This WASHplus Weekly (formerly called WASHplus Updates) contains 16 articles and reports published in 2010 and 2011 that discuss monitoring and evaluation of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) projects and programs. This includes the USAID Hygiene Improvement Project (HIP) report on Indicators as well as project monitoring reports from WaterAid, the Water Sanitation Program and others. Also included are monitoring reports from WHO and UNICEF that provide global, regional and country statistics on water and sanitation access.

JOURNAL ARTICLES

• Determinants of Performance of Community-based Drinking Water Organizations, IN: World Development 5 March 2011. R. Madrigala, EfD Central America-CATIE. (Link to abstract)
  This paper presents an institutional analysis of the underlying factors affecting the performance of community-based drinking water organizations in rural Costa Rica. More than 1,000 of these organizations provide water to 60% of the rural population and show great disparity in their performances. Using a qualitative approach and matching techniques to ensure comparability, the paper analyzes four representative communities. The results highlight the relevance of a demand-driven approach with downward accountability, working rules for tariff collection and infrastructure maintenance, and attributes of water committee members as the chief conditions that promote better financial health, infrastructure condition and user satisfaction.
• Empowering the Urban Poor to Solve Their Sanitation Problem, IN: Water Practice & Technology 2010.  Y. Ismawati. BALIFOKUS Foundation. (Link to abstract)
  To ensure that sanitation facilities serve their function in a sustainable way, a monthly community participatory monitoring has been designed. That way technical, environmental, financial and institutional aspects are mainly monitored by the community in assistance of team members. The monitoring results are used as inputs for improvement, local policy development and strategy. This paper shows that through the decentralized sanitation approach, sustainable sanitation service for the poor is possible.
• Filling the Knowledge Gap:  Monitoring Post-construction Water and Sanitation Sustainability, IN: Waterlines, Volume 29, Number 3, July 2010. K. Fogelberg. (Link to abstract)
  While progress is being made towards Millennium Development Goal 7 (ensure environmental stability), emerging research is documenting disturbing failure rates of water and sanitation systems around the world. One step in the right direction to documenting and understanding the challenges of sustainability - defined simply as continuing to function and be used over time - would be post-construction monitoring of functionality and use of systems. Although frequently recommended for the success of sustainable development efforts, post-construction monitoring activities have not been prioritized by international development organizations. This paper describes the post-construction monitoring program of one international non-governmental organization, Water For People; how it is done, what has been learned, and what programmatic and strategic changes it has produced.

