This document discusses harmonized monitoring for the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sector. It provides an overview of the Rural Water and Sanitation Information System (SIASAR) which collects data on service providers, communities, technical assistance providers, and indicators/indices. SIASAR data has been used in several countries to inform planning and improve sustainability. Key challenges discussed include adapting SIASAR to different contexts, maintaining the system over time, and expanding it to new countries and regions in a coordinated way while ensuring harmonization.
2024: The FAR, Federal Acquisition Regulations, Part 30
Promoting harmonized monitoring for the WASH sector : the rural water and sanitation information system SIASAR as an example
1. Antonio Rodriguez Serrano
Senior Water and Sanitation Specialist
March 5, 2018
IRC's 50th Anniversary Event Series
Promoting Harmonized Monitoring for the WASH Sector
The Rural Water and Sanitation Information System
SIASAR as an example
www.siasar.org
3. Shared rural water sector challenges
Low coverage levels
Poor service quality
Limited service sustainability
No information on actual status
Inadequate Information Systems
Decisions / Priorities / Interventions
5. What information is collected?
SERVICE
PROVIDER
COMMUNITYSYSTEM
• Jurisdiction
• Competence
• Capacities
• Resources
• Frequency of
support
TECHNICAL
ASSISTANCE
PROVIDER
• Tariff / Rate
• Legal status
• Performance of board
• Income / costs
• O&M Practices
• Access
• Location
• Population
• Coverage
• Households
• Health and
Hygiene Practices
• Service typology
• Water point
• Infrastructure
• Treatment
Core Entities
7. Indices
Forms
Community
11 questions
Water
System
21 questions
Service
Providers
34 questions
TA
Providers
12 questions
Water
Service
Level
State of
Infrastructure
Service
Provision
TA
Provision
Sanitation
and Hygiene
Service Level
Schools
and Health
Centers
Global Index
Water and Sanitation
Performance Index
WSP
Sustainability Metrics: Indices
Construction
8. Prestador de
servicio
WSP
Water and Sanitation Performance Index
B
B
B
C
B
Service
Provision
State of Water
Infrastructure
A
Provision of
Technical
Assistance
Schools and
Health Centers
Water Service
Level
Community
Sanitation
and Hygiene
A
A
Indicators and Indices - Example 1
(Brazil)
Comunidade de Córrego dos
Rodrigues
Aracati, Ceara, Brazil
9. Sustainability Metrics: Indices
Construction
Prestador de
servicio
WSI | Water System InfrastructureA
A
B
A
A
Water
Source
Protection
State of
Infrastructure
Water
Treatment
System
System
Autonomy
A
State Storage Tank
A
A
B
Chlorination
A
Days of service
without producing
A
B
A
A
A Type of system
Functionality
State of water
catchment area
State of Conduction
State of Distribution
network
State of Catchment
Prestador de
servicio
WSL | Water Service LevelB
A
A
A
B Continuity
Accessibility
Seasonality
Quality D
Access Improved Water
Sources A
Access timeA
A
Bacteriological
Physical and Chemical
A
D
Minimum Water Provision
throughout the year
10. Sustainability Metrics: Indices
Construction
Prestador de
servicio
SHC | Schools and Health CentersB
C
A
B
Water Supply
in Health
Centers
Sanitation
in Schools
Water Supply
in Schools
Sanitation
In Health
Centers
Sanitation
Service Level C
Hygiene
Service Level
B
Drinking Water
Service LevelC
Drinking Water
Service LevelC
Sanitation
Service Level
Hygiene
Service Level
C
A
Prestador de
servicio
SHL | Sanitation and Hygiene Service LevelA
A
A
B
A Household
Hygiene
Personal
Hygiene
Community
Hygiene
Sanitation
Service
Level
B
household
wash hands
Use of household
improved sanitation
A
A Safe water
management
at householdA
Waste Collection and
Treatment
Households practicing
open defecation
B
Improved
sanitation service
level
Improved
household
sanitation coverage
B
A
A
B C
11. Sustainability Metrics: Indices
Construction
Prestador de
servicio
SEP | Service ProvisionA
B
A
B
A Financial
Management
Organization
Environmental
Management
Operation
and
Maintenance
A
A
Operation and
Maintenance Assessment
Chlorine management
O&M Regulation
Operational Metering
Level
Legal Status
Management
Structure
Operation
Equity
Tariff Management
and Accountability
C
A
A
A
A
A
B
A
A
A
A
B
A
A
Collection Efficiency
Operating Cost Ratio
Billing Ratio
Debt Service Ratio
Environmental
Sanitation Promotion
Corrective Measures for
Micro Basin
Conservation
Preventive Measures for
Micro Basin
Conservation
Prestador de
servicio
TAP | Technical Assistance ProvisionC
C
C
C
C Community
Coverage
Institutional
