2018 Final Synthesis - CS WASH) Fund...services. The MERP developed strategy mapping and context...

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HIGHLIGHTS AND LESSONS FROM THE CS WASH FUND (PHASE 2)

SEPTEMBER 2018

The CS WASH Fund is supported by the Australian Government and managed by Palladium

2018 Final Synthesis

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© 2018 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Section

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Level 4, 255 London Circuit, Canberra

Tel: +612 6178 5835

Email: [email protected]

Aid investment summary

Name CS WASH Fund (phase 2)

Sector Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH)

Aidworks number INK182

Commencement date 7 March 2013

Completion date 31 October 2018

DFAT contribution $103 million

CSO contribution $16,465,359

Implementing partners • Australian Red Cross (ARC)• Habitat for Humanity (HfH)• International Development Enterprises (iDE)• International Rescue Committee (IRC)• Live & Learn Environmental Education (LLEE)• Plan International Australia (Plan) • Save the Children Australia (SCA)

• SNV Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV)

• Thrive Networks (Thrive)• United Purpose (UP)• WaterAid (WA)• Welthungerhilfe (WHH)• World Vision Australia (WV)

Countries • Bangladesh (2 projects)• Bhutan (1 project)• Cambodia (2 projects)• Fiji (1 project)• Indonesia (1 project)• Lao PDR (1 project)• Lesotho (1 project)• Malawi (2 projects)• Mozambique (1 project)• Myanmar (1 project)

• Nepal (2 projects)• Pakistan (2 projects)• Papua New Guinea (3 projects)• Solomon Islands (1 project)• Sri Lanka (1 project)• Timor-Leste (1 project)• Vanuatu (1 project)• Vietnam (3 projects)• Zimbabwe (2 projects)

Cover photo: Traditional Authority Kaduya

displaying the Open Defecation Free certificate for

her administrative area. Her Traditional Authority

(T/A) became Open Defecation Free (ODF) in 2016,

which was the first ODF T/A in Phalombe District.

The project learned and built upon the influence

that traditional leaders can have in promoting good

sanitation practices. Photo credit: UP Malawi

mailto:washfund%40dfat.gov.au?subject=

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Recommended citation:

Bailey, B., Tyndale-Biscoe, P., Crawford, P. and Powell, B. (2018). Final Synthesis: Highlights and Lessons from the Civil Society WASH Fund (Phase 2)

Acknowledgements

The content for this Fund-wide synthesis report is

mainly drawn from the data and information in project

completion reports submitted by partner CSOs. We

thank all delivery teams for their efforts in documenting

the significant achievements, challenges and lessons

learned from implementing the Fund’s 29 projects.

Thanks also to Amanda Morgan (Fund Manager) and

Gerard Cheong (DFAT Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

Section) for valuable comments and edits.

Author details

Bruce Bailey (Griffin NRM Pty Ltd / MERP Team Leader) has 30 years’ experience in international development

projects, both on a long-term basis and as a short-term

adviser. He has extensive experience in monitoring and

evaluation in the WASH sector and was a member of the

Monitoring Review Panel for CS WASH Fund I.

Paul Tyndale-Biscoe (FH Designs Pty Ltd / MERP WASH Specialist) is an independent WASH specialist

and engineer with more than 20 years’ experience in

international development. He has worked in both

the development and humanitarian spheres across

25 countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. He has a

particular interest in research and innovative product

development and promoting evidence-based solutions

to the WASH sector.

Dr Paul Crawford (Aid-IT Solutions Pty Ltd / MERP M&E Specialist) is an independent monitoring and

evaluation (M&E) specialist and a Research Associate

of the Institute for Sustainable Futures (University

of Technology Sydney). Paul takes a ‘soft systems’

approach to M&E and learning, drawing on doctoral

research and experience in around 40 countries with a

range of development and humanitarian organisations

over more than 24 years.

Bronwyn Powell (Palladium International Pty Ltd / KALM) is a water and WASH professional, applied

researcher and manager focused on capacity building

and evidence-based practice in development. Bronwyn

has worked throughout the Asia-Pacific over the past 19

years. Bronwyn is a founding member of the Australian

WASH Reference Group and an Adjunct Fellow at The

University of Queensland.

This publication has been funded by the Australian Government through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The views expressed in this publication are the author’s alone and are not necessarily the views of the Australian Government.

Civil Society Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Fund

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Key achievements

Some key achievements of the Fund include:

• improved WASH services for 5.31 million people1 in poor target populations including 73,000

people living with disabilities;

• 35,175 WASH sector change agents (typically

government or community stakeholders)

supported to improve the delivery of WASH

services;

• more than 4,000 additional private sector providers selling WASH products and services;

• 2,335 WASH committees with women in management or technical roles;

• 1,840 WASH committees with equal

representation of women;

• 3.6 million additional people with improved knowledge of hygiene practices;

• 2 million additional households in which

handwashing is practiced;

• 2.74 million additional people with access to improved sanitation;

• 2.54 million people living in communities that

have become open defecation free;

• 215,000 additional students with access to

improved school toilets;

• 445,000 additional people with access to an improved drinking-water source;

• 145,000 additional students with access to an

improved school drinking-water source.

Executive summary

This document synthesises key achievements,

challenges, lessons and novel elements of the Civil

Society WASH Fund (the Fund) – an investment in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector by

Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

(DFAT). The Fund was a $103 million investment by

DFAT comprising 29 WASH projects implemented in 19 countries by 13 civil society organisations (CSOs) across Africa, South Asia, South East Asia and the Pacific. Implementation extended from March 2013

to October 2018. A novel aspect of the Fund’s design

– and arguably a key success factor – was the broad

but focused theory of change (ToC) that enabled unity

and coherent action across the otherwise disparate

countries, organisations and approaches. The central hypothesis of the ToC was that greater sustainability would be possible by shifting the focus of CSO WASH programming from engaging directly in WASH infrastructure and service delivery to strengthening the enabling environment for WASH services.

This document draws on completion reports submitted

to the Fund Management Team (FMT) by the 29 project

delivery teams. The completion data augments

performance data that has been compiled on a six-

monthly basis over the life of the Fund since 2013. This

document also draws on more than 1,400 knowledge

and learning (K&L) products prepared by partner CSOs;

findings from 57 monitoring visit reports drafted by the

Monitoring Evaluation and Review Panel (MERP); and

some of the 23 research and learning event synthesis

papers and briefs prepared by the Fund Management

Facility (FMF) for the Fund-wide K&L component. A

limitation faced in interpreting CSO achievements

was, with a few notable exceptions, the disappointing

quality of reporting, especially in relation to expected

changes. While most of the changes reported were

significant in terms of their likely effect on WASH

services, around half of these were not adequately

substantiated. A consequence is that CSO staff have

effectively under-reported their achievements.

1 Note that this figure comprises all the beneficiaries from individual

components but accounts for people who have benefited from more

than one component (e.g. a person who has gained access to improved

sanitation and has improved knowledge of hygiene practices is only

counted once).


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Strengthening the enabling environment

The design of the Fund emphasised greater

engagement with the enabling environment for WASH

service delivery. The enabling environment comprised

government staff, private sector actors, local CSOs

and community members engaged in WASH service

delivery – collectively referred to as change agents

(CAs). The 29 projects defined 35,175 CAs in total, including 14,087 government staff, 4,343 private sector actors and 16,505 community/local CSO members. Of the government staff, around 72% were from sub-national government. The term ‘strengthening’ in the ToC typically meant training and

mentoring CAs, with a strong focus on improving their

technical skills, and more than half of all deliverables

fell into this category. There was limited emphasis

on lobbying for greater resource allocation to WASH

services. The MERP developed strategy mapping

and context mapping tools to quantify the level

of engagement with the enabling environment by

delivery teams. Each project was mapped against

a spectrum from direct delivery at one extreme to

strengthening government systems at the other to

produce a graphical representation of the project’s

level of engagement with the enabling environment.

These maps were then set against a map of the project

context to compare across locations and quantify the

alignment of the project’s approach with its context.

