and financial sustainability.

The first key message, brought in by the IRC-led Triples-S (Sustainable Services at Scale) initiative, was that the focus on ‘coverage’ should be reduced in favour of a move to a service delivery approach. Related to this was the need to move gradually from community management to professionalised service delivery (the community management PLUS model) and to move from counting infrastructure to monitoring services.

Partnering with the private sector can play an important role in scaling-up sanitation as well as behaviour change. Enabling local entrepreneurship to flourish through the sanitation marketing approach has proved successful in Cambodia. In Indonesia a public-private partnership for hand-washing with soap made the partnership win-win for each group.

[1] International WaterCentre (2011). WASH Conference 2011, Brisbane, Australia : towards sustainability in water, sanitation and hygiene : conference report. 20 p. Download full report

Related web sites:

• WASH Conference 2011
• IRC – Water Services that Last

Related news:

• Leading sector organisations launch Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Sustainability Charter, E-Source, 04 Oct 2011
• Costing sustainable services training is successful, Brisbane, E-Source, 04 Aug 2011

Source: International WaterCentre, 26 Sep 2011

Corporate water accounting: Deloitte supporting development of CEO Water Mandate Water Action Hub

Accountancy firm Deloitte is providing pro bono services to help develop a public online tool for corporate water accounting. The tool allows companies to more easily identify and collaborate with businesses, relevant governments, NGO and communities to advance sustainable water management, a Deloitte press release said.

Deloitte is collaborating with the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF), the Pacific Institute and the German International Development Agency (GIZ) in developing the CEO Water Mandate (which is part of the United Nations Global Compact) Water Action Hub.

Deloitte’s contribution to IBLF, valued at up to $ 500,000, will allow organizations to access a publicly available online water-focused capacity building platform that can serve as a clearinghouse for emerging corporate water accounting methods, tools, and stewardship practices.

The Water Action Hub will have a mapping function that visually places each facility and/or organization with their activities within watershed maps.

Corruption risks to undermine adaptation to climate change

In the years ahead of us at least US $100 billion will be spend worldwide for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Transparency International (TI) warns us that efforts to combat climate change risk to be undermined by corruption and mismanagement. This year, TI’s annual Global Corruption Report, sheds its light on corruption risks in climate governance. The report gives a comprehensive overview of those areas where improved governance will be essential to render climate policies successful.

 One of the key areas at risk is adaptation to climate change in the most vulnerable countries. Twenty countries  are expected to be most affected by climate change, all of those countries rank low on TI’s Corruption Perception Index. As a lack of transparency and accountability is an endemic problem in those countries, new investments for adaptation programmes will pose enormous governance challenges.

 Special attention is drawn to the consequences for the water sector in a chapter contributed by the Water Integrity Network (WIN). Climate change adaptation programmes often concern flood control or measures to deal with water scarcity. As such, most of the adaptation money immediately flows into the water sector. For example inBangladesh, one of the most vulnerable countries, nine out of 15 National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPA) are directly related to water. The report states that “an important element of any adaptation effort should be the promotion of water integrity at all levels”.

Source: Global Corruption Report : Climate Change

Irish water utility criticized for weak procurement procedure

Most households in Northern Ireland have their water supplied by a government owned company called Northern Ireland Water (NI Water). Recently NI Water has been harshly criticized for a lack of transparency in procurement procedures. The Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) published a report in March 2011, which listed all procurement failures over the last five years. Their report shows that the company did not adhere to widely recognized procurement rules to prevent corruption. As a result, many contracts were issued without competition or extended without approval. The chairperson of the PAC, Paul Maskey, said: “This case has undoubtedly undermined confidence in the integrity of the public sector, but it is important to remember that there are good and honourable people at all levels in public bodies.” The report concludes with a series of recommendations to address the weak procurement procedure of NI Water.

Source:  government-news

Development aid: focus on citizen security, justice and jobs says World Bank

Development aid should refocus on strengthening national institutions and improving governance in ways that promote citizen security, provide justice and create jobs, particularly in fragile states, the World Bank’s latest World Development Report (WDR) suggests.

Some 1.5 billion people live in countries affected by repeated cycles of political and criminal violence, and no low-income fragile or conflict-affected country has yet to achieve a single Millennium Development Goal.

While water and sanitation do not play a major role in the report, two of the input papers have links with the sector:

• Resource scarcity, climate change and the risk of violent conflict by Alex Evans – in which the resource scarcity element of the paper is primarily focused on resources required to meet basic needs such as food, land and water.
• Service delivery in fragile and conflict-affected states by Mark Baird – which includes a short case study on post-conflict water and sanitation programmes in East Timor

The WDR stresses that true institutional transformations require time.

