Who should be responsible for monitoring the water and sanitation projects?

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I am working in rural areas in water and sanitation projects. I am in dilemma that who should monitor the project? should it be a same NGO implementing it or should it be Govt? Some time I feel we NGO workers while reporting the truth are little biases as we have to show that we are creating some changes in the field where we work. May be thats what I think but reviews of all members are welcome.

9 Answers

  2. Very well conceptualized Charles.

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  3. Dear All, Monitoring is systemic as well as procedural, but all depends on what, why and how the monitoring is done. For WASH, the first step is through the establishment of a regulatory body for WASH at the desired level drawn directly from the primary beneficiaries. At the rural level we have the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Committees (WASHCOMs) who oversee these services at this level. At the Small Towns level, there is the Water Consumers Associations (WCAs) down to the urban settlement where the system becomes more advanced, complicated and segregated into different groups handled by different agencies. By this I mean for any WASH system to be sustainable, the direct beneficiaries should be able to operate and maintain the facilities and not an external body of government. the strategy for operation and maintenance is through the establishment of a supply chain and establishment of sanitation centres for the sale of fast moving spares for the maintenance of water facilities and components for the construction of sanitary latrines. These three structures (WASHCOMs, Supply Chain and Sanicentres) will make sure the project continues to serve the beneficiaries appropriately. The WASHCOMs should be able to institute a tariff system to generate funds for the maintenance of the facilities and also keep necessary records of the project. So once a project is complete, the WASHCOMs at the community level should take charge but it does not prohibit the government or NGO to periodically make visits to these projects to ascertain the status and examine the outcome.

  5. To ensure accountability and collaboration with government, one of the practice is to make joint monitoring with government counterparts. Another smart way is establishment of project committee comprised of beneficiary community members and government representatives. The role of the project committee is to ensure local resource mobilization, community ownership, quality control and accountability. Once community own the project by participation, they are likely to sustain it. However, your project team play a central role in monitoring and decision-making process through a consultative process. I believe NGOs have variety of innovative monitoring techniques. In case you don't trust your project team, there are ways you could check quality of the information they collected through field audit (field verification visit), where you may involve beneficiaries and government.

  6. Activity monitoring is as varied as the work we do as a social activitiest. It can be as simple as taking photos, writing a journal and sharing our story with us media,funders or community. But it also includes the formal processes such as interviews with community members during your time in community, data collection and daily job sheets. My experience says we should monitor and evaluate our own work.

  7. Hi Sahana, you may like to read this article on A central role for government in monitoring sustainable WASH services, http://washinternational.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/a-central-role-for-government-in-monitoring-sustainable-wash-services/

  8. Sahana monitoring is a periodically recurring task already beginning in the planning stage of a project . Monitoring allows results, processes and experiences to be documented and used as a basis to steer decision-making and learning processes. Monitoring is checking progress against plans. Then how can some else performs it for you? The implementing agency only should do that to ensure the best and desired results. I don't believe in having 3rd party doing it for your work

  9. I highly feel the responsibly of monitoring the water and sanitation projects should be done by independent national regulatory authorities mandated to regulate and monitor water and sanitation projects with support from cooperating partners (e.g. NGOs or consultants but these should not be involved during the implementation of the respective project but can be involved at the project planning, initiation and evaluation stages)