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.

Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium

In recent years many more people have gained access to an improved water supply; unfortunately access to sanitary facilities is still lagging behind. One of the biggest challenges is how to sustain these newly built water facilities and make sure that people have continuous and reliable access to a supply of good quality water in sufficient quantities.

Much is needed to sustain water and sanitation services—from support to communities after construction of facilities; to improved regulation; to financing of all costs including those for support and replacement; to strengthening the capacities of local authorities; to activating supply chains; and to monitoring.

Monitoring is a critical building block for sustaining water and sanitation services. Which water and sanitation system are exactly out there? What is the status of these systems? Are they functional? Do they provide safe quality water? Are the cues and waiting times not too long? Knowing is necessary for correcting, adapting, and planning for sustainable WASH service delivery.

There is momentum to improve monitoring systems. Momentum because sustaining services is now more important than ever. Momentum because the international community is preparing indicators for the post-2015 development goals including those for water, sanitation and hygiene. Momentum because new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) offer opportunities for faster and more efficient monitoring.

The Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium builds on this momentum and provides a platform for gaining knowledge and discussing the challenges for improved monitoring. It presents the latest thinking and experiences in monitoring from all over the world. It discusses how country-led monitoring could be strengthened. It discusses the need and possibilities for alignment of national and global monitoring systems and of project and country led monitoring systems. It provides an opportunity to sector experts to engage with new technologies for data collection and with examples of how monitoring resulted in sustainable water and sanitation service delivery.

The symposium will be attended by some 380 WASH sector experts from all over the world.

The symposium is hosted by the Ministry of Water and Energy and the Ministry of Health of the Government of Ethiopia; it is organised by IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre in partnership with: the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW), WaterAid, Water and Sanitation for Africa (WSA), the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN), the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) and Water For People.

The symposium will be preceded by a seminar on Monday 8 April, “National WASH Inventory in Ethiopia: lessons learned and maximising value”. 150 Ethiopia water and sanitation experts will attend the seminar.

For more:

• Visit our website: www.irc.nl/symposium2013
• Like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ircwash
• Converse with us on Twitter – mention and/or follow @IRCWASH, and use the hashtag: #WASHmon
• Contribute to our blog: washmonitoring.wordpress.com – please contact Petra Brussee (brussee@irc.nl), Angelica de Jesus (dejesus@irc.nl), or Cor Dietvorst (dietvorst@irc.nl)
• For more information about the seminar on the Ethiopia National WASH Inventory please contact Inge Klaassen (klaassen@irc.nl)

 

The need for better global estimates for safe water and sanitation

Researchers from the University of North Carolina (UNC) estimate that the number of people without safe water and sanitation is much higher than previously thought. If you add actual service levels and the unreliability of some of the data to the equation the picture may be even bleaker.

Dr. Jamie Bartram

Jamie Bartram’s team from UNC’s Water Institute calculated that 1.8 billion people (28% of the global population) used unsafe water in 2010 [1] and that 4.1 billion (60% of the global population ) lacked access to improved sanitation [2]. The corresponding official United Nations (UN) estimates are 783 million and 1.2 billion respectively.

The UN estimates are taken from the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) [3]. The JMP definition of safe water is linked to the use of improved drinking-water sources. In their definition of safe water, Bartram’s team also looks at the water quality and sanitary risk of the improved sources. For their calculations, they modelled and extrapolated data from a WHO/UNICEF study on the Rapid Assessment of Drinking-Water Quality (RADWQ) in 5 countries.

Help shape the future of global water monitoring

Water sector stakeholders are invited to express their views on how to shape the future of global water monitoring after 2015.

The JMP Post 2015 Water Monitoring Working Group has launched an e-survey to let all stakeholders express their thoughts on:

1. the Group’s draft goal, targets and indicators and,
2. the best way to monitor the data.

The survey closes on the 18th June 2012.

The Water Working Group is one of four expert groups established in January 2012 by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) to develop alternative goal, target(s) and indicator options for post-2015 monitoring. The other three groups are on sanitation, hygiene and equity and non-discrimination. The outputs of all these groups will inform the various ongoing political processes led by the UN Secretary General and are expected to culminate in a post-MDG summit at the UN General Assembly in September 2013.