This work was then supplemented with a change

agent assessment tool (CAAT), which was deployed

with each project to assess the likely sustainability

of interventions with CAs. These datasets were

then combined to explore any correlation between

engagement with the enabling environment and

likely sustainability of WASH improvements. At the

end of the Fund, analysis indicates there is a positive relationship between investment in the enabling environment and the likely sustainability of WASH CA performance, indicating that the Fund’s overall ToC – and hence DFAT’s investment – was a valid policy decision.

CLTS mapping exercise in Nowshera, Pakistan. Credit: IRC Pakistan


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WASH technical approaches

Sanitation

Overall, sanitation was the prominent achievement of the Fund, reaching an additional 2.7 million people with improved sanitation against an initial target of 1.75 million (i.e. 157% of target). The Fund’s

implementation coincided with a period of rapidly

evolving thinking in sanitation. The Fund design

required all projects to have a sanitation component.

Across the portfolio, there were examples of many

different approaches being applied to greater or lesser

effect, with community-led total sanitation (CLTS)

approaches – or variants of – the most commonly

used in rural contexts (employed in 20 of the 29

projects). A key feature of CLTS is the rejection of

subsidies for household toilet purchases, contrasting

with the health-education approaches that allow for

subsidies. Nine projects applied subsidies through a

range of mechanisms. A simple cost-benefit analysis

of the rural sanitation projects across the Fund shows

that projects applying CLTS tended to have lower project costs per beneficiary than those fully subsidising toilets. However, such results need to be treated with caution given the diverse geographical

context in which the projects were implemented and

the limitations of this type of analysis. In countries

where CLTS (or at least non-subsidy approaches) were

enshrined in the national policy, projects were able

to mobilise government counterparts to good effect.

Beyond a conducive national policy environment,

local government capacity and motivation was also found to be key. Projects that placed equal emphasis on both the supply and demand sides of sanitation

achieved significant impact. Seven projects in the Fund

concentrated on sanitation for urban, peri-urban or

small-town populations.

Women’s Union member using iDE sight seller material at a latrine sales event in Lemungtuoi Commune in Nghe An Province, Vietnam (iDE). Photo credit: iDE Vietnam


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While addressing sanitation in communities generally

delivered significant benefits across the Fund, school sanitation work was somewhat problematic for institutional and pragmatic reasons. In total, 215,255 additional students gained access to improved

sanitation compared with an original target of 349,627

(62% of target) and 451 schools achieved adequate

toilet-to-student ratios against an original target of 581

(78%). The main challenge for CSOs was that school

sanitation work, which tends to be capital intensive,

was beyond the budgets of most projects in the Fund.

Hence, projects generally worked at a limited scale or

focused on behaviour change or advocacy instead of

investing directly in sanitation hardware. Where they

did build toilet facilities, these were generally done as a

demonstration to prompt others to replicate the model.

A third of the projects worked with parent-teacher

associations (PTAs) and school committees to fundraise

or advocate for governments to resource toilet

construction. While achieving good results in some

schools, a reliance on the goodwill and dedication of volunteers is risky and unlikely to achieve uniform results or to be sustained beyond the medium term. Many projects did not approach school sanitation comprehensively. This may have been due to a lack of resources, a lack of clarity about who would

ultimately be responsible, or a deliberate limiting of the

scope. These issues are reflected to a certain degree

in the impact figures across the Fund. While these

results are still significant, the under-achievement against targets in schools stands out against the over-achievement of community sanitation targets reported above. It seems there is a significant gap in programming by CSOs to address the underlying institutional and governance reasons for why WASH in schools is not working as well as expected.

A proud couple showcasing their new toilet in Pemagatshel Tashi Dorji, Bhutan.

Photo credit: SNV Bhutan


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project delivery teams reflect that two-thirds of the committees have uncertain sustainability due to a lack of resources beyond the project and almost two-fifths of committees are either not performing to expectations, or partially performing. This finding aligns with research findings that (except

for humanitarian operations) donors should avoid

supporting water supply projects that do not address

resourcing and system strengthening.

Ownership of rural water supply assets can also

influence sustainability. Generally, projects provided

the capital to fund water infrastructure, often

constructing them directly or through sub-contractors.

Most projects required some contribution from the

community. While such tactics can go some way

towards building a sense of community ownership, this

is not assured.

Almost all of the water projects (16/17) invested in

point-of-use water treatment, with a reported 1.7 million additional people now living in households where water is safely treated and stored. Ten projects invested in water quality testing by the

responsible authorities.

Water

Although not mandatory, 17 of the Fund’s 29 projects

included a water component to complement work in

sanitation and hygiene in communities and also in

schools. These projects ultimately delivered improved water to 444,551 additional people against an original target of 568,934 (78% of target) and 144,644

additional students. The greatest access to improved

water was in Malawi, Vietnam, Pakistan and Zimbabwe.

Most (15) of the community water supplies were in

rural areas and involved building or rehabilitating

boreholes/tubewells with handpumps, wells or

gravity fed systems (GFSs). Three projects addressed

urban or peri-urban reticulation systems. Virtually

all of the rural water supply schemes supported

through the Fund rely on community management

for ongoing operation, maintenance and financing.

This generally involved setting up or supporting

WASH committees. Global experience suggests that community-based management structures on their own are generally not sustainable. Most projects sought to connect committees to local government

departments with responsibility for water supply as

a way of underpinning their function. The change

agent assessments facilitated by the MERP with

Water technician on duty. Photo credit: ARC Nepal


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number of people. In contrast, 12 projects used high

reach methods (such as radio to promulgate hygiene

behaviour messages) that could contact a large

number of people (i.e. anyone listening to the radio)

but with low exposure and hence limited influence.

Such mass approaches should augment face-to-face

work. Approaches such as participatory hygiene and

sanitation transformation (PHAST) and CLTS encourage

an integrated approach to hygiene promotion and

sanitation, urging households and communities to not

only invest in sanitation infrastructure, but to use it

appropriately.

In contrast with the school sanitation work described

above, the school hygiene promotion work was a strength of the Fund, with more than 500,000 students participating in hygiene programs (140% of the original target 406,565). One argument for working in schools is that behaviour patterns

developed in childhood are more likely to last than

those developed as adults, and further, that children

can transfer hygiene messages from school to

home, implying a degree of leverage. Broadly, most

projects took the approach to establish or strengthen

school health clubs. More than half of the projects worked to raise awareness of menstruation among school children (including boys) and addressed menstrual hygiene management (MHM) among girls. The behaviour change element was typically complemented with menstrual hygiene facilities in the

girls’ toilets, including some significant investments

such as washing facilities, incinerators and spare

clothes/pads. The underlying assumption is that girls

absent themselves from school during their periods

due to a lack of facilities or shame (or both), and so by

addressing these issues, girls’ educational outcomes

will improve. Despite strong assertions made by

delivery teams on these benefits, evidence is lacking to

support them from both the Fund and the sector more

broadly.

Hygiene

Whereas the water component discussed above

was optional, all 29 projects across the Fund were required to have a hygiene component – noting that improved hygiene behaviours are acknowledged to be the most cost-effective WASH intervention for enhancing public health outcomes. However, measuring achievements in this area is notoriously

difficult. The Fund’s performance assessment

arrangements set out four indicators: knowledge of

improved hygiene behaviour; presence of handwashing

facilities (HWF) with soap/ash and water; numbers of

students participating in hygiene behaviour campaigns;

and number of students with access to adequate HWF.

Across the Fund, there was considerable achievement

on these measures: 3.6 million additional people gained knowledge of improved hygiene practices against an original target of 2.2 million (162% of

target). Two million of these people gained access to HWF with soap and water against an original target of 1.6 million (131% of target). This again highlights the merit of using government systems to achieve impact at scale. It also highlights another sustainability issue that is prevalent in Fund projects

and the sector more broadly: a reliance on volunteerism

for hygiene promotion. Many projects implemented

hygiene promotion by mobilising local volunteers

such as village health workers. Much of this work was

effective during the life of the project, but whether such

voluntary effort will continue without project resources

or external impetus is questionable.

