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Water and SanitationServices for the Poor:

Innovating through Field ExperienceProgram Strategy: 1999–2003

ECUADOR

PERUBOLIVIA

KENYA

NEPAL

SRI LANKA

I N D O N E S I A

P H I L I P P I N E S

BANGLADESH

CHINA

MONGOLIA

BURKINAFASO ETHIOPIA

PAKISTAN

LAO PDR

CAMBODIA

VIETNAM

UGANDA

TANZANIA

MALAWI

ZAMBIA

ZIMBABWE

MALI

COTE D'IVOIREGHANA

BENIN

MOZAMBIQUE

ERITREA

INDIA

SENEGAL

GUINEA

LA PAZJAKARTA

NAIROBIABIDJAN

DELHI

N

W E

S

South Asia

East Asia and the Pacific

West and Central Africa

East and Southern Africa

Andean Region

Regional office

Regional Offices

WSP-East and Southern AfricaThe World BankP.O. Box 30577Nairobi, KenyaPhone 254-2-260400Fax 254-2-260386

WSP-West and Central AfricaThe World BankB.P. 1850Abidjan 01, Cote d'IvoirePhone 225-442227Fax 225-441687

WSP-East Asia and the PacificThe World BankP.O. Box 1324/JKTJakarta 12940, IndonesiaPhone 62-21-5299-3003Fax 62-21-5299-3004

WSP-South AsiaThe World Bank55 Lodi EstateP.O. Box 416New Delhi, 110003 IndiaPhone 91-11-4690488Fax 91-11-4628250

WSP-Andean RegionThe World BankCasilla 8692La Paz, BoliviaPhone 591-2-316718Fax 591-2-392769

Photography: Guy Stubbs

Graphic Design: Grundy & Northedge

Layout: Communications Development

©1999 International Bank for Reconstructionand Development/The World Bank1818 H Street, NWWashington, DC 20433USAAll rights reservedManufactured in the United States of America

This document has been prepared and published bythe UNDP-World Bank Water and SanitationProgram. Copies of the document are availablefrom the Program headquarters in Washington, DC.Material may be quoted with proper attribution.

The Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) helps poorpeople gain sustained access to improved water andsanitation services.

The Program works with partners in the field to seekinnovative solutions to the obstacles faced by poorcommunities and strives to be a valued source of adviceto achieve widespread adoption of these solutions.

Mission Statement

Contents

Part 1: IntroductionThe Dublin-Rió PrinciplesEmphasis on PartnershipPlans for the Future

Part 2: Learning AgendaRural AgendaUrban AgendaSmall Towns AgendaCross-Cutting Issues

Part 3: Objectives

Part 4: ProductsPilot and Demonstration ProjectsKnowledge Generation and ManagementSectoral NetworkingPolicy SupportSupport for Large-Scale Investment Projects

Part 5: Building BlocksShared ValuesDiverse and Highly Skilled StaffQuality Assurance ProcessesPartnering and NetworkingDecentralized Operational StructureGovernance ArrangementsSustainable Financial Base

Part 6: Strategy Implementation

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UNDP–WORLD BANK WATER AND SANITATION PROGRAM

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An estimated 10,000 people die from water-related diseases every day in a relentless globalcalamity. These people live predominantly indeveloping countries and most of them arepoor. These deaths, and many more incidents ofsickness, are avoidable: they would not occur ifall people had sustained access to safe drinkingwater and sanitation services.

Since 1978 the Water and SanitationProgram (WSP) has been working to help poorpeople gain access to these essential services.The WSP began as a set of separate projectssupported by the UNDP and implemented bythe World Bank to test and promote low-costappropriate technologies. It has evolved overthe years into a global partnership, active insome 30 countries (see map on inside frontcover), financially supported by multilateral andbilateral development agencies, and contribut-ing to the struggle to improve water and sanita-tion access for the poor.

While much has been achieved in thisdecade—especially widespread adoption of thepeople-centered approaches promoted by theWSP—too little progress is being made. Morethan one billion still lack access to safe water andover two billion lack hygienic sanitation services.

Learning What Works is both thephilosophy of WSP and the title of a book thatprovides a 20 year retrospective (1978–1998)on the WSP. Copies of this document can beobtained from any WSP office, on the WSPwebsite at http://www.wsp.org or by email [email protected].

In 1992 the WSP published the previousstrategy, “Improving Services for the Poor.” Thisnote presents an updated strategy for the newmillennium, designed to guide the WSP in itsrenewed efforts to help boost service access.This strategy sharpens the WSP’s focus, makesits outputs more explicit, and establishesstandards for more consistent product quality.The thrust of this new strategy is to step up theWSP’s impact by stretching and leveraging itslimited resources.

The Dublin-Rió PrinciplesIn 1992 a set of principles was adopted bysector specialists to guide development efforts inthe water sector. Known as the Dublin-Rióprinciples after international conferences in thosetwo cities, they stress the following points:

• Water is a finite resource essential to life andshould be managed holistically in all its uses.• Development efforts must be participatory;water should be managed at the lowestappropriate level.• Women must play a central role in waterprojects.• Water has an economic as well as a social value.

Much remains to be learned aboutimplementing these principles in specificcontexts. With its experience in applying newapproaches, the WSP is well positioned tosupport the widespread implementation of theDublin-Rió principles.

Part 1: Introduction


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Emphasis on PartnershipsThe WSP works with partners in the field to findand communicate innovative solutions to theproblems faced by poor communities. Experiencehas shown that participatory approaches, involvingusers and stakeholders in all stages of projectpreparation and implementation, lead to moresustainable outcomes.

The WSP’s team of sector specialists, most ofthem based in the field, work actively to buildpartnerships with leading public agencies andprivate participants in the water sector. This workwith partners increases sector knowledge andapplies it to improve policies and projects that willbenefit large numbers of poor communities.