It typically takes 15 to 30 years for weak or illegitimate national institutions to become resilient to violence and instability, according to new research commissioned for the report.

The report provides a set of tools that have helped countries make successful transitions and rebuild confidence between citizens and the state. These include transparency measures, budget allocations for disadvantaged groups and credible commitments to realistic timelines for longer-term reform.

A major omission in the report, according to Overseas Development Institute research fellow Jonathan Glennie, is the failure to mention the Paris agenda on aid effectiveness.

Fundamental to the legitimacy of institutions is where their money comes from. So the report is right to focus on the donor-recipient relationship, which muddies the supposed accountability links between citizen and government. It is good that this link (a particular beef of mine) is being recognised in such an important report.

But to engage in a long list of (very welcome) suggestions for how international agencies should reform without mentioning the major international initiative seeking to achieve such reform is strange. While calling for donors to work better together, the World Bank is in danger of looking like it prefers to go it alone, setting up a new group of “WDR principles”.

Related web site: World Bank – World Development Report 2011

Source: World Bank, 11 Apr 2011 ; Ivy Mungcal, Devlopment Newswire, Devex.com, 11 Apr 2011 ; Jonathan Glennie, Poverty Matters Blog, Guardian, 11 Apr 2011

World Bank launches Global Urbanization Knowledge Platform

In 2011, the World Bank’s Knowledge Council selected urbanisation as one of the Knowledge Platforms eligible for three year seed funding by the Bank. The Global Urbanization Knowledge Platform is a collaborative partnership between researchers, policymakers, the private-sector, and knowledge brokers including the World Bank Group. It aims to become the leading “go-to” hub for urban knowledge.

This means moving beyond a static repository, and beyond conferences and workshops, towards an open-source knowledge exchange

Topics are demand-driven, requested by participants, within four thematic pillars: economic, social, environmental and governance.

Four platform components are envisaged:

• an open, online forum
• rolling, dynamic knowledge exchanges in real-time; this involves voting on topics (new urban policies, research or problems) during rapid fire showcases to be further discussed and summarised for dissemination online
• ‘thought-leaders’
• a data platform

Global Urbanization Knowledge Platform structure

Partners that have already signed on to the Global Urbanization Knowledge Platform include the World Bank, McKinsey Global Institute, Cities Alliance, : Indian Institute for Human Settlements, MIT Dept of Urban Studies & Planning, Brookings Institution and eminent researchers like Edward Glaeser and Vernon Henderson.

One of the first thought-leader presentations is Glaeser’s Triumph of the City

The official launch of the platform will take place during six or more events on June 2011. The aim is to be fully operational from July 2011 onwards.

Read the Global Urbanization Knowledge Platform leaflet

Source: World Bank, Urban Development Issue Brief, Apr 2011 ; Making Cities Work, 11 Feb 2011

Decentralisation: Danida’s experiences in the water sector

Danida has published the background papers and presentations of the “Seminar on Decentralisation Reforms with a focus on the Water Sector”, which was held from 15-17 November 2010 in Copenhagen.

One of the background papers was a Draft Note Decentralisation of the Water Sector [pdf] by Jesper Steffensen. The note provides lessons on financing through local governments, human resources, local accountability and sector coordination.

During the Seminar itself there were country presentations on experiences with decentralisation of service delivery from Mali, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Uganda and Bangladesh. The most positive experiences came from the last two countries. Decentralization was said to be fairly well established in Uganda and had delivered improvements in service delivery and accountability. The Hygiene, Sanitation and Water Supply (HYSAWA) Fund in Bangladesh had employed a unique approach to decentralised water supply involving capacity support to local councils by the government. private agencies and NGOs.

Web site: Danida – Decentralisation Seminar 2010

Berlin citizens vote for more transparency in public water deal

This is a follow-up to the entry about the Berlin Water Utility referendum posted on 2nd February 2011.

Berlin’s referendum on February 13^th has successfully passed a law demanding the disclosure of all contracts documenting the partial privatization of the Berlin Water Works. Despite the low budget of the initiators, the Berlin Water Table, and public silence around the elections, enough citizens were mobilized to vote. 25% of Berlin’s voters had to turn up to render the referendum valid. In total 665,000 Berliners went to the polling station, which was 27% of the total voters. 98% voted in favour of the proposed law.

Although the outcome of the referendum surprised all parties, and spread a clear sign for more transparency on public goods, it is unclear what the new law will bring about. The Berlin Senate denies the accusation of the Berlin Water Table and asserts that all documents have already been disclosed. The success of the referendum might motivate the Berlin Water Table to go to the city-state’s constitutional court and demand for the withdrawal of undisclosed contracts as is stated in the admitted law.