Across the Fund, CSOs took several different

approaches to promoting improved hygiene. In many

instances, they integrated hygiene promotion work

into the sanitation approach. The concepts of exposure

and reach are pertinent in relation to influencing the

behaviour. High exposure methods (such as multiple

community meetings, training and other routine

engagements over the life of the Fund) had significant

influence on knowledge and behaviour but were

constrained by resources and could only reach a limited


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appropriately navigated these matters, though there

was insufficient effort made to measure possible

negative consequences.

In terms of the Fund’s focus on social inclusion,

most CSOs confined themselves to ensuring PWD

were included in (or not actively excluded from)

project outcomes. Across the Fund, delivery teams

reported that nearly 73,000 PWD benefited from interventions, mostly through accessible latrines. Just four of the 13 CSOs in the Fund – WaterAid (WA),

WVA, Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) and

Habitat for Humanity (HfH) – actively partnered with

local disabled persons organisations (DPOs) and the

benefits of this were apparent in the efficacy of their

social inclusion work.

Most projects incorporated a pro-poor focus. These predominantly took the form of financing mechanisms to facilitate poor households’ access to WASH infrastructure. In countries where there is a formal system for identifying the poor, projects were

able to use such systems to target interventions. Some

of the projects worked with ethnic minorities. While the

vast majority of the Fund’s 5.3 million beneficiaries are

poor by global standards, some projects particularly

reached especially poor and vulnerable communities

and households.

The Fund’s strong focus on GESI contributed to a

broader body of knowledge and evidence for the sector,

and while numerous challenges remain, CSOs are well

placed to carry this agenda forward in the Sustainable

Development Goals period.

Gender equality and social inclusion

Gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) are cross-

cutting development priorities for DFAT. All projects were required to have a GESI component and report against key performance indicators (KPIs) concerned with the level of involvement of women and girls and people with disabilities (PWD). Most delivery teams integrated GESI across the three core

components of water, sanitation and hygiene. The main

gender focus in the Fund was to promote women’s

active participation in WASH committees as measured

by the number of WASH committees with at least 50%

women. Across the Fund 1,840 committees achieved the quota, which represented 64% of the total WASH committees involved (against a target of 78%). Slightly stronger performance was attained against the indicator ‘number of committees with women in technical or managerial roles’ (81%, or 2,335 committees). The challenge with this emphasis was to ensure that the involvement was not tokenistic and there are examples across the Fund of women

making a real contribution to the sustainability of their

WASH infrastructure.

Although much of the GESI work took place at

community level, some CSOs sought to influence gender equality within sub-national WASH institutions. Two projects – Welthungerhilfe (WHH) and World Vision Australia (WVA) in Zimbabwe – specifically sought to directly influence gender within

government institutions. The goal of challenging

gender norms through WASH programming was at

the heart of much of this work. Increasing women’s

inclusion and influence in WASH decision-making

will achieve this over time, but success factors are

context-specific. Beyond the community or institutional

level, some CSOs aimed to influence gender norms

between men and women in the home through

WASH programming. Although rare (and difficult to

measure), some cases of this occurring were reported

within the Fund. The underlying principle applied to

this work was ‘do no harm’. Most projects in the Fund


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Innovation

DFAT established an innovation and impact (I&I)

grant as a separate but related activity to the Fund

CSO grants. Its objective was to trial new models and

approaches that could have catalytic effects beyond

the Fund. Five grants were awarded. In addition to the I&I grants, Fund-wide research found more than 15 instances of innovation across the Fund. A further impetus for WASH innovation was provided through

two Civil Society Innovation Awards, sponsored by

DFAT, administered by the Fund Management Facility

(FMF) and promoted at the 2016 and 2018 Global WASH

Futures Conferences in Brisbane. The awards were

created to showcase innovative work by the not-for-

profit sector in improving WASH service delivery and

sustainability. An implicit agenda for innovation was

that there would be replication or scale-up. However,

independent research undertaken showed that a lack of

clear ownership, inadequate resourcing and ambiguous

pathways for scale-up or replication limited the impact

of innovations within the Fund.

Environment, climate change and disaster risk reduction

One recommendation from the first phase of the Fund

concerned the apparent weak focus of CSO WASH

programming in relation to potential environmental

impacts, and in some places, the need to consider

climate change adaptations, including improving

disaster risk resilience in communities. With this

background, CSOs were required to prepare a dedicated

environment, climate change and disaster risk

reduction (ECD) component in their operational plan

at inception. Nevertheless, this component remained one of the weakest aspects of CSO projects. Of the more than 700 water systems designed across the Fund,

only 430 included an analysis of the sustainable yield of the water source (61% less than planned) and few projects instigated any form of ongoing monitoring of sources to ensure adequacy of supply. Several projects reported conducting environmental

assessments and implementing design measures

to increase the resilience of water infrastructure to

natural disasters and the impacts of climate change.

A somewhat more proactive stance was evident in

relation to sanitation interventions, with almost all projects reporting some kind of environmental considerations in their sanitation activities. This typically included providing technical guidelines to

avoid contamination of water sources. Of concern was

the limited focus on safely managed sanitation and

faecal sludge management (FSM), especially in relation

to household latrines in rural areas.

During the life of the Fund, eight significant natural disasters impacted CSO project delivery to varying degrees. Approximately half of the 29 projects implemented specific activities to strengthen

community resilience to disasters. Two projects worked

with the environmental management agency to include

climate change action and disaster risk reduction

activities in local environmental action plans. In

general, however, projects across the Fund struggled

to achieve long-term sustainable gains in building the

capacity of government in this area.

Construction of portable toilet - TopWan. Photo credit: Carys Everett, LLEE Vanuatu


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Each project was required to have a K&L component in its operational plan. Across the Fund, 73% (664/910) of deliverables comprised training of various kinds,

preparation of manuals, research activities and trials.

While training was by far the dominant learning-related

activity, K&L activities also included formative research,

workshops, policy briefs, social media, webinars,

e-discussions, videos and case studies. Peer-to-peer

learning through, for example, exchange visits and

learning events, proved to be one of the most effective

learning approaches. CSOs captured their projects’

experiences in more than 1,400 K&L products. Projects

that resourced K&L appropriately and invested in

sound data collection and analysis tended to be

those that were most able to adapt and improve the

quality of programming. Organisational culture and leadership also profoundly influenced the nature and extent of learning within teams, affecting the degree of transparency in sharing, willingness

to try new approaches and adapt to changing

circumstances. Those organisations that embedded

reflection processes (such as annual retreats) into their

project management also tended to be the ones that

supported critical thinking and adaptation within their

teams. Many CSOs established strategic partnerships

with other organisations or drew on the expertise of

consultants to enhance or support certain aspects of

their projects.

Considered together, CSO and Fund-wide K&L components represent a concerted effort and investment that is unprecedented in the aid program. In concert with Fund-wide monitoring and evaluation (M&E), the K&L component has

helped shape a coherent narrative on the significant

achievements of the Fund’s participating CSOs as well

as making important contributions to the global WASH

sector dialogue and evidence-base.

Knowledge and learning

The Fund invested significant resources and intellectual rigour into knowledge and learning (K&L) at both Fund-wide and project levels. Of the $103 million invested in the Fund, approximately 4%

was allocated to CSO-led K&L and 2–3% was allocated

to Fund-wide K&L. While relatively small, this support is

unusual for DFAT investments of this nature. The Fund-

wide K&L objectives were to share and support K&L

to improve project implementation and effectiveness

and draw from projects to generate evidence-based

knowledge, as well as support innovation. This

component was led by a dedicated knowledge and

learning manager (KALM) with activities developed in

collaboration with Fund CSOs. At Fund completion, there was clear evidence of the K&L initiatives in research, learning and reflection benefitting project improvements, good practice, innovation and management. CSOs interacted through a K&L Advisory Group, which agreed priority learning themes for the

Fund: strengthening the enabling environment, GESI,

WASH markets and hygiene behaviour change. These

themes, as well as the Fund’s ToC, created common

ground for sharing across the diverse portfolio of

projects. Key activities of the Fund-wide K&L work

included learning events (four regional and two global learning and reflection events); online platforms (a Fund website – www.cswashfund.org – which was used

to house resources, host e-discussions, share news and

‘postcards from the field’, and promote WASH sector

events, training and webinars); targeted research activities (into CSO learning and effectiveness of WASH approaches); social media (important for outreach and directing traffic to the website); Global Days (World Water, World Toilet, Global Handwashing, Menstrual

Hygiene and International Women’s Days); and

innovation and impact grants (five grants of between $100,000 and $200,000).

http://www.cswashfund.org


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Consolidated recommendations

1. DFAT should continue to invest in the WASH sector through a CSO modality, noting the significant results, positive sustainability prospects, significant knowledge development and innovation aspects, and strong public diplomacy potential.