Working through partnerships, seeking to“influence without taking over,” the WSP buildscapacity at all levels (people, institutions, andpolicy environment). Reliance on partnerships hasalso increased the WSP’s ability to facilitateinformation exchanges across agencies, projects,countries, and regions. The WSP’s location withinthe World Bank strengthens its ability to influencelarge development programs and to help countrypartners implement appropriate policies.

Plans for the FuturePressures on the world‘s water resources arerising. Concerns regarding this situation are

being expressed in a number of national andinternational forums. The Global WaterPartnership (GWP), of which the WSP is afounder and an associate program, was createdin 1996 to help provide international coherencein addressing water resource management in aholistic manner, across the different sectors thatuse water (water for people, water for foodproduction, water for ecosystems).

Within the holistic water managementframework promoted by the GWP, and whilecontinuing its engagement in cross-sectoralforums, the WSP will retain a tight focus on its“niche” as a specialist of community-basedwater supply and sanitation services. In keepingwith the Dublin-Rió principles to treat water asan economic good and manage water at thelowest appropriate level, the WSP will work todeepen the understanding and broaden theacceptance of demand-responsive approaches.It will attempt to find practical ways of scaling upthese approaches, and ways to strengthen thesupply chains of goods and services in supportof them.

The WSP is currently active in more than 30countries throughout Latin America, Africa,South Asia, and East Asia. If there is demand,the WSP will consider extending operations tonew countries and regions.


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Learning is not an end in itself but a means ofimproving development practice and ofachieving an impact beyond the immediateprojects in which the WSP is directly engaged.Effective learning and dissemination of whatworks can leverage the WSP’s resources byseveral orders of magnitude. The strength of theWSP’s partnerships, its location in the WorldBank, and its field presence in more than 30countries provide it with a unique position fromwhich to identify issues and trends of globalrelevance, facilitate the exchange of information,and spread lessons from field experience andbest-practice solutions—regardless of whetherthese solutions originate with the WSP’s ownwork or, more often, with its partners.

The WSP believes that “the cutting edge isin the field” and its learning programs respondfirst to country and partner needs. Whilesolutions are always local, the WSP’sexperience suggests that much can be learnedacross countries. For instance, the earlydifficulties met by private concessionaires inLatin American cities in serving low-incomegroups, and the emerging solutions to theseproblems being tested in Argentina andBolivia, can provide invaluable lessons for thedesign and regulation of future concessionsaround the world. Likewise, pioneeringexperiments in South Asia on the role ofmicrocredit in water can be a global asset. TheWSP’s global “learning agenda,” updatedevery year in consultation with partners andfed by local findings, identifies those specific

issues or knowledge gaps on which the WSPwill take a more pro-active stance in collectingand disseminating knowledge from its portfolioof country activities and limited global researchfunds—because the WSP and its partnersbelieve that learning on these issues can makea difference in the field.

The learning agenda is organized primarilyby type of community: urban, small town, orrural. In addition, crosscutting issues (currentlyincluding water resource management, gender,and hygiene promotion) will be addressed.

Rural AgendaWhile much has been learned about improvingservices to people in rural areas, hundreds ofmillions of people remain unserved, and manypast projects have failed the test of sustainableoperation. Some projects have worked well ona pilot scale, but failed the equally critical testof a large-scale rollout. Water and sanitationactivities therefore face two challenges in ruralareas. The first is to scale up demand-responsive approaches into national policiesand programs in countries in which pilots havebeen successful, and to learn and pilot theseapproaches elsewhere. Key activities includethe following:

• Defining demand. A “demand-responsive”approach is people-centered and participatorybut also economically sound. Most rural waterand sanitation projects today include somebeneficiary consultation steps, but fewer projects

Part 2: Learning Agenda


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or country policies truly offer rural communitiesand households an informed choice of serviceoptions with differentiated financial conse-quences. Given that demand has both a socialand an economic meaning, what policies andproject rules encourage sound community andindividual user decisions on technical anddelivery options, service levels, and servicepayments? • Designing sustainable financial policies.Given fiscal constraints, what cost-sharingpolicies leverage user willingness to pay? Whatpolicies can be replicated on a large scale toachieve coverage targets within availableresources? • Designing institutional mechanisms for servicedelivery and sustainability. What kind ofinstitutional arrangements can best achieveefficiency, effectiveness, and local accountability?How can functional linkages between communityorganizations, local governments, and serviceproviders (national governmental organizations,private sector providers, and governmentagencies) be designed, established, and made towork? As many countries devolve sector functionsto local governments, how can municipalcapacities be built and supported, and how cancountries ensure that new municipal roles do notjeopardize earlier achievements in buildingcapacities of informal village-level organizations?• Ensuring representative aggregation andexpression of local demand. How can genderand the problems facing excluded groups bestbe addressed in large-scale, demand-responsive investments?

The second challenge is to develop supplychains of goods and services able to respond tocommunity demands in a sustainable way, withparticular attention to private providers. Theseproviders are needed to ensure that serviceoptions selected by communities can bedesigned, financed, implemented, andmaintained in a cost-effective and sustainableway. Key activities for addressing this challengeinclude:

• Helping create regulatory structures thateliminate policy obstacles to the efficient andresponsive supply of goods and services tocommunity-based water and sanitation systems.• Identifying appropriate facilitation roles forgovernment, and designing viable reform

sequences for existing (but often ineffective)public-sector agencies or programs supportingrural water and sanitation.

Urban AgendaUrban growth in developing countries has faroutstripped the capacity of urban servicesincluding water and sanitation. Many countriesare engaged in far-reaching efforts aimed atimproving the efficiency and financialperformance of utilities—traditionally a mainbottleneck for investment in service expansion--through corporatization, better governance andmonitoring, regulation, competition, and public-private partnerships. Many countries also havesome experience with community-levelinfrastructure planning and management,especially for on-site or retail services in peri-urban areas. Even so, access and qualityproblems for the poor remain severe, andcoverage levels for urban sanitation keepdeclining.

