project monitoring: a vicious cycle of donor accountability or a necessary stepping stone to better...

Project Monitoring: A vicious cycle of donor accountability or a necessary stepping stone to better national WASH sector monitoring?Harold LockwoodAguaconsult

Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium

“You can’t manage what you don’t measure”

Monitoring really does matter ….


Country-led systems progressing• Aid effectiveness principles

and commitment (Paris +)• Country ownership and

leadership• Emergence of SWAps – 11

countries in Africa (AfDB, 2010)

• DP alignment with country systems (moderate progress)


Comprehensive country-led systems are the goal

Common monitoring to improve performance• Historic trending• Benchmarking• Well informed decisions• Basis for sector learning• Consumer

empowerment

But many challenges remain

GLAAS 2011; 74 responding countries


Is there a national monitoring system used to inform decision making?

No system in place

Under development

System in place and used

42%

16%

42%

Country-led monitoring remains weak


• Under-funded – low resource environment

• Challenges with decentralisation of responsibility for data collection and management

• Incompatibility between data systems at local government level

• Often low political priority

Development aid project monitoring


• Defined life-span (< 5 years) - not beyond ‘end of the project’

• Limited to ‘own projects’• Not aligned with national

monitoring frameworks or indicators (outside SWAp)

• Data flows ‘upwards and outwards’ to external DPs

Project monitoring


Opportunities Challenges

• Innovative• Flexible• (often) well resourced• Quick cycles• Piloting

• Short-term• Temporary structures• Costly• Fragmented or duplicative initiatives

71% of European funding channelled through projects and programmesEU Water Initiative, Africa Working Group, 2008

The reality of project monitoring


• 1 region• 7 different funding

streams and monitoring requirements

• 1 national monitoring system

• Local government – marginalised


Lending banks, bi-lateral donors and large multi-laterals:• Operate at scale

• Influence over policy and sector processes

• Can fund via SWAps or Direct Budgetary Support – but not all do so

Not all project monitoring is created equal


Not all project monitoring is created equal

NGOs, foundations, charities and faith organisations:• Operate at varying scale - decentralised level

• Direct implementation and field research

• Advocacy and influence

• Direct (localised) funding

Accountability: the key driverWhy do we monitor? • To improve operational performance • To measure impact• To inform sector policy• To show progress and results• To see how funds are utilised


Accountability: the key driver


For whom do we monitor? • Consumers and operators• Government technocrats• Policy makers and politicians• Civil society groups• Project staff• Funders of aid projects

Development partner dilemma: the vicious cycle of accountability


The virtuous cycle of country-led monitoring and accountability


Development aid supports monitoring via

SWAps or other common mechanisms


Project monitoring: a force for good • Triple-S service delivery indicators, Ghana• Piloted in 3 districts in 2010 - 12 • Integrated with DiMES of CWSA• Now being scaled up to 64 districts

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Point source functionality

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Water

TripleSdistricts

East Gonja District

0 7 14 21 283.5Kilometers

No easy answers, but some critical questions


How can we align accountability of donor-driven project monitoring with support for country-led monitoring?

But, project monitoring is not going to go away (soon)

• How to incentivize donors to think (and fund) beyond the end of the project?

• How to better scale up and integrate innovation and learning into national frameworks?

• And, where there is no credible country-led monitoring framework, what do we do?


Sessions in the ‘project monitoring stream’


Tuesday 9th AprilSession 1: ‘Setting the scene’ (14:00 – 15:30)

• Government of Indonesia; experiences from WSP/World Bank supported monitoring

•AfDB strategy for M&E in Africa

Session 2: ‘Bi-lateral donors’ (16:00 – 17:30)• DGIS/Government of Netherlands; Sustainbility Check – experience from Mozambique

• USAID/USA; Sustainbility Index Tool – pilot experiences

Sessions in the ‘project monitoring stream’


Wednesday 10th AprilSession 3: ‘NGO innovation’ (11:00 - 12:30)

•UTS/AusAID - multi-country/partner experiences

•MWA – multi-partner experiences, Ethiopia

•Water for People – local government perspective

•WASH Advocates – schools perspective

Session 4: ‘Joining hands with countries’ (14:00 - 15:30)Panel debate

Some warm up discussions


Turn to your immediate neighbour(s):

1. Do you recognize this tension between project monitoring and country-led monitoring?

2. How do you feel this can be best reconciled from a policy or practical perspective?

Discuss for 10 minutes or so

project monitoring: a vicious cycle of donor accountability or a necessary stepping stone to better...

Technology

virtuous cycle of country

national frameworks

sector policy

scale influence

challenges remainglaas

policy andsector processes

bilateral donors

local governmentlevel