20

2. For future WASH programming, DFAT should continue to prioritise investment in the enabling environment over direct delivery of services due to the growing evidence that this fosters greater sustainability and value for money.

25

3. DFAT should commit to conducting an ex-poste study of the sustainability of change agent performance supported by the Fund.

25

4. WASH sector CSOs should analyse the political economy, identify the most relevant WASH CAs and time interventions at points that are most amenable to influencing desired changes in order to maximise impact and sustainability.

29

5. WASH sector CSOs should take a more holistic approach to WASH in schools rather than cherry-picking easy aspects. This should include further research and analysis to better understand the enablers and barriers to improving school WASH.

31

6. DFAT should require that WASH investment designs include plans to strengthen management/governance systems and to advocate for adequate resource allocation beyond the life of the project.

33

7. WASH sector CSOs should explore innovative or alternative models for the financing and management of water systems, noting the unsustainability of community management models on their own.

35

8. WASH sector CSOs and researchers should develop more reliable and valid measures of hygiene behaviour change than the commonly employed proxy-measures for handwashing.

36

9. WASH sector CSOs and actors should accrue a credible evidence base to substantiate claims that MHM activities increase girls’ attendance at school. Such an evidence base would strengthen the case for investing in school WASH in general and MHM in particular, from both health and educational standpoints.

40

10. WASH sector CSOs should proactively explore innovations that can scale up hygiene promotion beyond the volunteer-driven intensive approaches widely employed in the Fund.

40

11. WASH sector CSOs should be required to partner with DPOs to maximise benefits to PWDs. 43

12. WASH sector CSOs should proactively develop more sophisticated approaches to meaningfully deal with water resources management, FSM and other environmental and climate change adaptation issues that underpin WASH programming.

46

13. DFAT should consider including mechanisms to promote innovation in future WASH programming but should seek greater private sector involvement, adopt a more precise working definition of ‘innovation’ and insist on handover or scale-up plans as part of submission requirements.

48

14. WASH sector CSOs should plan for K&L at project outset and build data collection, analysis and reflection into work plans.

52

15. WASH sector CSOs should create clear organisational approaches to K&L that respond to analytical data and encourage reflection to enable programmatic improvements.

53

16. WASH sector CSOs should plan for and provide opportunities for interactions and peer-to-peer learning at multiple levels (CSO, community, local and sub-national government, and the WASH sector).

54

17. DFAT should continue to resource K&L in future WASH investments for its multiple and reinforcing benefits to project and WASH effectiveness.

54


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Contents

Acknowledgements 1

Executive summary 2

Consolidated recommendations 11

Acronyms & abbreviations 14

List of civil society organisations 15

1 Introduction 16

1.1 Purpose 16

1.2 Overview 16

1.3 Methodology 17

2 Key achievements of the Fund 19

3 Synthesis of Fund performance 21

3.1 Improving the WASH enabling environment 22

3.2 Effectiveness of technical approaches 26

3.2.1 Sanitation 26

3.2.2 Water 32

3.2.3 Hygiene 36

3.2.4 Gender equality and social inclusion 41

3.2.5 Environment, climate change and disaster risk reduction 45

3.2.6 Innovation 46

3.3 Knowledge and learning 48

3.3.1 Fund-level K&L 48

3.3.2 Project-level K&L 52

4 Conclusion 55

Appendix A: Fund achievements 56

Appendix B: The Fund modality 67

Appendix C: Governance and leadership arrangements 69

Appendix D: Theory of change 72

Appendix E: M&E arrangements 76


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Table of figuresFigure 1: Fund completion report-scoring framework 17

Figure 2: Level of significance and substantiation in reporting expected changes and impacts

by each of the 29 projects 18

Figure 3: Number of training deliverables directed at each type of change agent 22

Figure 4: Approaches taken by CSOs to strengthen the enabling environment for WASH service delivery

(number of deliverables) 22

Figure 5: Strategy spectrum for engagement with enabling environment 23

Figure 6: Examples of strategy and context maps 24

Figure 7: Relationship between engagement with enabling environment and sustainability 25

Figure 8: Regional breakdown of beneficiaries (number of additional people using an improved

sanitation facility) 26

Figure 9: Sanitation demand creation approaches employed in rural sanitation 26

Figure 10: Simple cost-benefit analysis of projects with a rural sanitation component 28

Figure 11: Distribution of water supply beneficiaries across Fund countries (number of additional

people using an improved drinking-water source) 32

Figure 12: CAAT assessment of water committee sustainability 33

Figure 13: Achievement of handwashing facility targets (number of additional people with

handwashing facilities with soap/ash in their household) 37

Figure 14: Communities of practice represented as interactions between WASH professionals through time,

within and across organisations 49

Figure 15: K&L products shared by CSOs 54

Figure 16: The three classes of actor and their corresponding roles within the overall theory of change 74

Figure 17: Fund reporting and analysis tools 78

Figure 18: M&E notes series 78

Figure 19: Change agent assessment tool 79

Figure 20: Key M&E events 80

Table of tablesTable 1: Key achievements of the Fund, phase 2 19Table 2: Overview of Fund learning events 49

Table of boxesBox 1: SNV in Bhutan 27Box 2: Public-private partnership 34Box 3: Output-based aid 35Box 4: Engaging with DPOs in Sri Lanka 44Box 5: ARC Lesotho 45Box 6: Significant natural disasters 46Box 7: Innovation 47Box 8: Nudges for handwashing: scaling innovation through adaptation by others 47Box 9: Learning event ‘marketplaces’ 50Box 10: IRC Pakistan 53


14

ANCP Australian NGO Cooperation Program

CA change agent

CAAT change agent assessment tool

CBSE community-based sanitation enterprise

CLTS community-led total sanitation

CoP community of practice

CSO civil society organisation

DFAT Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

DFAT WSH DFAT’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Section

DPO disabled persons organisation

ECD environment, climate change and disaster risk reduction

FM fund manager

FMF Fund Management Facility

FMT Fund Management Team

FSM faecal sludge management

GESI gender equality and social inclusion

GFS gravity-fed system

HWF handwashing facilities

I&I innovation and impact

IEC information, education and communication

KALM knowledge and learning manager

K&L knowledge and learning

KPI key performance indicator

M&E monitoring and evaluation

MERP Monitoring, Evaluation and Review Panel

MDGs Millennium Development Goals

MHM menstrual hygiene management

Acronyms & abbreviations


15

MIS management information system

OBA output-based aid

ODF open defecation free

PHAST participatory hygiene and sanitation transformation

PHHE participatory health and hygiene education

PTA parent-teacher association

PRT progress reporting tool

PWD people with disabilities

SDGs Sustainable Development Goals

The Fund Civil Society WASH Fund

ToC theory of change

WASH water, sanitation and hygiene

List of civil society organisations

ARC Australian Red Cross

HfH Habitat for Humanity

iDE International Development Enterprises

IRC International Rescue Committee

LLEE Live and Learn Environmental Education

Plan Plan International

SCA Save the Children Australia

SNV Netherlands Development Organisation

Thrive Thrive Networks, also known as East Meets West Foundation

UP United Purpose

WA WaterAid

WHH World Hunger Help (Welthungerhilfe)

WVA Word Vision Australia


16

1.2 Overview

The Fund was a $103 million investment by DFAT

comprising 29 WASH projects implemented in 19

countries by 13 CSOs across Africa, South Asia, South

East Asia and the Pacific. Implementation extended

from March 2013 to October 2018. Referred to as ‘Phase

2’, it followed—and built on—an initial Civil Society

WASH Fund (‘Phase 1’) that ran from June 2009 to

December 2011, and is the predecessor to the current

Water for Women Fund. A comprehensive overview of

the Fund’s achievements is attached as Appendix A.

