1. Project Monitoring: A vicious cycle of
donor accountability or a necessary
stepping stone to better national WASH
sector monitoring?
Harold Lockwood
Aguaconsult

2. Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium
“You can’t
manage what
you don’t
measure”
Monitoring really does matter ….

3. Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium
Country-led systems progressing
• Aid effectiveness principles
and commitment (Paris +)
• Country ownership and
leadership
• Emergence of SWAps – 11
countries in Africa (AfDB, 2010)
• DP alignment with country
systems (moderate progress)

4. Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium
Comprehensive country-led
systems are the goal
Common monitoring to
improve performance
• Historic trending
• Benchmarking
• Well informed decisions
• Basis for sector learning
• Consumer
empowerment

5. But many challenges remain
GLAAS 2011; 74 responding countries
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium
Is there a national monitoring system
used to inform decision making?
No system in place
Under
development
System in place
andused
42%
16%
42%

6. Country-led monitoring remains weak
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium
• Under-funded – low resource
environment
• Challenges with decentralisation
of responsibility for data
collection and management
• Incompatibility between data
systems at local government
level
• Often low political priority

7. Development aid project monitoring
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium
• Defined life-span (< 5 years) -
not beyond ‘end of the
project’
• Limited to ‘own projects’
• Not aligned with national
monitoring frameworks or
indicators (outside SWAp)
• Data flows ‘upwards and
outwards’ to external DPs

8. Project monitoring
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium
Opportunities Challenges
• Innovative
• Flexible
• (often) well
resourced
• Quick cycles
• Piloting
• Short-term
• Temporary
structures
• Costly
• Fragmented or
duplicative
initiatives
71% of European
funding
channelled
through projects
and programmes
EU Water Initiative, Africa
Working Group, 2008

9. The reality of project monitoring
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium
• 1 region
• 7 different funding
streams and monitoring
requirements
• 1 national monitoring
system
• Local government –
marginalised

10. Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium
Lending banks, bi-lateral
donors and large multi-
laterals:
• Operate at scale
• Influence over policy and
sector processes
• Can fund via SWAps or
Direct Budgetary Support –
but not all do so
Not all project monitoring is
created equal

11. Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium
Not all project monitoring is
created equal
NGOs, foundations, charities
and faith organisations:
• Operate at varying scale -
decentralised level
• Direct implementation and
field research
• Advocacy and influence
• Direct (localised) funding

12. Accountability: the key driver
Why do we monitor?
• To improve operational
performance
• To measure impact
• To inform sector policy
• To show progress and
results
• To see how funds are
utilised
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium

13. Accountability: the key driver
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium
For whom do we monitor?
• Consumers and operators
• Government technocrats
• Policy makers and
politicians
• Civil society groups
• Project staff
• Funders of aid projects

14. Development partner dilemma:
the vicious cycle of accountability
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium

15. The virtuous cycle of country-led
monitoring and accountability
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium
Development aid
supports monitoring via
SWAps or other common
mechanisms

16. Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium
Project monitoring: a force for good
• Triple-S service delivery indicators, Ghana
• Piloted in 3 districts in 2010 - 12
• Integrated with DiMES of CWSA
• Now being scaled up to 64 districts
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Legend
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Piped system functionality
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Point source functionality
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Water
TripleSdistricts
East Gonja District
0 7 14 21 283.5
Kilometers

17. No easy answers, but some
critical questions
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium
How can we align accountability of
donor-driven project monitoring with
support for country-led monitoring?

18. But, project monitoring is not
going to go away (soon)
• How to incentivize donors to think (and fund)
beyond the end of the project?
• How to better scale up and integrate innovation
and learning into national frameworks?
• And, where there is no credible country-led
monitoring framework, what do we do?
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium

19. Sessions in the ‘project monitoring
stream’
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium
Tuesday 9th
April
Session 1: ‘Setting the scene’ (14:00 – 15:30)
• Government of Indonesia; experiences from WSP/World
Bank supported monitoring
•AfDB strategy for M&E in Africa
Session 2: ‘Bi-lateral donors’ (16:00 – 17:30)
• DGIS/Government of Netherlands; Sustainbility Check –
experience from Mozambique
• USAID/USA; Sustainbility Index Tool – pilot experiences

20. Sessions in the ‘project monitoring
stream’
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium
Wednesday 10th
April
Session 3: ‘NGO innovation’ (11:00 - 12:30)
•UTS/AusAID - multi-country/partner experiences
•MWA – multi-partner experiences, Ethiopia
•Water for People – local government perspective
•WASH Advocates – schools perspective
Session 4: ‘Joining hands with countries’ (14:00 - 15:30)
Panel debate

21. Some warm up discussions
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium
Turn to your immediate neighbour(s):
1. Do you recognize this tension between
project monitoring and country-led
monitoring?
2. How do you feel this can be best reconciled
from a policy or practical perspective?
Discuss for 10 minutes or so