REPORTS

• Access and Behavioral Outcome Indicators for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene, 2010. O. Hernandez, USAID Hygiene Improvement Project (HIP).  (Link to full-text)
  The HIP project developed this publication for USAID and other organizations to measure progress for hand washing, point-of-use water treatment, and sanitation activities and provide guidance to implementers of WASH programs on what indicators to use to measure their programs’ achievements.
• Assessing People’s Views of Infrastructure:  Methodologies to Study Urban Shared Sanitation, 2010. A. Mazeau, (WEDC), Loughborough University.  (Link to full-text)
  Providing sanitation services in low-income areas in fast-growing cities is a significant challenge for urban planners, donors and governments. Making these services sustainable by answering the needs of heterogeneous urban population is a major step to meet this challenge. This paper shows the necessity of exploring users’ views when planning sanitation facilities on low-income and high-density settlements. An initial desk based study highlights the multi-disciplinary components of urban sanitation projects and the central role played by the facilities’ users. Focusing on shared sanitation facilities, the users’ needs and perceptions are at the crossroad of the different dimensions of sustainability. Bringing together assessment  practices from social science, engineering and economics leads to new methodologies able to take a multi-dimensional picture of people’s practices and needs.
• Data Reconciliation in Southern Africa: Report on a Regional Workshop Looking at Monitoring Approaches in the Water and Sanitation Sector, 2010. WaterAid. (Link to full-text)
  In December 2009, a data reconciliation workshop was organised by WaterAid in collaboration with the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP). It aimed to support efforts to improve monitoring in the water supply and sanitation sector in the Southern Africa region. One workshop objective was to develop a common understanding of monitoring carried out at national and international levels through the sharing of methodologies used in data collection and processing.
• Long Term Sustainability Monitoring: WaterAid’s Experience in Nepal, 2010. WaterAid. (Link to full-text)
  This document intends to disseminate the knowledge and experience gained by WaterAid in Nepal about designing and implementing a multi-criteria analysis based framework for sustainability monitoring. In Nepal, WaterAid had devised and piloted a long term sustainability monitoring model in 2007, gradually adopting it as an integral part of the organizational monitoring system internally and among partners. The general objective of developing this framework is to evolve decision support mechanisms and to bring the sustainability issue into effective debates in the sector.
• Managing the Flow of Monitoring Information to Improve Rural Sanitation in East Java, 2010. Water and Sanitation Program.  (Link to full-text)
  The WSP project  team observed that while monitoring data was being generated regularly in the communities, much of this data was not reaching sub-district, district, or higher levels for regular consolidation. With the number of triggered communities running into the thousands in East Java, it had become too labor and time intensive for government outreach staff to collect data manually from each triggered community on a monthly basis. In response to this challenge, a community-based participatory outcome monitoring system was developed.
• Monitoring and Evaluation of Rural Water Supply in Uganda, 2010. A. Quinn, Royal Institute of Technology. (Link to full-text)
  Based on interviews and a document review, this study identifies challenges and difficulties that Uganda has encountered in developing both rural water supply and the corresponding monitoring and evaluation framework. From an analysis of the results, it is apparent that both the rural water supply program and the monitoring and evaluation framework are constrained by political and institutional factors at the district level. As a way forward, it is suggested that the roles and responsibilities currently accorded to district politicians be re-thought. Capacity-building efforts should be expanded, and should encompass other district actors such as politicians and extension workers.
• Monitoring Systems for Incentive Programs: Learning from Large-scale Rural Sanitation Initiatives in India, 2010. Water and Sanitation Prolgram. (Link to full-text)
  Effective monitoring is the backbone of a successful incentive program. This ensures that only those local governments that actually deserve the award are recognized, maintaining the integrity and prestige of the awards program as a whole. This guidance note describes two such monitoring systems operational in India for verification of open defecation free status of a local government.
• Performance Monitoring Instruction Sheet: Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for All, 2011. Netherlands Directorate-General for International Cooperation (DGIS). (Link to full-text)
  This document summarizes the performance monitoring framework for  the “Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for All” program  implemented by SNV, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre and local partners in Nepal, Bhutan, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The performance monitoring framework for rural sanitation and hygiene was developed jointly by SNV and IRC, with a large number of inputs from different partners and colleagues from the countries. The monitoring framework is based on the Qualitative Information System developed by IRC together with Pragmatix India.
• Progress on Sanitation and Drinking-water 2010 Update, 2010. World Health Organization, UNICEF. (Link to full-text)
  This report provides the most recent data for drinking-water and sanitation, along with the implications and trends these new data reveal for reaching the basic sanitation and safe drinking-water MDG target.
• Stages of Hygiene Monitoring: An Operational Experience from Nepal, 2010. O. Gautam, (Link to full-text)
  This paper reports operational experiences of monitoring various projects in the field from January 2007 to March 2009. Rapid-assessment provides for a quick appraisal of expected project areas and is also instrumental for gathering and identifying high-risk behaviors and areas. A baseline is crucial for describing the status and trends of the existing situation, against which predicted changes can be compared and evaluated, and actual change can be realized by monitoring. Progress monitoring is instrumental to tracking changes in people’s knowledge, attitude, and behavior after program implementation, and helps to initiate necessary actions for further improvements using the Rapid Convenient Survey tool.
• UN-Water Global Annual Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water (GLAAS), 2010. World Health Organization. (Link to full-text)
  The purpose of this report is to provide policy makers at all levels with a reliable, easily accessible, comprehensive and global analysis of the evidence to make informed decisions in sanitation and drinking-water.
• Utilizing Community-based Registers to Monitor Improved Access to Sanitation and Hygiene in Tanzania, 2011. Water and Sanitation Program. (Link to full-text)
  To increase standardization and accuracy of data collection, WSP is working with local governments and Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) committees to implement community-based and managed registers. The registers are designed to monitor progress toward improved hygiene and sanitation at the household level. The registers have been introduced by local government at the sub-village level during CLTS triggering and are the primary tool that the subvillage CLTS committee uses to monitor progress.
• Water Point Mapping in East Africa Based on a Strategic Review of Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, 2010. WaterAid.  (Link to full-text)
  Water Point Mapping (WPM) is a tool for monitoring the distribution and status of water points and can be used to inform the planning of investments to improve water supply coverage.  In rural areas WPM is most often used to highlight issues of equity and functionality at district level. WPM supports the process of establishing a baseline of water supply coverage and regular reporting as part of sector performance monitoring (SPM).  As such WPM activities can be seen as part of a broader strategy among WaterAid country programs to engage with and influence sector dialogue towards permanent sustainable rural water supply services at local, national and regional levels.

WEBSITES

• Water For People – Field Level Operations Watch (FLOW)– (Link to website)
  Combining Android cell phone technology and Google Earth software, FLOW lets field workers and others record data from tens of thousands of water points around the world. That information is then displayed on an online global map to signal whether a project is up and running, broken, or on the verge of disrepair and needs quick action.  Water For People provides FLOW to other organizations at no charge.
• WHO / UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation- (Link to website)
  This website is a resource to learn about the JMP's activities, the status of water supply and sanitation coverage and its importance for health and well-being, and to obtain detailed statistics about the use of water and sanitation facilities at different scales (global, regional and country-level).

WASHplus Weeklies will highlight topics such as Urban WASH, Indoor Air Quality, Innovation, Household Water Treatment and Storage, Handwashing, Integration, and more. If you would like to feature your organization's materials in upcoming issues, please send them to Dan Campbell, WASHplus Knowledge Resources Specialist, at dacampbell@aed.org.