The Fund was executed through a novel modality

coordinated by a Fund Management Team (FMT)

comprising DFAT, the Fund Management Facility (FMF)7

and the Monitoring Evaluation and Review Panel

(MERP). The Fund modality is described in Appendix

B. The governance and leadership arrangements are

discussed in Appendix C.

A novel aspect of the Fund’s design – and arguably a

key success factor – was the broad but focused theory

of change (ToC) that enabled unity and coherent action

across the otherwise disparate countries, organisations

and approaches. In line with broader sector trends

and a move towards sector strengthening, the central

hypothesis of the ToC was that greater sustainability

would be possible by shifting the focus of CSO

WASH programming from engaging directly in WASH

infrastructure and service delivery to strengthening the

enabling environment for WASH services. The Fund’s

ToC is elaborated in Appendix D.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

1.1 Purpose

This document synthesises key achievements, challenges, lessons and novel elements of the Civil Society WASH Fund 2 (the Fund)3 – an investment in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

The document was prepared as part of investment

completion reporting4 by the Monitoring, Evaluation

and Review Panel (MERP) engaged by DFAT.5 The

primary audience for the report is DFAT’s Water,

Sanitation and Hygiene Section (DFAT WSH) – the unit

within DFAT responsible for Fund management on

behalf of the Australian Government – and the 13 civil

society organisations (CSOs) that comprise the Fund.

A secondary audience is CSOs engaged in DFAT’s next

phase of investment in the WASH sector – the ‘Water

for Women Fund’6 – and other sections of DFAT that

have – or are considering – administering aid through a

CSO-led modality. A third audience is the wider WASH

sector, noting the significant knowledge and learning

(K&L) contributions of the Fund.

2 Specifically phase 2 of the Fund, spanning 2012–2018.

3 See www.cswashfund.org. 4 Along with the Activity Completion Report (ACR), which is an internal DFAT document.

5 The MERP was comprised of three members: Bruce Bailey (Team Leader), Paul Tyndale-Biscoe (WASH Specialist) and Paul Crawford (M&E Specialist).

6 See www.waterforwomenfund.org/en/index.aspx. 7 The FMF was contracted to Palladium International Pty Ltd and comprised a fund manager, knowledge and learning manager (KALM) and program coordinator.

http://www.cswashfund.orghttp://www.waterforwomenfund.org/en/index.aspx


17

1.3 Methodology

This document draws on completion reports submitted

to the MERP by the 29 project delivery teams through a

prescribed template – the project reporting tool (PRT).

The completion data augments performance data that

has been compiled on a six-monthly basis over the life

of the Fund since 2013. This document also draws on

more than 1,400 K&L products prepared by partner

CSOs and findings from 57 monitoring visit reports

drafted by the MERP. An overview of the full monitoring

and evaluation (M&E) system that underpins this

synthesis document is provided in Appendix E.

In preparing this synthesis, the MERP and knowledge

and learning manager (KALM) reviewed all quantitative

and qualitative data submitted by CSOs. Quantitative

achievements were benchmarked against key

performance indicator (KPI) targets set at the Fund’s

inception. Qualitative (or narrative) information was

mapped against the Fund’s performance assessment

framework, with each reported achievement

submitted by CSOs categorised in terms of its

significance (i.e. the importance of the reported change

vis-à-vis lasting WASH benefits) and substantiation (i.e.

the extent to which CSOs substantiated their reported

achievements). The achievements presented in this

report feature content that was rated ‘significant and

substantiated’. In practice, this meant a rating of four

or five for both significance and substantiation on a

five-point ordinal scale. See Figure 1 below for the

categorisation schema and rubric.

Figure 1: Fund completion report-scoring framework

Rating Significance Substantiation Rating

Expected Changes Impact

Non-WASH or incidental change Non-WASH or incidental impact unrelated to project Assertion of change with no evidence

Minor WASH change involving small number of change agents

Minor WASH impact involving small target population and unlikely to be sustained

Assertion of change with anecdotal evidence

Modest change involving Change Agents but unlikely to impact target population/WASH services

Modest WASH impact involving notable target population with modest sustainability prospects

Reported change with self-assessment findings

Modest change involving change agents and likely to impact target population/WASH services

Modest WASH impact involving large target population with good sustainability prospects

Reported change with systematic/series monitoring data

Impressive change involving influential change agents and likely to impact target population/WASH services

Impressive WASH impact involving large target population with strong sustainability prospects

Verifiable or independently evaluated findings

‘Inadequate’ ‘Inconsequential’

‘Significant’‘Unsubstantiated’

HighLow

Low

High

Substantiation

Significance


18

A limitation faced in interpreting CSO achievements

was, with a few notable exceptions, the disappointing

quality of reporting, especially in relation to expected

changes. The chart in Figure 2 shows that while most of

the changes reported in relation to change agents (CAs)

were significant in terms of their likely effect on WASH

services, around half of these were not adequately

substantiated.8 A possible consequence is that CSO staff

have under-reported their achievements. The quality of

reporting was somewhat better for project impacts, in

part because many CSOs commissioned independent

evaluations or used more systematic methods to assess

changes in target populations. This situation suggests

that CSOs should further invest in strengthening staff

reporting skills 9 – in particular, knowing the difference

between assertions and arguments.

8 Most commonly, CSO staff made assertions about changes observed but without supplying any evidence or describing the basis on which the claim was made.

9 The weakest reporting – for both expected changes and impact—was evident among projects in the Pacific, reflecting the broader challenges and lack of

progress in project delivery in this region.

Figure 2: Level of significance and substantiation in reporting expected changes and impacts by each of the 29 projects

David used his salary from the project to build an accessible toilet,

Bulawayo Zimbabwe. Photo credit: A. Jalanski, World Vision

Sign

ifica

nce

Substantiation

Sign

ifica

nce

Substantiation

Expected Changes

Impacts

Southern Africa

South Asia

East Asia

Pacific


19

CHAPTER 2

Key achievements of the Fund

Phase 2 of the Fund ran for essentially five years and longer for some CSOs10 involved in phase 1. This timeframe, combined with the scale of the investment and the narrow focus on enabling sustainable WASH services, cumulatively generated significant results. These results represent a substantial contribution by the Australian Government and CSO sector to the global WASH agenda.11 Table 1 summarises some of the key achievements of the second phase of the Fund.12

10 ARC, LLEE, Plan, SNV, Thrive, WA, WVA. Phase 1 ran from June 2010 to December 2011.

11 See www.un.org/millenniumgoals/environ.shtml. 12 Provided in addition to M&E Note 10 in Appendix A.

13 Request and response mechanisms are systems established by WASH service providers to process customer complaints and requests for assistance.

Key objective:

To enhance the health and quality of life of the poor and vulnerable by improving sustainable access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene.

Improved WASH services for 5.31 million people in poor target populations (compared to the original target of 3.5 million) including 73,000 people living with disabilities. Beneficiaries were women, girls, men and boys in remote island communities, slums, remote rural communities, geographic areas under stress (e.g. flood prone or disaster affected), poor communities and ethnic minority groups.

Outcome 1:

Improved performance of actors in the WASH enabling environment

35,175 WASH sector change agents (typically government or community stakeholders) supported to improve the delivery of WASH services.

2,886 WASH committees comprising 34,000 members supported.

855 additional service providers with functioning ‘request and response’ mechanisms13.

More than 4,000 additional private sector providers selling WASH products and services.

Outcome 2:

Improved gender equality

2,335 WASH committees with women in management or technical roles (52% more than planned).

1,840 WASH committees with equal representation of women (11% less than planned).

427 WASH-related institutions now actively implementing a gender equality policy (130% more than planned).

Table 1: Key achievements of the Fund, phase 2

http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/environ.shtml


20

Outcome 3:

Improved WASH evidence and knowledge base

More than 1,400 K&L products received over the life of the Fund covering a diverse range of topics.

Nearly 600 CSO and partner staff attending the Fund’s six learning events.

60 peer-reviewed publications.

