Regular collection, collation and analysis of reliable data is a crucial building block in delivering sustainable services. Monitoring systems should track not only access, but the quality of a service over time, as well as performance of operators in key technical, financial, and management functions.
Published on: 16/05/2013
Basic monitoring data is critical for performance management and to enable local operators to assess problems, anticipate and address them, before the quality of service starts to deteriorate.
Setting explicit targets for the levels of service in addition to coverage also helps countries to focus their efforts to improve service delivery, measure progress and take corrective actions in an informed and targeted way at sector level.
Monitoring strategies can naturally link with water safety plans which go beyond traditional measuring of water quality and include the entire drinking-water supply chain, involving risk assessment and management. With the impact of climate change this will become increasingly more important.
Conventional monitoring methods with pen and paper are slow and prone to entry errors. New technologies can make collection and mapping of data faster and more accurate. For example: the mapping tool launched by WaterAid; or the monitoring and reporting tool of Field Level Operations Watch (FLOW). A number of similar systems are being piloted at scale and show promise in making monitoring cheaper and more reliable.
The costs of monitoring are difficult to isolate. Recent research suggests a range from a few US cents to $0.5 per person per year for data collection. Budgets must be made available to carry out monitoring on a regular basis, if data collection is to be reliable and leads to improved performance management at different levels.
Data collection is only worthwhile when subsequent steps are taken to analyse the data and feed the resulting information into decision-making processes.Please see the links below for more monitoring tools and information.