The Post 2015 Water Monitoring Working Group is comprised of a core group and resource group of experts, led jointly by WaterAid and the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre.

For more information go to the Water Working Group website where you will find a description of the proposed draft goal, target and indicators and a link to the e-survey.

Related news:

• Stef Smits, Is the glass half full or half empty?, E-Source, 31 Mar 2012
• Monitoring: new tools meet demand for more transparency in the water sector, E-Source, 05 Dec 2011
• First consultation on developing post-2015 monitoring indicators, Berlin: Refocusing the monitoring approach, E-Source, 26 Oct 2011

IRC Symposium 2013: monitoring sustainable WASH service delivery, 9 to 11 April 2013, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

As water and sanitation coverage expands, the need to know the status of systems and services becomes even more critical. Governments are increasingly realising the importance of good monitoring information at multiple levels to ensure services are sustainable and investments are not wasted. The number of initiatives to strengthen WASH service monitoring is growing, new tools are being developed, and international indicators are being refined.

The 2013 IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre Symposium will provide a global platform for sharing these initiatives and experiences. Please mark your calendars for 9 to 11 April 2013 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

A first official announcement with more details will be circulated in early July 2012

For more information and questions: symposium@irc.nl

 

Towards better monitoring: taking drinking water equity, safety and sustainability into account

While current figures indicate that access to improved drinking water has increased from 77 per cent to 87 per cent between 1990 and 2008, the real percentage of people with sustainable access to safe drinking water is likely to be significantly lower. This is one of the conclusions of a new report [1] that the UNICEF/WHO Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP) released on 20 December 2011.

If the maximum acceptable time needed to collect water is taken as 30 minutes per round trip, then drinking water coverage in Sub-Saharan Africa drops by eight percentage points, the report says. Similarly, if you include water quality as an indicator, then the 2008 JMP estimates of access to safe drinking water would go down by 16% for Nicaragua, 11% for Ethiopia, 10% for Nigeria and 7% for Tajikistan.

The new report analyses existing JMP statistics in more detail and includes increased disaggregation of water service levels and analyses of trends across countries and regions. It focuses on the three key challenges of equity, safety and sustainability. Disparities in terms of geography, wealth and gender are explored, as well as the role of household water treatment and safe storage in water safety, and the unique threats posed by climate change to the sustainability in rural and urban contexts.

National and global monitoring will require a major evolution, concludes the report, to meet demands for targets and indicators that take equity, safety and sustainability into account.

[1] WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP), 2011. Drinking water equity, safety and sustainability. (JMP thematic report on drinking water ; 2011). New York, NY, UNICEF ; Geneva, World Health Organization. 62 p. : 40 fig., 2 tab. 23 ref. <Available at: http://www.unicef.org/media/files/JMP_Report_DrinkingWater_2011.pdf>

Related news:

• Monitoring: new tools meet demand for more transparency in the water sector, E-Source, 05 Dec 2011
• Angelica de Jesus, First consultation on developing post-2015 monitoring indicators, Berlin: Refocusing the monitoring approach, E-Source, 02 Aug 2011

Related web site: WHO / UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation – http://www.wssinfo.org/

Source: UNICEF, 20 Dec 2011

Monitoring: new tools meet demand for more transparency in the water sector

Water NGOs are leading the way in promoting new monitoring tools. A Child’s Right has launched an online monitoring system called Proving It and FLOW, a mobile phone tool developed by Water For People, is being widely used in West Africa.

A Child’s Right installs clean water systems in orphanages, schools and children’s hospitals in urban areas in the developing world. In October 2011, the NGO launched Proving It, a web site that tracks the status of all its projects, from inception to installation and then routinely thereafter. A Child’s Right is not afraid to stick the label “failed” on projects when systems are no longer working, explaining what went wrong and what has been learned.

One year after its introduction Water For People’s monitoring tool FLOW (Field Level Operations Watch) has become so popular that the NGO is looking for another organisation to take care of technical support. One of the candidates is the Amsterdam-based NGO AKVO.

The Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) has used FLOW to map 7,400 water points in Liberia [1]. In July 2011, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation granted US$ 500,000 to Water For People and the African Regional Centre for Drinking Water and Sanitation (CREPA) to use FLOW to assess the functionality of 1,500 wells co-funded by the Foundation in West Africa [2].

[1] New Mobile Technology Helps Liberia Map Rural Water Points, Informs Strategy, WSP, 22 Jun 2011

[2] Amelia Gingold and Marissa Feinberg, Water For People receives grant from Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Water For People, 08 Jul 2011

Related web sites:

• A Child’s Right – Proving It
• Water for People – FLOW
• akvo.org

Related news: Monitoring: three new mapping tools launched, E-Source, 03 Nov 2010

Source: Alex Goldmark, GOOD, 01 Nov 2011

Scanning the 2020 horizon: an analysis of trends and scenarios in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector

What will the international Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector look like in, let us say, 10 years from now? Will access to sanitation still lag behind water supply, or will it evolve into a stand-alone sub-sector with its own set of dedicated institutions and organisations? Will aid continue to play a predominant role in investing in WASH infrastructure, or will emerging economies increase their investments in the sector? And, how will trends outside the sector, such as urbanisation or changes in food prices, affect the sector?

Scanning the 2020 horizon presents 21 trends that the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre considers most critical to WASH sector development. It examines trends both within the WASH sector, as well as those outside the sector which have the potential to impact on the sector. Many of these are updates of factors identified in a similar exercise undertaken five years ago by IRC.

Sustainable services: making sense of rural water supply stories

IRC’s Triple-S project is using an innovative research method to analyse stories and make sense of the current changes in rural water supply. The outcomes will be used to help bring about sustained tangible improvements for rural people.

Anyone can share a recent experience with rural water supply, either hopeful or discouraging, on the  Understanding changes in rural water supply web page . Submissions are anonymous and will take about 20 minutes to complete.

Cognitive Edge’s SenseMaker^TM, software suite is being used to collect and analyse the stories. For a recent example of an application in the development sector see the SenseMaker^TM, case study of the GlobalGiving narrative pilot project in Kenya.

So far 371 stories have been submitted, to the Understanding changes in rural water supply web page. Triple-S will conduct a first analysis of these stories by the end  of May 2011. The web page will remain open for contributions.

Launched in December 2008, Sustainable Services at Scale (Triple-S) is six-year multi-country learning initiative that seeks to identify sustainable approaches to water delivery and access by departing from project-based, one-off and stand-alone implementation of water systems.

Related news: Sarah Carriger, Ensuring rural water services that last: Lessons from a 13-country study, E-Source, 22 Mar 2011

Related web sites:

• Understanding changes in rural water supply
• Triple-S
• Cognitive Edge – SenseMaker^TM  suite

Source: Everyone has a story to tell, IRC, 12 Apr 2011 ; Triple-S and partners think outside the box to change WASH sector approach, IRC, 10 Mar 2011

Strategic evaluation of the Water Integrity Network: call for expression of interest

The Water Integrity Network (WIN) was launched in 2006 and its secretariat is hosted at Transparency International in Berlin. WIN is a multi stakeholder network that aims to fight corruption and promote integrity in the water sector to help reduce poverty in the world.

The strategic evaluation aims to reach conclusions concerning the adequateness of WIN’s strategy and work in an evolving policy environment. A key outcome is expected to be that clear conclusions are drawn concerning the intervention logic of the network and that concrete recommendations are formulated and supported by various stakeholders to improve this intervention logic or strategy for impact in relation to work already done and ongoing, as well as the mobilization of the capacities, partnerships and financial resources for scaling up.

The evaluation is expected to take place between 1 October and 15 December 2010. The final report should be available no later than 31 January 2011.

The team of consultants for the evaluation should represent comprehensive knowledge and experience in water sector issues, governance and anti corruption issues, financial management, and be in a position to deal with cultural perspectives in different parts of the world. The team should include the capacity to communicate in several of the UN languages including at least English, Spanish and French.

The total combined number of local and international consultant days is estimated at 75.

Deadline for receipt of expressions of interest: 10 August 2010

For submission details and the terms of reference go the WIN web site