Capacity
Information
System
A
Transport means
Water Quality
Equipment
Ratio Technician/
Community
Financial Resources
B
D
% Communities
SupportedC
Diversity
B
IT Equipment
Access to Internet
A
C
D
D
A
Concentration
Typology of
Technical
Assistance
14. Preliminary Findings
System Service Provider Community TA Provider
4.55%
13.71%
59.49%
22.35%
8.37%
30.26%
39.83%
21.55%
37.18%
44.20%
7.53%
11.03%
1.61%
26.61%
66.94%
4.84%
Sustainability
Analysis based on a sample of 10,000 communities, 5,000 systems, 5,000 service providers, and 150 TA providers with validated data
from Dominican Republic , Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama
15. 24%
76%
Access to sustainable water
service SIASAR (2015)
Sustainable access Unsustainable access
Service Sustainability into Perspective
Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Dominican Republic
77%
23%
Access to improved water
sources JMP (2015)
Improved Unimproved
16. Service Provider Sustainability
Service provider sustainability vs. nº
women on community WSS boards *
Service Provider Sustainability
by Legal Status
O&M Cost Recovery
O&M cost unknown by SP
O&M cost known by SP But tariffs revenue
Insufficient to cover the cost
O&M cost recovered by SP through tariff34%
44%
22%
Analysis based on a sample of 5,000 systems and service providers with validated data from Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Dominican Republic
18. Nicaragua
National Level
Responsible for the
Rural Water and
Sanitation sector
Regional Level
Regional Water and
Sanitation Advisors
Municipal Level
Municipal Water
and Sanitation
Units
Community Level
Water and
Sanitation
Committees
FISE ARAS UMAS CAPS
Technical assistance providers’ efficiency
% Communities effectively
supported by PATs Analysis based on a sample of 150 TA providers with validated data from Nicaragua
SIASAR as Baseline to
develop the National Rural
Water and Sanitation Plan
Strengthening local and service provider capacities through
Results Based Learning (AVAR)
30%
Sustainability Chain
19. Panama
Distribution of Communities
by rating
Indigenous vs. Non-Indigenous
WASH Poverty Analysis in 150 indigenous peoples
communities to inform the National Indigenous
Peoples Development Plan
Analysis based on a sample of 1,000 with validated data from Panama
20. State of Ceara, Brazil
Complete Aracati Prefecture gathering information.
Base line to include Rural Water and Sanitation in the
Municipal Development Plan
23. The Process Matter
2011
First Approach
to the concept
2012
First
Working
prototype
2013
Redefining
the concept
2014 - 2015
Auditing
and
Improving
Regional
Agreement
2016 -2017
Consolidatin
g & Scaling
up
Strategic stakeholders
Civil, research and academic stakeholders
24. Implementation Roadmap
Agree on the Institutional and Operational framework is key
Initial steps are critical for effective
implementation
25. Acto de Apertura y Firma del Acuerdo SIASAR
Dr. Javier Díaz, Ministro de Salud de Panamá
Ing. Marco Fortín, Presidente Anda - El Salvador y Pro-Tempore FOCARD-APS
Ing. Yesenia Calderón, Presidenta Ejecutiva del AyA, Costa Rica,
Ing. Luis Eveline, Gerente de SANAA, Honduras
Ing. Julio Cuadra, Presidente Ejecutivo de FISE, Nicaragua
Ing. Alberto Holguín, Director Ejecutivo del INAPA, República Dominicana
Institutionalization is key
27. Regional and National Leader Institutions
Civil, research and academic stakeholders
Dominican Republic
Strategic stakeholders
Costa Rica
Panama
Honduras
Nicaragua
Oaxaca - Mexico
Peru
Ceara (Brazil)
Involving Stakeholders and Partners
28. Addressing Evolving Challenges
Improving conceptual model
Expanding to new countries
Adapting to different contexts
Building on existing databases
Enabling new features
Taking advantage of new technologies
Website App
BI GIS
30. • Regional and Global
– “Base-line Mindset”
– Tackling the language barriers for going global (Dictionary of Terms)
– Ensuring harmonization while scaling up the system - (Core)
– Coordinating global, regional and national priority agendas
• Institutional challenges
– Walking the Roadmap – institutional arrangements
– Expanding usage at all administrative levels
– Managing political turnover and institutional changes
– Continuous data collection and update (recurrent cost)
• Conceptual challenges
– Adapting to new contexts
– Monitoring use of sanitation facilities
– Incorporating the household dimension at scale
• IT platform challenges
– Keeping the countries at the heart of the SIASAR IT development
– Ensuring an IT expert developers team to maintain and enhance the
