Synthesis of symposium outcomes

Synthesis of symposium outcomesJohn Butterworth/ IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre

It’s the end of the symposium• Did we just network?• Did we learn?

– Presentations, papers, demos• Did we think enough about right things?• Are we concerned about the same things?• Are there things we will do differently?• Did the right people do the thinking & talking?

Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium

Country monitoring• Government-led• Own history, own priorities, own journeys• Governments are leading, linked to sector reform and SWAPs,

progress• Right players, right accountability, right menu• Government leadership accepted: expectations about good

governance, transparency• Supporting or inhibiting?


Global-regional-national coherence• Standard global comparison vs national priorities

and contexts• Inputs and outcomes• GLAAS and JMP evolving• Flexibility and realism in regional approaches• Efforts distinct with differences understood


Monitoring human resources

• Making progress but at an early stage• Right people, right skills, right positions?• Indicators and benchmarks need refining• Message: need for staff or contribution of the

industry to the economy?


Project monitoring: vicious cycle or necessary?• Different interests, project monitoring valid• Valid roles for NGOs: challenging, innovating• NGOs challenged: lack of accountability, report more,

more directly• Lack of linkages and integration: don’t know or don’t do• Incentives and behaviours


Proliferation of sustainability-related tools• Functionality to sustainability predictors• Let the best emerge and be used• Process more important than tools• Multi-stakeholder processes• Ownership? Externally driven. Conditionality.


Sanitation and hygiene

• Services discourse is new• Post-ODF monitoring• Hygiene promotion behavioural outcomes with costs: from

research to monitoring, at project not country level• Handwashing: monitoring behaviour change• Monitoring business or monitoring for business: private

sector as a user and beneficiary of efforts


ICT

• Not a panacea, quality/quantity• Different tools• From NGO to government systems• From piles to files: huge volumes of digital data but still

hidden, where is the data?• From tools and data collection to analysis, use, capacity,

costs and governance issues


Finance

• Financial language is flowing through the sector• More finance data being collected, tracking

expenditures, Value-for-money• Examples of putting finance tools/data to use• From projects to sustained efforts, from use in

national policy making to local service delivery


Other things we learned• Monitoring is a means to an end: use not data dumps

– Keep it simple/relevant and action-orientated– Don’t collect anything that doesn’t lead to decisions and actions

• Monitoring is politics– agendas, power, influence monitoring from data collection to use,

transparency• Think about we want to communicate: fixed assets, costs to

maintain, benefits that flow in taxes


Things we didn’t learn enough about…gaps• Use: collect a lot we don’t use…service delivery• Cost of monitoring: sustainability• Transparency and accountability• Monitoring for equity, monitoring unserved• Monitoring for asset management, preventative

maintenance• Using data to engage consumers


Overall trends, big questions

• Governments investing more in national monitoring systems – Money, coordination, leadership– National is more than government– Systems go beyond sector monitoring– Use is especially important– Local government level is critical


Overall trends, big questions• More coherency or complexity in global monitoring?

– What will be standard? What will use different methods, definitions and indicators

• Project monitoring that uses, supports and reinforces national monitoring systems

• Emergence of bottom-up monitoring processes?– more sustainable? – another dimension in accountability


Overall trends, big questions

• Governments investing more in national monitoring systems

• More coherency or complexity in global monitoring?• Project monitoring that uses, supports and

reinforces national monitoring systems• Emergence of bottom-up monitoring processes?


Technology

Synthesis of symposium outcomes