Innovative mechanisms for reducing costsand boosting coverage are needed to reach thegrowing number of underserved urban poor. Thekey is to involve users in making effective andinformed choices about investment andmanagement of services at the local level, whilehelping utilities manage the effective provision ofprimary and secondary infrastructure.

The WSP is committed to improving waterand sanitation services in urban areas. Ratherthan develop expertise on all utility issues, it willfocus on facilitating linkages between utilities,poor communities, local governments, civilsociety, and the private sector. Its emphasis willbe on working with these partners to extendservices into poor, unplanned, and underservedareas.

Key issues facing the urban sector are largelythe same as those in the rural sector, though theapproaches for dealing with them differ.

The first challenge is to develop effectivedemand-responsive and user-based approaches.Key issues include the following:

• Designing strategies and mechanisms forreaching the poor. What are the appropriatemethods and tools for initiating dialogue with theurban poor and assessing their demand forservices? How can governments and utilities beencouraged to develop strategies for ensuringaccess to services by the urban poor? Should


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utilities develop outreach programs, or just makethemselves more accessible? How can municipal-ities be encouraged to take an integratedapproach to solving problems including slumupgrading and environmental management? • Designing institutional mechanisms for servicedelivery and sustainability. How have small-scale, locally managed systems and the peoplewho have invested in them interfaced with utilitiesand municipalities? What makes local initiativesflourish more strongly in some cities than others,and how can these initiatives be replicatedwithout undermining their sustainability? Howcan this experience inform new institutionaldesign? What institutional arrangements createpositive incentives for utilities to make investmentdecisions that improve access for the poor? • Designing and applying sustainable financialpolicies. How have tariffs and public financingbeen used to improve access of poor people toutility services? Have cross-subsidies beeneffectively targeted? What kinds of financingmechanisms are effective in helping poor peoplecover the costs of infrastructure investments? Howcan options for revenue mobilization and costsharing be diversified? • Ensuring a gender perspective in demandassessment. What is different about urban areasand how does this influence the incorporation ofgender into water supply and sanitationinvestments? What best practices have beendeveloped to address gender considerationswithin policies, programs, and projects? • Monitoring impact and targeting vulnerablegroups. What tools are available to measureusers’ (especially poor users’) satisfaction withwater and sanitation services on a regular basis?

The second challenge is to enable thedevelopment of supply chains of goods, works,and services. Key activities for addressing thischallenge include:

• Extending utility services to the urban poor.How can utilities be encouraged to developmechanisms and options for extending servicesto the poor, including sub-contracting retailservices to communities and small providerswhere efficient? As many cities opt to delegateutility management and financing to the privatesector, how can “pro-poor” incentives be builtinto contracts, licenses, or regulatory practice? Ifthe contract provides an exclusive service

license, how can it be ensured that it will notdisplace effective provisions by community-basedgroups? In this area, the WSP does not intend tobecome a utility privatization expert, but only tohelp ensure that on-going infrastructureprivatization trends worldwide are harnessed tobenefit, and do not jeopardize, the interests ofthe WSP’s target: the urban poor. It will partnerwith groups pursuing the same interest, such as the “Business Partners for Development—Water Cluster” initiative recently launched byleading utilities, nongovernmental organizations(NGOs), bilateral donors, and the World Bank. • Encouraging independent service providers.What are the benefits and poverty impacts ofservice delivery by small-scale independentproviders? How can governments improve theregulatory environment to encourage investment,competition, and better service (includingprovision of safer water and environmentallysound disposal services) by small, localentrepreneurs? • Increasing hygiene awareness. What shouldthe purpose and scope of hygiene education andawareness activities be? What human andfinancial resources can be used to develop andcarry out this activity?

Small Towns Agenda“Small towns” are perhaps best defined as beingtoo large for “collective action” and community-management to emerge and work as simply as itwould in a village, and yet too small to justify thefixed costs of a formal utility organization.Technically, their water supply and sanitationneeds are not amenable to simple, point sourcesolutions (such as a spring or borehole) and waterand sanitation services have technical andmanagerial requirements that exceed the capacityof most small community organizations. Smalltowns often fall between government and donorprograms defined as either rural or urban. Manysmall towns fall under the authority of broaderdistrict or province agencies, not always efficientor responsive to local needs. Other towns havemunicipal government structures to deal with theseservices, but their capacity is often limited.

Improving services in small towns is anemerging priority for the WSP. Although thelearning agenda has not yet been clearlydefined, because the WSP has only recentlybegun to focus on small towns, the WSP willdraw on its experience in both rural and urban


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water and sanitation to develop solutions thatmay apply to small towns. Initially, the learningagenda will focus on issues such as: under-standing the conditions that favor servicemanagement by autonomous communities, incontrast with municipal or utility management;clarifying the role of elected municipal gov-ernments in overseeing services delivered byautonomous providers; and, where appropriate,exploring possibilities of inter-municipal arrange-ments to develop effective services on a regionalscale. The WSP’s niche will evolve in response tocountry and partners’ needs.

Cross-Cutting IssuesSeveral issues cut across the WSP’s learningagendas for rural areas, urban areas, and smalltowns. These include gender and participationissues, hygiene promotion, and integrated waterresource management.

Gender and Participation Meeting users’ demands is critical to theprovision of sustainable water and sanitationservices. But in many parts of the world,inadequate attention is paid to women’sdemands for services. Building on its previousgender and participation work (PROWWESS)and the recent WSP-World Bank study linkingdemand and sustainability in rural water supplyprojects, the WSP is investigating the linksbetween gender, demand, and sustainability anddocumenting how agencies have successfullyincorporated gender issues into their programs.

