Supporting UNICEF in Accelerating Sanitation and Water for All

Process Monitoring and Evaluation of the UNICEF Accelerating Sanitation and Water for All (ASWA) programme

DFID has provided £35.5 million funding to the ASWA programme, which is implemented by UNICEF in nine countries in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. These neglected countries are falling behind plan in their attempts to upgrade water supply, sanitation, and hygiene in line with the previous Millennium Development Goals. WYG was appointed, in 2014, to undertake the Independent Process Monitoring and Evaluation (IPME) of the ASWA Programme.

ASWA provides support through direct Water and Sanitary Health (WASH) interventions and to the enabling environment at policy and institutional level. Both approaches require independent quality assurance and supportive supervision to keep the programme on track. Our IPME activities therefore include three components: the monitoring and verification of ASWA results, customised support to strengthen programme monitoring activities, and the delivery of process evaluation.

To ensure that the ASWA monitoring and reporting systems deliver reliable information on progress, the first component of our IPME focuses on assessment of programme results and performance. The M&E team are conducting appraisals of UNICEF Country Office’s WASH M&E systems, delivering verification of results, and providing support to ongoing studies and operational research. Throughout the IPME we are formulating and sharing recommendations in real-time to allow programme improvements to be made in real-time.

Customised support to strengthen ASWA monitoring activities is being delivered to the UNICEF Country Offices. This aims to strengthen sector monitoring in order to support the WASH programmes’ engagement in policy development at national sector level. Support is also being provided to improve Value for Money (VfM) analysis and sustainability monitoring so that they are embedded in the monitoring processes of Country Offices.

The process evaluation element of the IPME addresses the reasons behind the achievement or non-achievement of results and the success or failure of programme implementation. The overall objective is to share lessons on how and why verified results were achieved, the quality of those results and the prospects for sustainability of outcomes.

Key outputs of the IPME to date include detailed Monitoring & Verification Appraisal reports and recommendations for UNICEF M&E system improvements; six-monthly verification reports of UNICEF progress against logframe targets; development of guidance for Country Offices on undertaking VFM monitoring and analysis; and delivery of a wide range technical assistance to Country Offices.