By 2015 the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation will be halved (according to Millennium Development Goal 7c.) Yet, millions of people worldwide still lack access to improved water supply and the sanitation target is severely off track.
The DFID WASH Results Programme aims to support poor people to access improved water and sanitation, and to introduce improved hygiene practices, to support the UK Government’s targets of reaching 60 million people with improved water, sanitation and hygiene initiatives. Three Suppliers have been contracted by DFID to deliver results by December 2015 and strengthen local systems and build local capacity to help sustain these results up to March 2018:
- The Consortium for Sustainable WASH in Fragile Contexts (SWIFT) led by Oxfam GB; working in DRC and Kenya and contributing to all three areas of WASH.
- The South Asia WASH Results Programme (SAWRP), a consortium led by Plan UK; working in Bangladesh and Pakistan and also across all three area of WASH.
- The Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for All (SSH4A) Results Programmeimplemented by the SNV Netherlands Development Organisation; working in Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nepal, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and focusing on sanitation and hygiene only.
WASH Results uses a funding relationship known as Results Based Financing (RBF) where the funding goes from DFID to a Supplier or Service Provider. RBF is a type ofPayment By Results (PbR), a relatively new form of financing used by DFID that makes payments contingent on the independent verification of results – which is where e-Pact comes in.
The e-Pact consortium is the Monitoring, Verification & Evaluation (MVE) services provider for WASH Results with Itad as the lead agency, joined by OPM, IWEL and Ecorys.
The Monitoring & Verification team supports DFID by monitoring progress and verifying that the Suppliers’ reporting on results is accurate and realistic.
The Evaluation team is assessing if and why the programme delivers sustainable outcomes, how efficiently and effectively it is and how to effectively design and implement RBF programmes in the WASH sector.
Cutting across both teams is a Learning & Dissemination function, that supports knowledge-sharing and learning between the Suppliers, DFID and the MVE team and helps lessons learned about RBF in WASH reach a wide audience.
This blog was originally posted on the Learning about Payment by Results in WASH, by the team verifying and evaluating DFID’s WASH Results Programme, in May 2015.