23 Fund-wide and regional thematic synthesis publications capturing CSO project learning.

Outcome 4:

Improved hygiene behaviour

3.6 million additional people with improved knowledge of hygiene practices (62% more than planned).

2 million additional households in which handwashing is practiced (according to proxy: locations with handwashing facilities with soap or ash) (31% more than planned).

348,000 additional students with access to an adequate number of school handwashing facilities with soap (1% more than planned).

Outcome 5:

Increased use of equitable sanitation services

2.74 million additional people with access to improved sanitation (57% more than planned).

2.54 million people living in communities that have become open defecation free (51% more than planned).

215,000 additional students with access to improved school toilets (38% less than planned).

Outcome 6:

Increased use of improved and equitable water supply services

445,000 additional people with access to an improved drinking-water source (22% less than planned).

145,000 additional students with access to an improved school drinking-water source (2% more than planned).

1.77 million additional people living in households where water is safely treated and stored (26% more than planned).

Recommendation:

1. DFAT should continue to invest in the WASH sector through a CSO modality, noting the significant

results, positive sustainability prospects, significant knowledge development and innovation aspects,

and strong public diplomacy potential.


21

the Fund, focusing on relative strengths and weaknesses. Recommendations for future programming are inserted in the narrative where they arise (blue boxes) and consolidated in a numbered list on page 11.

CHAPTER 3

Synthesis of Fund performance

This section discusses the performance of the Fund in relation to the broad intent to strengthen the enabling environment for WASH services in poor communities, followed by a discussion of the key technical components for

District Health Officer in Samtse District in the south of Bhutan (SNV). Photo credit: Photo: Bruce Bailey


22

The term ‘strengthening’ in the ToC typically

meant training and mentoring CAs, particularly to

improve their technical skills, with more than half

of all deliverables falling into this category (see

Figure 4). There was also a focus on process/system

improvement; addressing incentives and motivation;

and lobbying to increase human resource levels. CSOs

reported limited emphasis on lobbying for greater

resource allocation to WASH services.

3.1 Improving the WASH enabling environment

The Fund’s design emphasised greater engagement

with the enabling environment for WASH service

delivery. For the purposes of the Fund, with its

actor-based approach to project design and

management14, the enabling environment comprised

government staff, private sector actors, local CSOs

and community members engaged in WASH service

delivery – collectively referred to as change agents

(CAs). The Fund’s ToC asserted that strengthening

the performance of these agents, and moving away

from CSOs directly delivering WASH services, would

ultimately enhance the sustainability of the Fund’s

investments.15

The 29 projects defined 35,175 CAs in total, including

14,087 government staff, 4,343 private sector actors

and 16,505 community/local CSO members. Most

projects focused on the sub-national level: of the

government staff, 72% were from sub-national

government (see Figure 3).

14 See Appendices D and E for more details on the Fund’s actor-based approach to project design and management.

15 See Appendix D.

Figure 3: Number of training deliverables directed at each type of change agent

Figure 4: Approaches taken by CSOs to strengthen the enabling environment for WASH service delivery (number of deliverables)

CommunityMember, 23

Local NGOPartners, 10

National/Sub National, 143

365Training Deliverables

Teachers/Students, 42

Private Sector, 47

Community ChangeAgent, 100

10

23

28

38

42

47

49

49

52

56

66

87

100

110

143

Coordination with sector actors

Direct delivery of WASH service(s)

Preparing strategies and plans

Financial/logistical support to change agents

Training private sector change agents

Training school teachers/student groups

Knowledge and learning - internal

Development of WASH hardware products

Training community members directly

Training local NGO partners

Knowledge and learning - external

Training community change agents

Studies/research/reviews/ trials

Training national/sub-national change agents

Preparation of guidelines, manuals & other ...


23

example, Live and Learn Environmental Education’s

(LLEE’s) community-based sanitation enterprises

(CBSEs) in PNG, Solomon Islands, Fiji and Vanuatu, and

WA’s work in PNG and Timor-Leste with local CSOs.17

Within the Fund’s performance assessment

arrangements and approach to K&L, an attempt was

made to quantify the level of engagement with the

enabling environment taken by individual projects.

As part of a strategy and context mapping tool developed by the MERP, a strategy spectrum was

defined, stretching from direct delivery at one extreme

to strengthening government systems at the other

(Figure 5).

Despite this emphasis on working with CAs, the

depth of engagement with the enabling environment

varied across the Fund, with many projects taking a

direct delivery approach in much of their work, and

reasons for this varied. Projects delivered by United

Purpose (UP) in Malawi, the Australian Red Cross (ARC)

in Lesotho and Save the Children Australia (SCA) in

Myanmar began with many of their deliverables focused

on directly building infrastructure in communities.

Over time, they amended their approach to a more

facilitative role with government or community actors

doing more of the on-the-ground work. Others, such

as International Development Enterprises (iDE) in

Cambodia, continued to implement much of their

project directly, arguing that this was the best modality

to achieve universal sanitation coverage in their target

areas16 – an argument borne out by their impressive

KPI results. At the other end of the spectrum, projects

delivered by Plan International (Plan) Indonesia

and Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV)

Bhutan implemented entirely through government

counterparts and systems. In countries with weak

or non-existent government systems and capacity,

projects either had no choice but to implement directly

– for example WVA’s project in Papua New Guinea (PNG)

– or attempt to strengthen community actors – for

Figure 5: Strategy spectrum for engagement with enabling environment

16 iDE’s project in Cambodia worked with a large private-sector cohort as its primary CA, addressing the supply side of sanitation,

while demand was stimulated by the project’s delivery team.

17 Wherever possible, these projects attempted to engage with the relevant government actors at sub-national or national level,

even if only keeping them informed of activities.

STRENGTHENING THE SECTOR /

GOVERNMENT / PRIVATE SECTOR

SUPPORTING THE SECTOR /

GOVERNMENT / PRIVATE SECTOR

COLLABORATING WITH THE SECTOR /

GOVERNMENT /

IMPLEMENTING THROUGH A

PARTNER

IMPLEMENTINGDIRECTLY

A provincial project steering committee meeting for Thrive’s project in Thai

Nguyen Province, Vietnam. Photo credit: Bruce Bailey


24

Each project was mapped against this spectrum to

produce a ‘strategy map’ – a graphical representation

of the project’s level of engagement with the enabling

environment in each of the key components of a typical

WASH project: WASH infrastructure; behaviour change;

GESI; environment, climate change and disaster risk

reduction (ECD); and policy and governance. These

maps were set against a map of the project context to

compare across locations (Figure 6) and quantify the

alignment of the project’s approach with the context.

After the Fund’s mid-term, another tool – the change agent assessment tool (CAAT) – was deployed with each project to assess the likely sustainability of

interventions with CAs. The process examined the

likelihood that CA performance improvements would

endure in terms of people, skills, systems, resources

and motivation.

These two datasets were combined to check for

any correlation between engagement with the

enabling environment and likely sustainability of CA

performance improvements. Although largely drawing

on the professional – but nonetheless subjective –

judgement of the delivery teams, the fine granularity of

the individual data points and assessments, the large

number of projects and facilitation methods deployed

with the tools all lent validity to the results gleaned

from these two processes. As illustrated in Figure 7,

at Fund completion, evidence indicates there is a positive relationship between investment in the enabling environment and the likely sustainability of WASH CA performance. This suggests that the Fund’s overall ToC – and hence DFAT’s investment – was a valid policy decision. This type of analysis is rare in an investment of this size and nature and

provides a compelling argument for both DFAT and

the CSOs to invest resources in ex-poste monitoring to

allow the CAAT process to be repeated in several years’

time to definitively check whether CA performance

improvements have endured and if this has indeed led

to sustainable improvements in WASH service delivery

for communities.

Figure 6: Examples of strategy and context maps

Infrastructure

BehaviourChange

Policy andGovernance

Environment,Climate Change and DRR

Gender andSocial Inclusion

Country Context Map

Project Strategy Map

Infrastructure

BehaviourChange




Infrastructure

BehaviourChange





25

Figure 7: Relationship between engagement with enabling environment and sustainability

Recommendations:

2. For future WASH programming, DFAT

should continue to prioritise investment

in the enabling environment over direct

delivery of services due to the growing

evidence that this fosters greater

sustainability and value for money.