Over the next few years the WSP intends topursue activities—from advocacy and awareness-

raising to the development of new tools—to makegender considerations a mainstream part ofdemand-responsive approaches. The WSP will alsoexplore the incentives for supply agencies and theirstaff to implement gender-sensitive approaches.

Hygiene PromotionStudies have repeatedly shown that health out-comes are greatly enhanced when improvementsin water supply and sanitation are combined withhygiene awareness and promotion activities. WSPpilot programs have confirmed the effectiveness ofparticipatory approaches in raising awarenessand expanding capacities to plan and mobilizefor improved environmental health. The learningagendas will integrate principles of hygienepromotion with water and sanitation projects andadapt and scale-up these methods in differentregions and countries.

Integrated Water Resource ManagementThe first Dublin-Rió principle states that “effectivemanagement of water resources demands aholistic approach, linking social and economicdevelopment with protection of naturalecosystems.” While remaining a specialist of“water for human use”, the WSP will consider thevarious uses of water in its projects (for instance,recognizing that demand for water for humanconsumption is often bundled with water for animalsor crops in rural settings) and will address relatedissues such as water conservation, wastewatertreatment and re-use, and the protection of watersources. In addition, the WSP will share itsexperiences in water supply and sanitation with keyplayers in water resource management.


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The WSP’s mission is to help poor people gainsustained access to improved water andsanitation. To fulfill that mission and make optimaluse of its resources, the WSP will continue topursue three mutually supporting objectives:

• Generate and communicate knowledge ac-quired in the field. Meeting this objective shouldincrease the WSP’s expertise and its credibility,enhancing its ability to support and influenceinnovative policies and investment projects. It shouldalso build the capacity of national organizationsand external support agency partners. • Strengthen sector policies. Meeting thisobjective should increase the WSP’s influence ongovernments, key external support agencies, and

opinion leaders in order to improve theeffectiveness and cohesiveness of policies aimedat helping poor people gain sustained access toimproved water and sanitation.• Improve the effectiveness of investments.Meeting this objective should directly increasethe WSP’s impact on poor people’s access towater and sanitation services.

These objectives are mutually supporting.Learning and communicating should increasecompetence and credibility, thereby helping theWSP to strengthen policies and supportinvestments. In turn, support to policies andinvestments should provide opportunities forcontinuous learning (figure 1).

• Impact on access to water and sanitation• Strengthened local capacity

Figure 1 WSP Objectives

Improvinginvestment

effectivenessStrengtheningsector policies

Generating and communicating knowledge

Part 3: Objectives


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To achieve its objectives, the WSP will offer itspartners five different product lines. This productapproach will simplify the development of bestpractices by introducing more consistency andcomparability across the program.

Pilot and Demonstration ProjectsPilot projects are effective ways of developingand testing new approaches on a small scalewhile meeting specific needs of communities.They allow lessons to be learned, credibility tobe enhanced, and preparedness to be increasedbefore projects are scaled-up into larger projectsor adopted as government policy.

As the primary learning tool of the WSP, pilotprojects support WSP objectives by allowingspecific approaches and institutional arrangementsto be tested and adapted. The pilots will alsostrengthen sector policies by testing sector reforms,identifying the policy obstacles that matter on theground, and helping to build confidence in thevalue of policy ideas generated by the WSP.

The expected outputs of this product are well-executed pilot projects that provide sharedknowledge on lessons learned, sector institutionsthat incorporate lessons from the pilots in theirpolicies, and more effective major investmentprojects, guided by lessons from the pilot projects.Two working principles will guide the pilots:

• Leverage scarce resources as much aspossible by relying on partnerships with NGOsor private firms to support agencies responsible

Part 4: Products

for pilot implementation. The WSP will lead pilotmanagement and administer investmentresources only in rare instances. WSPprofessionals will actively guide learning,provide targeted technical assistance, andbackstop quality. This approach will tap theinnovation potential of different players. This willalso reduce the administrative burden on theWSP, which should allow it to work on a largernumber of issues. Relying on partnerships willalso foster ownership by partners and build theircapacity.• Execute pilot projects with a view towardscaling-up lessons learned into large-scaleprojects or government policies. Pilots willnormally be planned jointly with governments,the World Bank, and other external supportagencies as preparation for large-scale activities.A credible prospect of large-scale replication willbe an important consideration in undertaking apilot (box 1).

Knowledge Generation and ManagementKnowledge generation and management stemprimarily from WSP work on pilot and scaled-upinvestment projects, and learning from theexperiences of others. Workshops, study tours,and studies and interaction with partners willalso generate knowledge. All knowledgegeneration and management will be driven bythe specific needs of country and externalsupport agency partners, meshed with the WSP’sglobal learning agenda.

across global networks (the WSP, the WorldBank, and partners) is key to ensuring that thewheel is not reinvented in each WSP activity.Global sharing permits the identification of, andfocus on, unresolved issues. Practices that haveproved effective elsewhere can be adapted tomeet similar challenges in new environments.• Network people. Field practitioners oftenposses the most useful knowledge because theyare able to tailor what they know to specificproblems. The WSP will therefore facilitate accessto and between people with field knowledge.• Disseminate WSP knowledge. For eachmajor product, the WSP will develop a strategyfor disseminating the most effective informationto different target audiences. A variety offormats, including print, video, and on-linemedia, will be used. At the country level, theWSP will develop systematic communicationand exchanges through working groups andforums to reach those involved in water andsanitation services. • Disseminate knowledge from other sources.The WSP sees itself as part of a knowledgenetwork that includes the World Bank, the privatesector, NGOs, bilateral institutions, and otherpartners. Knowledge products will thus includeboth products created by the WSP and productscreated by other parties. WSP communicationswill serve as a channel for disseminatingknowledge about the sector from a variety ofsources, including knowledgeable local playerswho normally lack dissemination means.