system
– Continuing IT improvements to better serve all needs
Challenges
31. Going Global
• System versus M&E support initiative
• Prioritization: requirements for new countries
• Institutionalized: Governance Structure: Global / Regional / Country
Focus
• Harmonized: Core (RWSS Global Metrics) vs complementary
• Adaptable: Flexible and Modular Approach. Building on existing
systems
• Modern & Evolvable: Global Server and Support Team
Thinking out of the box
Indeed there are limitations and relevant differences we need to consider when bridging some lessons learned from Central American countries to India.
Specially we talking about numbers… as there is a matter of size and population
Central America is a set of small and low to middle income countries with a total population of around 44m people. Some 42 percent of the population live in rural areas, where there are some 50,000 rural communities (panchayats). According to the JMP Update 2014, ~20% of the population that lives in rural areas still lack access to improved water sources (2.9m people) and ~51% lack access to sanitation (6.2m people ).
Bearing in mind limitations and differences, the fact that we celebrate life using similar colors has helped me focus on commonalities when identifying the learnings that may be relevant to the discussion on the M&E framework for the Rural WSS project for Low Income States in India.
This chart presents the functional curve of a water supply system. When the system is constructed it is fully functional and it is classified as Category A. As time pass, the system functionality falls exponentially and it reach a level that requires O&M (example the pump start leaking and it needs to be fixed). At this point an O&M intervention could help us to get back to level A, and so on…
If no O&M action is done, the system functionality could continue falling to a level that requires rehabilitation (the pump is broken and needs to be replaced).
Sustainability is evaluated in a four level metric, “the sustainability metric”, applied over all SIASAR elements or index. These levels, called ABCD qualifications, are determined when each indicator or index reaches a certain score:
“A” corresponds to an optimum service level. This is the usual score in new infrastructures or services, and is the appropriate level for population and it should be maintained.
“B” corresponds to an acceptable level of performance but there are some issues with certain problems. The service requires attention but problems can be solved by the community.
“C” means and inadequate operational level that must be corrected, or rehabilitated. In this case, the community needs external support in order to solve the problem.
“D” is the worst level and in this case the service does not exist or is offline and needs full recovery. The community needs external financial and technical support. This level is undesirable.
What is being monitored?
We decided to differentiate four entities relevant to the sector as subjects of interest.
Three of them (Community, System, and Service Provider) correspond to each water and sanitation system serving a rural community.
The forth entity (Technical Assistance Provider) captures the government, NGOs, or private agencies providing technical and social assistance to rural communities and water and sanitation community boards: O&M, management, hygiene promotion…
Traditional M&E focused in the systems and do not capture communities without water system
There is a standard form to collect information of each of the four entities monitored. Having disaggregated information for each entity allows for focusing on the different barriers and drivers to improve its performance and sustainability.
VC Suggestions:
We decided to differentiate four entities relevant to the sector so we are able to monitor the community, the system and the service provider separately. This allows us to focus on actual problems.
SIASAR Countries
SIASAR is currently being implemented in 9+2 Latin American countries and states, including Bolivia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, the State of Ceara in northeast Brazil, and the southern Mexican State of Oaxaca. Colombia, and Paraguay have joined recently. It is supported by more than 200 national and municipal partner institutions.
SIASAR data collection update Sep 2016
To date, there are over 23,000 rural communities with data entered in the system, covering approximately 19,000 systems across 17,000 service providers.