3. DFAT should commit to conducting an ex-

poste study of the sustainability of change

agent performance supported by the Fund.

Government Health Assistant facilitating a Community Development for Health

workshop in Bhutan (SNV). Photo credit: Bruce Bailey

Stra

tegy

/Con

text

Alig

nmen

t

R = 0.30116

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

5.0 5.5 6.0 6.5 7.0 7.5 8.0 8.5 9.0 9.5 10.0Sustainability Score

Strategy/Context Alignment vs Sustainability


26

effect but overall, increasing sanitation access was the prominent achievement of the Fund, which reached an additional 2.7 million people with improved sanitation against an initial target of 1.75 million (i.e. 157% of target).18

The bulk of the Fund’s sanitation beneficiaries are in

South and East Asia and Southern Africa, as illustrated

in Figure 8. Regional beneficiary figures perhaps

reflect the influence of population density and other contextual factors but may also be suggestive of the

efficacy of different sanitation interventions used in the

different regions.

CLTS-type approaches were the most commonly used

in rural contexts, employed in 20 of the 29 projects

(Figure 9).

3.2 Effectiveness of technical approaches

This section discusses key achievements and challenges

in relation to the key technical components of the Fund,

with examples drawn mostly from cases categorised as

significant and substantiated (as per Figure 1):

• sanitation

• water supply

• hygiene behaviour change

• GESI

• ECD

• innovation

• knowledge and learning.

3.2.1 Sanitation

Fund implementation coincided with a period of

change and rapidly evolving thinking in sanitation.

Campaigns such as the Gates Foundation ‘re-invent the

toilet’ competition helped to draw the WASH sector’s

focus onto the technical side of sanitation, while

behaviour change approaches such as community-led

total sanitation (CLTS) were increasingly written into

sanitation policies and applied nationally in many

countries. There was also a growing recognition that

there were no ‘silver bullets’ or single solutions to

achieving universal sanitation coverage and the earlier,

somewhat inflexible or ideological stances to sanitation

approaches, were replaced by more pragmatic and

evidence-based attitudes. This was particularly so

with the advent of the Sustainable Development Goals

(SDGs) and the imperative to address all aspects of

sanitation while ‘leaving no-one behind’.

The Fund design emphasised sanitation, with all projects required to have a sanitation component.

Across the portfolio, there were examples of many

different approaches being applied to greater or lesser

18 Interestingly, the initial target for basic sanitation was correspondingly downgraded from 825,353 to 307,722, in part due to a higher than anticipated level

of basic sanitation coverage, but also the general strong demand for improved latrines over basic types (and in some locations a blurring of the distinction

between basic and improved sanitation).

Figure 9: Sanitation demand creation approaches employed in rural sanitation

Figure 8: Regional breakdown of beneficiaries (number of additional people using an improved sanitation facility)

755K

450K527K

19K

1,381K

885K

426K

16K

East Asia South Asia Southern Africa Pacific

Planned Achieved

CLTS & variants, 20

PHAST, 7

Other, 2

Sanitation Approach (number of projects)


27

A key feature of CLTS is the rejection of subsidies for

household toilet purchases, contrasting with the

health-education approaches such as participatory

hygiene and sanitation transformation (PHAST),

participatory health and hygiene education (PHHE),

output-based aid (OBA) and healthy islands19 that

allow for subsidies. The way subsidies were applied

varied considerably. Thrive Networks’ OBA projects

in Cambodia and Vietnam provided households with

a partial rebate upon verified completion of their

toilet. iDE tested a ‘smart subsidy’ voucher system

in Cambodia through the innovation and impact

(I&I) grant mechanism, finding it did not distort the

wider latrine market.20 Several projects, such as ARC’s

project in Lesotho, required households to provide a

contribution in the form of labour and local materials

but all purchased materials were given by the project.

Some projects, such as those delivered by ARC and

Habitat for Humanity (HfH) in Bangladesh, provided full

subsidies to poor households but encouraged better-off

households to buy toilets themselves, either directly or

with concessional loans.

19 While Healthy Islands allows subsidies, WVA’s use of the approach did not involve household subsidies (i.e. only providing toilets at schools and clinics).

20 Further analysis of the intersection of no-subsidy/market-based and targeted subsidy approaches in Fund projects can be found in the following report Civil

Society WASH Fund, Bridging private and public spheres for improved sanitation: Synthesis Report of the East Asia Regional Learning Event, Hanoi, Vietnam,

12–15 July 2016.

At the national level, SNV’s project built the capacity

of the Public Health Engineering Division of Bhutan’s

Ministry of Health to coordinate and deliver the rural

sanitation and hygiene program, which was developed

and tested with SNV’s support. This included helping

the division to develop and implement strategies,

plans, guidelines, tools and training programs.

At sub-national (district) level, the project team

and divisional staff trained various CAs, including

local health workers, to deliver the program to rural

communities, specifically to encourage householders

to upgrade to a hygienic latrine and improve hygiene

practices. A ‘community development for health’

process informed the program’s approach.

The division secured funds from development partners

including UNICEF and Red Cross to expand the

program to six new districts; as a result the program

has now been successfully implemented in 10 of

Bhutan’s 20 districts.

Box 1: SNV in Bhutan

Training masons in septic tank construction in Ben Tre Province, Vietnam (Thrive). Photo credit: Bruce Bailey


28

A number of factors seemed to enhance the efficacy of

CLTS approaches in several of the projects. In countries where CLTS, or at least a non-subsidy approach, is enshrined in national policy, projects were able to mobilise government counterparts to good effect22. This was notably the case with Plan’s project in Indonesia where there was a strong national policy

in place but a gap in knowledge about implementation

at sub-national level. Plan identified this and was

able to advocate for budget and provide support to

the provincial government to fill this gap and enable

scale-up. Similarly, projects delivered by Plan and

the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Pakistan

capitalised on a strong sanitation policy and built on

longevity in the sector to leverage effective involvement

of government counterparts. A particularly noteworthy

example within the Fund was Nepal, where CLTS is the

nationally endorsed approach, and the Government

of Nepal has been implementing an open defecation

free (ODF) campaign to achieve universal coverage.23

Projects implemented by ARC and SNV firmly aligned

with the national ODF campaign and (mostly) achieved

ODF status in their target districts. ARC’s project, which

A simple cost-benefit analysis21 of the rural sanitation projects across the Fund illustrates the relative cost

of subsidised and non-subsidised approaches. Figure

10 shows that projects applying CLTS tended to have

lower costs per beneficiary (i.e. the right-hand side

of the chart), while those fully subsidising toilets are

reflected on the left. Specifically, toilets provided in the

Western Province of PNG cost around 75 times more

than in Indonesia where no subsidies were provided. Of

course, such analysis should be approached cautiously

as there are many underlying considerations including

the full lifecycle costs and the geographic context in

which the project was working. For example, WVA built

toilets at schools and health clinics in extremely remote

locations of PNG, whereas Plan’s project in Indonesia

was entirely household focused with no subsidised

input.

Interestingly, as the Fund drew to a close and the next

phase began, several projects that initially opposed any

form of subsidy for household toilets explored smart

subsidies as part of a pro-poor approach aligned with

the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda, to

reach the ‘last mile’.

Figure 10: Simple cost-benefit analysis of projects with a rural sanitation component

21 Costs are calculated as follows: (grant value + proportion of global costs + CSO contribution) x (breakdown of commitment to sanitation). Beneficiaries are

calculated as follows: (no. of people gaining access to basic sanitation + no. of people gaining access to improved sanitation + no. of students gaining access

to improved sanitation in schools) x (proportion of project funds committed towards rural sanitation).

22 This was further enhanced in countries where DFAT have related bi-lateral WASH investments, such as the National Rural Water Supply and Sanitation

(PAMSIMAS) program in Indonesia, and the Partnership for Human Development program in Timor-Leste.

23 This campaign sought to achieve universal coverage by the end of 2017. While the government failed to meet this deadline, the country is on track to achieve

ODF status in 2018.