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Knowledge about field experiences will beshared among staff and key partners locally andglobally. Sharing of knowledge will be supportedby a simple process enabling staff to recognize andcall upon the expertise of colleagues working onsimilar problems in other countries or regions. Awebsite will facilitate public access to knowledgeproducts. Thematic seminars and Internet discussiondatabases will promote communities of practice.

Knowledge generation and management sup-port WSP objectives by organizing and communi-cating learning. Access to knowledge by WSPstaff and partners will facilitate learning and com-munication and will allow staff to build on the workof others and to design better projects. Timelyinformation access will also help staff providemore effective support to policy development andinvestment projects (box 2).

The expected outputs of this product includethe generation and dissemination of study reports,learning notes, and knowledge documents; theorganization of study tours; and improved accessto knowledge by WSP staff and partners. TheWSP will ensure the quality and practicalrelevance of these outputs through a simple qualityassurance process.

The following working principles will guidethe production of knowledge generation andmanagement:

• Create a global community of practice.Active sharing of experiences and learning

Box 1 From Strategy to Pilot to Investment in Burkina Faso

In 1994 only one quarter of the residents of the city of Ouagadougou had appropriatesanitation facilities. WSP activities in the early 1990s led to the development of a strategy forwastewater and excreta disposal for Ouagadougou. The government adopted this strategy in1994, which in turn led to the design and implementation of two pilot projects in differentareas of the city. The projects applied the basic characteristics of “strategic sanitation:” ademand-based approach offering an array of technological solutions and services, thusproviding users with a choice of low-cost yet adaptable options. The approach includedautonomous sanitation facilities, the promotion of appropriate technology, and the training oflocal artisans. These pilots, which benefited from substantial WSP support, demonstrated thefeasibility of the principles outlined in the strategy developed with the WSP.

The pilot success influenced the design of an urban environment development program focusingon Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso (the two major cities in Burkina Faso), funded within theframework of the IDA Third Urban Project. The WSP assisted in preparation of the componentand continues to provide strategic support to its implementation.


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• Enhance systematic learning. Learning object-ives and approaches will be defined at thebeginning of each WSP activity, and a note onlessons learned will be written at the end of eachactivity.

Sectoral NetworkingSectoral networking will be fostered at variouslevels to:

• Build consensus among policy stakeholders atthe national level.• Facilitate coordination of external supportagencies at the national level.

• Encourage country-specific or multicountrynetworks of sector experts and practitioners.• Coordinate global consensus-building networks.Network-building activities will grow throughnational, regional, and global conferences; work-shops; meetings, some of them organized by theWSP; and continuous informal communications.

Facilitating sectoral networking supports allthree WSP objectives. It supports learning andcommunicating by facilitating the exchange ofinformation and knowledge within countries andregions and around the world. It strengthenspolicies by facilitating dialogue among sector

Box 2 Generating, Managing, and Sharing Knowledge

The WSP’s niche is in generating and sharing knowledge at country, regional, and global levels.

• The WSP’s Global Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Study marked the first attempt to testwhether project rules regarding demand responsiveness actually help to increase sustainability ofrural water supply projects. The results of the study became the basis for the 1998 CommunityWater Supply and Sanitation Conference hosted by the World Bank and the WSP.• Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation (PHAST) is a methodology toincrease the participation of women, men, and children in understanding and addressingtheir sanitation needs. PHAST was piloted in the WSP’s East and Southern Africa Region,and the PHAST methodology is now being adopted and adapted by WSP partners around theworld. • The Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) Initiative builds on the results of two WSP-ledinitiatives: the PROWWESS program, which promoted women’s participation in sectorprojects; and the Global Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Study, which found that projectsthat were more demand-responsive were more likely to be sustainable. The overall objectiveof the PLA Initiative is to increase the understanding of the links between gender, demand,and sustainability, and then help practitioners use this knowledge in more demand-responsive, gender-sensitive programs. This on-going study initiated by WSP is executed atthe regional level, based on a common methodology and action plan.• The majority of the urban poor rely on informal systems for water and sanitation.Independent providers survive and often thrive without subsidies and usually without anylong-term financing. They appear to fill a needed market niche, working in areas of greatpoverty where large utilities face serious barriers to entry. In 1998, the WSP initiated aprogram to learn about these small-scale independent providers and how they might beencouraged. The initiative is underway in the Andes and in Africa, in a joint effort betweenWSP headquarters and WSP regional offices. • Rural infrastructure programs often involve large donor investment into standardizedtechnology, with maintenance provided by the state organizations initially, with plans totransfer this responsibility to the private sector. In many projects across the globe themechanisms for the supply of goods and services to support the initial investment are notestablished. The objective of the new Supply Chains Initiative is to draw on the experienceof the WSP and its partners to identify key issues and good practices and to stimulatelearning in the area of the supply of goods and services for rural water and sanitation.

how on specific sector issues. The WSP will work tostrengthen the leadership roles of potential local orregional leaders.• Make substantive contributions to globalpolicy coordination. Two international organi-zations lead the coordination of internationalwater policy efforts. The Water Supply andSanitation Collaborative Council focuses onimproving water supply and sanitation services.The Global Water Partnership concentrates on allwater issues, encouraging integrated perspectivesand actions. The WSP will continue to be anactive member of both organizations and willcontribute to the evolving global policy consensuson progressive sector policies.

Policy SupportPolicy support will strengthen sector policiesthrough interactions with policymakers and throughformal policy formulation exercises requested bypartner governments. Interactions with policy-


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players. And by keeping the WSP abreast ofproject developments around the world, it helpsthe WSP identify innovative projects to support(box 3).