SIASAR coverage data reaches approximately 30 percent of rural communities universe in those countries, amounting to 54 percent of the rural population of the member countries and states, or some 11 million people.
Each point on the map represents a rural community and the color code is link to the ABCD classification of the service provided in the community.
So… what to do with all this information?
Data gathered through the SIASAR initiative offer a disconcerting picture of rural WSS services sustainability
Systems
Just 22 percent of the systems that have been built are classified as category “A” and thus fully functional and considered sustainable. A further 59 percent of systems have been assessed as category “B” systems—encompassing those in need of repairs within the community’s abilities. Conversely, some 18 percent of systems have been assessed as category “C” or “D,” suggesting that the system is on the verge of failure or is completely offline, and repairs are beyond the community’s abilities.
Service Providers
Only 7 percent of service providers are in the “A” bracket, while 44 percent face issues that they can resolve on their own, landing them in category “B.” On the other hand nearly 37 percent of service providers have been assessed to need outside technical assistance or financial support, those in category “C”, and 11 percent of rural communities lack a service provider, those in category “D”. Taken together with the data above on WSS systems, this suggests that there is not only a need for technical assistance for the maintenance and upkeep of systems, but, moreover, there a need exists to provide support to service providers to ensure that they can sustainability manage those existing systems.
Communities
Then looking at the community level index, which aggregates indicators from the system and service provider level, we observe a similarity of the community level classification distribution with that of service providers. Only 8 percent of communities have achieved a classification of “A”. Fully 70 percent of communities fall in categories “C” or “D,” suggesting a relationship between the sustainability of the service providers and of the WSS service they are tasked with delivering—stronger service providers deliver more sustainable service.
Access versus Sustainable Service
This finding bring with the headline figures for access to drinking water services into perspective.
Coverage data reported in the JMP LAC Update 2015 figures indicate that approximately 77 percent of rural residents in SIASAR countries have access to an improved water source. Of that 77 percent, however, SIASAR data indicate that only 24 percent of the systems they rely on deliver sustainable services. Thus, without effective maintenance, technical assistance, and financing, the gains made to expand WSS service coverage are at stake.
Legal Status
Positive correlation between the service provider classification and their legal status: legalized service providers tend to have higher sustainability scores. SIASAR data also highlight that the majority of service providers lack legal status. In many cases, the bureaucratic process of attaining legal status can be complex and many service providers lack the resources and specialized skills to complete the requisite paperwork on their own.
Gender
Female participation in the administration of public services is thought to improve service quality. Data in the SIASAR system allows us to begin to test this hypothesis in the WSS service context. At this point we cannot state that having women participating in community WSS service provider administrative boards guarantees service sustainability. Data from the SIASAR system indicate no substantial difference in sustainability between service providers with a male or a female president. Nevertheless, Figure shows a positive correlation between the number of women on the board and service sustainability: Category “A” service providers have higher percentages of women board members. In sum, greater female participation in water board management appears to translate to more sustainable service. Further analytical work is underway to better understand how the different roles of female board members factor into sustainability.
Effectiveness of Technical Assistance Provision
Governments, donors, NGOs, and others have provided technical assistance in the WSS sector for decades and coverage and quality indicator suggest that much room for improvement remains.
This slide present a summary of relevant examples of how countries are using SIASAR.
Looking ahead the SIASAR initiative will continue to dive into the data to identify factors that contribute to the sustainability of rural WSS services and to engage with governments to operationalize the data for decision making.
Regional cooperation requires communication, coordination effort, and lot of time, but the investment pays off: “learning together how to cope with shared challenges”
One of the main challenges faced by the rural water supply and sanitation (RWSS) sector in the Latin America and the Caribbean region is the poor quality of service delivery as well as its limited sustainability over time.
Water and sanitation services lay at the root of many other development challenges as they impact public health, education, household income, and the environment.
Poor sustainability is not exclusively related to infrastructure, the capacity of service providers, hygienic or organizational habits, and the quality of the technical assistance provide, among other factors also play a critical role in the sustainability of water and sanitation services, making the monitoring of all these variables essential for this complex decision-making process.
“Every decision needs right information and every information should help in right decision-making”
Simplicity: “Why do you need to know the color of a pump?”
“What?” is important, as well as “How?” and “Why?”
Periodical sector monitoring vs. project baseline approach: “What to do after initial investment ends?”