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Goal 1: Adoption of a Service Delivery Approach

Goal: The adoption by the WASH sector of a service delivery approach.

Desired outcome: By 2016, the dominant paradigm in use at the international level will be based on the delivery of services rather than the construction of infrastructure. Targets for water and sanitation will be expressed in terms of sustainable and equitable service delivery and will identify the levels of service to be provided. By 2025, commitments to universal coverage will include clearly defined service levels.

Published on: 04/07/2013

In 2012, Sustainable Services at Scale (Triple-S), an IRC initiative, underwent a mid-term assessment followed by a planning process that identified 14 innovations (ranging from the use of mobile phone technology for monitoring through new models for post-construction support to the harmonisation of sector policy and guidelines) for testing in Ghana and Uganda.  Taken together, the application of these innovations promises to transform how rural water services are delivered. 2012 saw promising signs that the desired shift in sector attention from infrastructure to service delivery is under way:

  • The Government of Ghana committed to adopting a service delivery approach in its commitment statement, shared during the high-level meeting of the Sanitation and Water for All global partnership. Operational documents and guidelines now make a service delivery approach more visible.
  • The Government of Burkina Faso invited IRC to lead the working group on rural water service performance in the 2013 sector review. Key elements of IRC research work are scheduled to be integrated in the national guidelines.
  • The WHO/ UNICEF working groups formulating post–2015 WASH targets and indicators use the language of sustainability as promoted by Triple-S; IRC staff was actively involved in this process.
  • AusAID adopted service delivery as a framework of action for its support to the rural water, sanitation and hygiene sector in Timor Leste for 2012-2020, thus emphasising maintenance, services, service delivery and learning. The new AusAID strategy paper on WASH includes 'creating sustainable services' as one of its three major pillars.
  • The Dutch Government developed a sustainability clause for its WASH programming, supported by IRC.
  • In Ghana, IRC’s partnership with the Community Water and Sanitation Agency resulted in efforts to review and improve policies and practice at the national and district levels. Indicators were developed on the functionality of facilities, service levels, performance of water service providers, and performance of support functions and service authority functions.
  • Ten districts in the Northern region of Ghana received funding from UNICEF and SNV to extend IRC’s research work, using the above set of indicators.
  • In Uganda, IRC’s Triple-S supported the Mobile Phones for Improved Water Access (M4W) initiative—a collaborative endeavour with the Makerere University and SNV Uganda, which tested a cost-effective method for monitoring service delivery.

In its final full programmatic year, IRC’s WASHCost created a well-received on-line training course to help practitioners determine the life-cycle costs of providing basic water and sanitation services, from initial construction and routine maintenance to the capital expenses of eventual replacement. The life-cycle costs approach (with cost benchmarks) is adopted by a growing number of organisations in their projects and programmes:

  • More than 70 development partners, governments, private sector organisations and universities have incorporated a life-cycle costs approach in budgeting and planning for WASH.
  • The governments of Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Honduras, as well as NGOs (BRAC in Bangladesh, WaterAid, Water for People), are tracking life-cycle costs and value for money.
  • In Honduras, an IRC-organised seminar on the application of the life-cycle costs approach has led to a formal agreement with the Government to collaborate on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of sector investments.
  • In Mozambique, IRC partnered with UNICEF and ProWater Consultores to support embedding a service delivery approach into the country’s rural water and sanitation programme.
  • The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided funding for IRC to develop the WASHCost Calculator, an application that will help users conduct quick financial sustainability checks and give them access to a database of water and sanitation costs. 

Uptake and use of service delivery concepts by other actors are helping IRC in achieving its vision. This happens through a range of channels with different levels of formality. Examples in 2012 include:

  • World Bank India contracted IRC and Aguaconsult to develop the US$ 500 million sanitation component of a World Bank loan to India’s four poorest states: Bihar, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand.
  • In Ghana, a major new sustainability intervention (EIB/ AfDB Sanitation and Water for Small Towns and Rural Areas) grew out of the research findings of IRC’s Triple-S and WASHCost programmes.
  • In Bangladesh, IRC is supporting BRAC, the world’s largest NGO, on its BRAC WASH II programme to develop a holistic monitoring and information management package for programme implementation. IRC is also coordinating applied research on sanitation.
  • During 2012, IRC participated in UN-led working groups formulating post-2015 targets and indicators for the global monitoring of water and sanitation and contributed to recommendations for the inclusion of a sustainability target, with indicators relating to affordability, accountability, and financial and environmental sustainability.

Over the past five years, IRC and its partners have tested at scale more than 1,000 indicators to measure sustainability. Of these, four criteria for water, four for sanitation and three for hygiene behavioural change have been selected as the basis for IRC’s continued monitoring and advocacy work.  When integrated into existing monitoring systems, these indicators are a cost-effective way to monitor service delivered.

Finally, to establish a baseline for tracking the uptake of its transformative concepts, IRC is using Qualitative Document Analysis (QDA) to map uptake in the policy of international organisations and governments in focus countries. In 2012, QDA findings showed that asset management and financing for life-cycle costs continue to fare poorly in WASH planning frameworks, validating the need for IRC to continue its work on promoting a life-cycle costs approach.

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