The expected outputs of this product areeffective networks with external support agenciesand sector players within WSP countries, effectivemulticountry networks of sector experts andpractitioners, and contributions to global networksof knowledge on water and sanitation.

Three working principles govern facilitatingsectoral networking:

• Facilitate coordination between externalsupport agencies and sector leaders. The WSP willserve as facilitator, leaving to national governmentagencies the job of coordinating the sector.• Catalyze the formation of dynamic multicountrynetworks of sector practitioners to exchange know-

Box 3 Networking at National and Global Levels

In India, the IDA-financed rural water supply and sanitation Swajal project has been supported inits preparation and implementation by the WSP. The government of Uttar Pradesh agreed to aproject design that included capital cost recovery for water services for the first time in India. TheWSP’s parallel signing of a strategic alliance with the Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking WaterMission, which is the federal body governing rural drinking water policy and budgets, assures thedissemination of lessons to key decisionmakers regarding this project and other WSP experiences.

The innovations of the Swajal project were presented in the 1998 Community Water Supplyand Sanitation Conference sponsored by the World Bank and the WSP. With five other maincase studies from around the world demonstrating demand-responsive approaches to ruralwater and sanitation, the lessons of the Swajal project were presented to over 350 conferenceparticipants who represented a wide range of stakeholders, nationalities, institutions, donors,and professions. Participants included partners such as NGOs, members of the Water Supplyand Sanitation Collaborative Council, and government officials. Another 30 case studies werepresented in focused thematic sessions, allowing in-depth participative meetings on severalspecific topics such as innovative financing, hygiene and sanitation, decentralization,sequencing reform, and piloting.

The conference used a participatory design in order to maximize the effectiveness of the sessionsand emphasize the networking value of the experience. The participants took advantage of thesetting to connect with colleagues from around the world facing similar challenges.

The WSP’s network involvement and communication facilitation therefore allowed for projectworkers from countries like Bolivia and Ghana to hear of the experiences of stakeholders fromthe Swajal project as well as about the lessons learned from other experiences in Africa, Asia,and Latin America. The WSP continues to nurture, facilitate, and actively participate innational, regional, and international sector networks.


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makers will include joint oversight of pilot projectsor field studies and organization of sectorworkshops. To contribute to policy formulation,WSP professionals will be integrated into existingpolicy teams or will help teams draft policies onspecific topics.

Policy support contributes to WSP objectives byimproving policy formulation and implementation.It also helps build a policy environment that isconducive to high-impact investment projects.

The expected outputs of this product arepolicy workshops, proposals for policy change,specific policy changes, and the restructuring ofsector institutions.

Three working principles govern policysupport:

• Increase credibility through field-acquiredlearning and strategic skills. By assisting sectorreforms on a small scale and by helpingcommunities gain access to services, the WSPbuilds confidence in the practical value of the newideas it brings forward. Its credibility is alsoenhanced by the high quality of its staff. Staffworking on policy issues must be capable ofderiving policy implications from fieldexperiences supported by global knowledge.

They must also be able to structure convincingstrategic recommendations. • Establish collaborative partnerships to facilitateformal policy dialogue. With its reputation amongnational bodies and financing agencies as anhonest broker and its ongoing informal policydialogues, the WSP can help “bring to the table”local partners and external support agenciesnormally excluded from the policy dialogue. TheWSP will continue to play a dynamic role infacilitating policy change through a variety offormal and informal networks, including itscollaborative partnerships with key policymakersand other stakeholders in overseeing fieldexperiences.• Focus on policy implementation. Helping toestablish well-formulated policies is not enough.The WSP will also help external support agenciesand governments implement the concepts theyhave agreed to support, particularly in projectand program implementation.

Support for Large-Scale Investment Projects WSP professionals provide strategic investmentsupport by advising project teams or engaging inproject identification, preparation, or implemen-tation tasks. When there is a strategic opportunity

Box 4 Supporting Demand-Responsive Investments Around the World

Indonesia: The WSP made major inputs into the preparation, and is still supporting, the WaterSupply and Sanitation Project for Lower Income Communities (WSSLIC). The first World Bankfinanced rural water supply and sanitation project in Indonesia, the WSSLIC took adecentralized approach involving extensive use of NGOs as intermediaries, and offersvillagers’ service level options based on their willingness to pay. This project was a forerunnerof the Bank’s adaptive lending arrangements, which allow projects the design flexibility toadapt to changing circumstances as lessons are learned during implementation.

Bolivia: The WSP-executed, Dutch-funded Yacupaj pilot project tested low-cost technologies,adopted innovative approaches to involving communities in decisions about services, andimplemented an extensive health education program. The pilot paved the way for the IDA-assisted National Rural Water and Sanitation Project (PROSABAR) and for defining sectorstrategies and policies.

Ghana: The WSP supported the IDA-financed Community Water and Sanitation Project(CWSP), launched at a time when the country was undergoing considerable social andeconomic reform. While this generated challenges, it made the introduction of the newdemand-responsive approach to water and sanitation acceptable to most small towns and ruralcommunities. The project has been a success and the WSP is now assisting in the preparationof a second IDA-financed CWSP.


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for innovation or an opportunity to scale-up asuccessful pilot program, the WSP will alsoassemble teams to help prepare investmentprojects on behalf of governments, externalsupport agencies, or financing agencies.

Investment support contributes to WSPobjectives by improving the effectiveness of majorinvestments and by producing and disseminatingknowledge about lessons learned in the field.Support of strategic investment projects alsoincreases WSP’s credibility among key playersand thus its capacity to influence policy (box 4).