299 288

157130

113 102

6343 32 28 24 22 21 20 18 13 11 8 7 5 5 4


29

a quarter of the Fund’s entire sanitation impact. SNV’s

‘sustainable sanitation and hygiene for all’ program

defined four key elements for achieving universal

sanitation, of which two were supply and demand.

Projects implemented by SNV in Nepal and Bhutan

both invested in developing networks of local masons

and technicians to balance government-led demand

creation activities – CLTS in Nepal and a tailored

approach in Bhutan.25 In the Pacific, LLEE’s portfolio of

projects trialled sanitation marketing in the Western

Pacific, establishing new entities – Community-based

Sanitation Enterprises (CBSEs) – in an attempt to

address both supply and demand sides of sanitation.

However, due to a range of reasons, including an initial

lack of clarity about the role and structure of the CBSEs

and the approach to stimulating demand, low capacity,

land tenure issues and the high cost of doing business

in the Pacific, they struggled to gain a foothold in the

market or demonstrate significant impact using this

approach. LLEE radically restructured the CBSEs with

a stronger business focus towards the end of the Fund

and about half the CBSEs started to gain traction.

Seven projects in the Fund concentrated on sanitation for urban, peri-urban or small-town populations. Some of the peri-urban areas in Zimbabwe and

Mozambique resembled rural communities with limited

or no services available, hence leading these projects

(Welthungerhilfe (WHH) – and WA respectively) to

employ CLTS-type approaches. In their Zimbabwe

projects, WHH and WVA invested in rehabilitating

dilapidated town sewerage and sewage treatment

systems. The cost of these investments was relatively

high, and the resultant direct impacts (in terms of

numbers of additional people with access to improved

sanitation) difficult to measure. However, the important

impact from both projects was kick-starting local council service delivery and reversing the vicious cycle of non-payment–non-service delivery.

was implemented directly, achieved ODF status in

one district, whereas SNV’s project, which leveraged

government involvement, covered eight.24

Beyond a conducive national policy environment,

local government capacity and motivation was also found to be key. For example, in Timor-Leste and PNG, new national sanitation policies specify non-subsidy

approaches, but weak sub-national government

counterparts limited the ability of WaterAid’s (WA’s)

and WVA’s projects to work through government

systems. While a similar situation exists in Malawi, both

Plan and UP pursued an explicit agenda to mobilise local authorities (district officials, local chiefs and other leaders). Their projects were then able to use

the influence of these key CAs to good effect and

dramatically increase sanitation coverage.

Projects that placed equal emphasis on both the

supply and demand sides of sanitation achieved significant impact. Notable examples were iDE’s

sanitation marketing projects in Cambodia and

Vietnam, which established, trained and supported

networks of sales agents (Cambodia) and government

staff (Vietnam) to stimulate demand, and supported

local latrine manufacturers to meet the new demand.

The iDE projects invested effort in balancing supply and

demand to minimise bottlenecks, ultimately reaching

more than 700,000 people with new toilets – more than

24 Note that SNV’s two target districts in the Terai, bordering India, were not quite ODF at the end of the project, largely due to the influence of India’s subsidised

sanitation policy, but the six target districts in the mid-west were all ODF.

25 The project assessed CLTS, particularly the shaming aspects used in triggering, as unsuitable in the Bhutanese context.

Recommendation:

4. WASH sector CSOs should analyse the

political economy, identify the most

relevant WASH CAs and time interventions

at points that are most amenable to

influencing desired changes in order to

maximise impact and sustainability.


30

infrastructure costs and lack of government co-

contribution. WVA in Zimbabwe and WA in Mozambique

also built or rehabilitated school toilet blocks in several

schools to showcase their approach but without a clear

plan for who or how the model would be replicated

or scaled. In other locations, such as ARC’s project in

Bangladesh, toilet blocks were built to a high standard,

but were insufficient in number to achieve the national

toilet-to-student ratio in all of the schools supported.

A third26 of the projects worked with parent-teacher

associations (PTAs) and school committees to fundraise or advocate for governments to resource toilet construction. While these projects achieved good results in some schools (e.g. Gwanda, Zimbabwe), their

reliance on the goodwill and dedication of volunteers

was risky and unlikely to achieve uniform results or to

be sustained beyond the medium term. Also, such an

approach is unlikely to be replicated or scaled up

without commensurate funding. Further, there is little

room for influencing the quality of construction or even

ensuring adequate toilet-to-student ratios, particularly

in countries where there are no national standards.27

Lastly, the ongoing maintenance and management of

the facilities are not assured, relying again on the

motivation of volunteers in perpetuity.

While addressing sanitation in communities generally

delivered significant benefits to communities across

the Fund, school sanitation work was somewhat problematic for both institutional and pragmatic reasons. In some countries, the mandate for school

sanitation is unclear, falling between departments of

education, infrastructure or health, with each passing

responsibility to the other. In other locations, the agency

responsible may be clear, but under-resourcing results

in failure to take responsibility or outsourcing to CSOs.

Further, school WASH (including sanitation), which

tends to be capital intensive, was beyond the budgets

of most projects in the Fund, and the first to be dropped

or scaled back in the face of budget constraints such

as foreign currency exchange losses. Hence, projects generally worked at a limited scale, or focused on behaviour change or advocacy instead of investing directly in sanitation hardware. Where they did build toilet facilities, these were generally done as

a demonstration to prompt others (government or

community groups) to adopt and replicate the model.

Plan Malawi initially planned to build toilets in 75

schools but reduced its scope to just one school as a

demonstration when faced with budget constraints

due to exchange rate losses, higher than expected

26 ARC in Bangladesh and Nepal; HfH in Bangladesh; IRC in Pakistan; LLEE in PNG, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji; WVA in Zimbabwe and PNG.

27 In recognition of this, LLEE’s project in Vanuatu provided technical support to the Department of Public Health to develop the country’s first national

sanitation standards – a process that is ongoing.

Latrine construction training for local masons in Mokhotlong District, Lesotho (Red Cross). Photo credit: Bruce Bailey


31

Despite the issues raised above, there were plenty of examples of innovation in the sanitation component of the Fund. Several CSOs proactively tackled the extra

challenges posed by the transition from the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs) to the SDG agenda, and the

focus on total (or safely managed) sanitation.

SNV’s project in Nepal achieved total sanitation status

in several Toles (sub-villages)28 and, in recognition that

pits built at the start of the Fund were beginning to fill,

several projects pro-actively began addressing the issue

of faecal sludge management (FSM). iDE Cambodia introduced dual pit upgrades to its standard latrine

designs29 and developed a simple pit gauge. It is now

developing a compact septic system to fit within its

standard concrete rings. SCA Myanmar promoted a

contained three-chamber septic system for household

latrines, bought through a subsidised loan scheme;

and WHH trialled a business model for a small, mobile

desludging service for peri-urban areas in Zimbabwe.30

WA in Timor-Leste successfully introduced the ‘SaTO’

pan (a light-weight toilet pan) into its project areas to

address the issue of suitable latrine options for remote

villages in water-constrained areas.

Many projects did not approach school sanitation

comprehensively. This may have been due to a lack of

resources, a lack of clarity about who would ultimately

be responsible, or a deliberate limiting of the scope of the

project to a particular focus. LLEE’s portfolio invested in

bottleneck analysis of school WASH in all locations, which

generated good insight into gaps or areas of weakness

but then, as described above, lacked the resources to

address these gaps. In PNG, WA’s project sought to

address the issue of menstrual hygiene management (MHM) in schools and, in some locations, retro-fitted

facilities into existing school toilet blocks that were

themselves inadequate and in poor condition but were

deemed outside the scope of the project. In the

Solomon Islands, LLEE repaired school water tanks and

installed handwashing facilities, but toilets were not

part of the scope and were incomplete and unhygienic.

These issues are reflected to a certain degree in the

impact figures across the Fund. In total, 215,255 additional students gained access to improved sanitation compared with an original target of 349,627 (62% of target) and 451 schools achieved adequate

toilet-to-student ratios against an original target of

581 (78%). While these results are still significant, the

under-achievement against targets in schools stands out against the over-achievement of community sa

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