The expected outputs of this product are theimproved effectiveness of investment projects andgreater access to sustained water and sanitationservices for poor people. Two working principles guide support for strategicinvestment projects:

• Provide support only to projects that areinnovative or have high-impact potential.Allocating resources in this way will maximizeWSP’s impact while enabling the WSP to attractand retain high-quality professionals. • Hire respected professionals able to extractknowledge from field-acquired learning. Withits focus on “learning from the field,” the WSPis positioned to provide high value-addedsupport to major projects. The WSP will hirestaff and consultants who are committed todevelopment, willing to listen and learn fromothers, able to recognize their limits, and goodat working with others in team operations andin field activities. WSP professionals need to beable to translate lessons learned from fieldexperiences into knowledge that is bothpractical and strategic.


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Seven key factors, or building blocks, willenable the WSP to find practical ways to helppoor people gain sustained access to improvedwater and sanitation services and to achievewidespread implementation of the approachesthat work. Each is described below.

Shared ValuesFour core values define the ways in which WSPstaff interact with partners to achieve commongoals. While these values are already at play in theWSP, affirming them even more explicitly will helpguide the WSP’s work and increase its impact:

• People-centeredness. Whether beneficiaries orpartners, consumers or clients, stakeholders oragents of change, people are the WSP’s ultimateclients. People-centeredness is a vital element ofthe WSP’s value system and work style and isfundamental to achieving its objectives.• Commitment to impact. The WSP is working ina field that makes a tremendous difference inpeople’s lives. WSP staff are determined toimprove the lives of the poor. The WSP is awarethat, with its limited scale and resources, it willmake a tangible dent in the huge service backlogonly if each of its activities is tightly focused forimpact, highly cost-effective, and highly leveraged.• Commitment to excellence. The WSP seeks tomaintain the highest professional standards. Allstaff and partners are committed to excellence inindividual and group performance. • Honesty, transparency, and fairness. WSP’scommitment to honesty, transparency, and

fairness in dealing with all partners, clients, andstaff requires that it admit limitations, learn fromfailures, and act as a fair broker in providinginformation and advice.

Diverse and Highly Skilled StaffThe WSP’s most valuable resource is its diverseand highly skilled staff. A small team of highlytrained professionals will operate in each region.Teams will combine country knowledge and theskills mix needed to serve local clients and toadvance the global learning agenda. As far aspossible, teams will be gender balanced and willreflect the diversity of the countries within whichthe WSP operates. More than in the past, regionalWSP teams will provide support to each other’stasks to ensure cross-fertilization and increaselearning and professional growth opportunities forstaff. The teams will be extensively leveraged byworking with external partners, includingconsultants, researchers, and NGOs.

Each regional team will look for individualswho possess the following skills:

• Ability to establish partnerships at all levels, fromcommunity organizations to central governmentbodies and leading financing agencies; and strongability to comprehend and deal with diversity.• Ability to provide high value-added clientsupport to influence policies and majorinvestment projects by making the most ofavailable knowledge, deploying analytical andproblem-solving skills, and using persuasion anddemonstration rather than taking over.

Part 5: Building Blocks


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• Analytical skills to structure field learning,extract learning implications to solve key policyand project issues, and contribute to globalknowledge-sharing efforts.• Ability to work as a team player by listening,cooperating with partners and staff, andcontributing to the global knowledge-sharing efforts.

Quality Assurance ProcessesThe WSP has developed filters for selectingactivities that reinforce the working principlesoutlined for each product line. To be consideredfor selection, projects must contribute to thelearning agenda, they must be based on a flexibledesign that allows for the application of lessonslearned to ongoing projects, and they must have ahigh potential for impact on future projects andsector initiatives, both in the country and globally.The working principles outlined for each productwill also be adhered to in selecting WSP activities.

Learning is best managed using a teamworkapproach. Teams provide value-adding support andmentoring to their members, improve continuity andclient response, and create incentives foraccountability by both WSP staff and partners. Todeliver results, the WSP will use simple,nonbureaucratic quality assurance processes,inspired by those of leading professional servicesfirms. Performance and accountability of WSP staffwill be ensured by tying individual rewards andprofessional growth to regular evaluations.

Partnering and NetworkingThe WSP is built on partnerships betweenorganizations with different skill bases; betweenall of the actors in sector service delivery(consumers, owners, and suppliers); betweendifferent regions, societies, and cultures; andbetween global, regional, country, and local levelsof operation. It anticipates continued involvementin other global initiatives, such as the GlobalWater Partnership, in order to respond to newthematic changes and to rationalize funding.

In keeping with the World Bank’scommitment to achieving greater effectivenessthrough decentralization, the WSP will enter intowork agreements with Bank regional andcountry operations. These agreements will helpensure mutual leverage while maintaining thedistinctiveness and focus of the WSP andstrengthening accountability for performance.Similar arrangements will be possible with otherpartners.

Decentralized Operational StructureThe WSP’s decentralized organization reflectsthe fact that its primary rationale is global fieldlearning and communicating experiences andlessons. Resources are deployed mainly at thecountry level and managed primarily at theregional level. The responsibilities of the regionalteams include defining and implementing workprograms in keeping with country priorities whilecontributing to global knowledge; securingcountry and regional funding to support this workprogram; and managing the human resourcesrequired to implement the work programs.

The WSP’s focus on global learning requireseffective coordination. The responsibilities ofWSP headquarters include: coordinating globallearning, knowledge management, andcommunications; coordinating, consolidating,and managing WSP finances; recruiting andleading the WSP management team; andproviding oversight and strategic direction forthe program.

To reinforce the global nature of the WSPand to ensure that global learning stays ontrack, thematic leaders—many of them in thefield, but with a global mandate in addition tocountry-specific tasks—will be designated foreach key item on the learning agenda. This willlead to a more “matrixed,” flat organization ofthe WSP.

Governance ArrangementsThe WSP is legally accountable to its fundersthrough trust fund agreements. Signed by theWorld Bank and WSP donors, these agreementsgovern the allocation of resources and themanner in which the WSP uses its funds.

Governance arrangements include liaisonwith country partners, financial supporters, andstrategic partners. Local advisory groupsprovide guidance at country and regional levels.Guidance to WSP partners is provided by theGlobal Program Advisory Committee (GPAC),which includes representatives from eachregional advisory group, together with financialsupporters and other strategic partners.

Sustainable Financial BaseThe success of the WSP depends on main-tenance of a sustainable financial base. Tosustain such a base, the WSP will have torespond to changes in expected revenues andmonitor expenditures closely.


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Program RevenueThe WSP expects to continue to receive supportfrom its external support agency funding partners,and will work hard to earn their continuingsupport. Over the next few years, however, sometrends are likely to affect the nature of this support.Grant funds for development assistance will likelyremain constant or decrease. Donor countries willprobably sharpen their focus on the world’spoorest countries, most of which are in Africa andSouth Asia. Within these countries, grantassistance will tend to target poverty alleviation.Domestic private investment and private capitalflows may become increasingly important as theengine of growth in middle-income countries inLatin America and in East Asia. Funds for globalprograms and activities will remain scarce, asmany external support agencies decentralizefunds and decisionmaking to the country level.

The WSP has already anticipated some ofthese trends by decentralizing selectedmanagement and fund-raising responsibilities toregional teams. At the country level, the WSPintends to expand its fee-for-service support toexternal support agency programs, includingoperations supported by the World Bank andother international financial institutions. The WSPwill also have to adjust its operations to reflect thegeographical priorities of its funding bodies, andto maintain a lean core staff at the global level andin regions where core funding is scarce.

The emergence of other programs under theGlobal Water Partnership will intensifycompetition for limited funds within the watersector. To provide greater stability for the WSP,supporters will be encouraged to enter intolonger-term funding commitments. A certain

number of longer-term (at least three-year)funding commitments will be required if the WSPis to achieve its mission and attract and retain acore team of high-quality staff. New sources offunding will be explored, such as privatefoundations.

Program ExpenditureWSP expenditures will take place largely at thecountry and regional levels, managed by theregional offices. The headquarters unit will haveoverall responsibility for the quality of all financialmanagement to ensure transparency and tooptimize the allocation and management of funds.

To achieve the WSP’s mission, scarce corefunds need to be well targeted and spent primarilyon field-based learning activities. In rare cases,core funds will be dedicated for studies andresearch at the regional or global levels. Fundingwill be allocated to research, however, only whenthe WSP is convinced that knowledge gaps existand that the WSP has a clear comparativeadvantage in filling a particular gap. Core WSPfunds will not be used for project or policy supportactivities that could be funded by task-specificresources.

Managers will regularly review all activitiesagainst their contribution to the WSP’s objectivesto determine whether activities could be performedmore efficiently without negatively affecting results.This process will increase both the efficiency ofWSP’s personnel inputs and the transparency of itsfinancial management. Financial risk will also bereduced by outsourcing tasks, especially to localpartners whose capacity would be strengthenedby this outsourcing, whenever doing so provesefficient and compatible with high-quality delivery.


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Implementation of the WSP strategy is an evolvingprocess that will take into account changes inpartners’ needs and the needs of the water andsanitation sector. Rolling business plans with three-year horizons for each region will set specifictargets for results, describe how these results willbe achieved, and provide estimates of the humanand financial resources required. Annual workprograms (including agreements made with

Part 6: Strategy Implementation

regional operations of the World Bank) andbudgets will be used to achieve these targets.These plans, developed in close consultation withlocal partners, World Bank regional units, andexternal support agencies, will be driven byspecific country needs and by the evolvinglearning agenda. Business plan formats andprocesses will be kept simple to avoid bureaucraticoverhead.

ECUADOR

PERUBOLIVIA

KENYA

NEPAL

SRI LANKA

I N D O N E S I A

P H I L I P P I N E S

BANGLADESH

CHINA

MONGOLIA

BURKINAFASO ETHIOPIA

PAKISTAN

LAO PDR

CAMBODIA

VIETNAM

UGANDA

TANZANIA

MALAWI

ZAMBIA

ZIMBABWE

MALI

COTE D'IVOIREGHANA

BENIN

MOZAMBIQUE

ERITREA

INDIA

SENEGAL

GUINEA

LA PAZJAKARTA

NAIROBIABIDJAN

DELHI

N

W E

S

South Asia

East Asia and the Pacific

West and Central Africa

East and Southern Africa

Andean Region

Regional office

Regional Offices

WSP-East and Southern AfricaThe World BankP.O. Box 30577Nairobi, KenyaPhone 254-2-260400Fax 254-2-260386

WSP-West and Central AfricaThe World BankB.P. 1850Abidjan 01, Cote d'IvoirePhone 225-442227Fax 225-441687

WSP-East Asia and the PacificThe World BankP.O. Box 1324/JKTJakarta 12940, IndonesiaPhone 62-21-5299-3003Fax 62-21-5299-3004

WSP-South AsiaThe World Bank55 Lodi EstateP.O. Box 416New Delhi, 110003 IndiaPhone 91-11-4690488Fax 91-11-4628250

WSP-Andean RegionThe World BankCasilla 8692La Paz, BoliviaPhone 591-2-316718Fax 591-2-392769

Photography: Guy Stubbs

Graphic Design: Grundy & Northedge

Layout: Communications Development

©1999 International Bank for Reconstructionand Development/The World Bank1818 H Street, NWWashington, DC 20433USAAll rights reservedManufactured in the United States of America

This document has been prepared and published bythe UNDP-World Bank Water and SanitationProgram. Copies of the document are availablefrom the Program headquarters in Washington, DC.Material may be quoted with proper attribution.

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