Outcomes Toolkit
This toolkit pulls together some of the best examples of efforts to monitor WASH projects and to measure their outcomes. Do you have a tool to recommend? Send a note to washfunders@foundationcenter.org
VIEW BY CATEGORY: All Scan the Field Monitor and Track Outcomes and Impacts
Akvo
Akvo
Category:
Akvo allows donors to view water and sanitation and projects by country, project status, partner organizations, and current level of funding. Funders can track the progress of their projects and learn about new campaigns and projects. Through an open-source information-sharing platform called AkvoRSR, funders can also collaborate and communicate with on-the-ground partners to ensure the efficient and effective use of funding.
Best For:
Identifying and tracking local projects with real-time updates
Akvopedia
Akvo
Category:
Akvopedia is an open water and sanitation resource that anyone can edit, with the aim of exchanging knowledge on smart and affordable technical solutions and effective approaches in the WASH sector. Akvopedia contains more than 400 articles.
Best For:
Getting an understanding of WASH terminology
AQUASTAT
Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations
Category:
AQUASTAT is an information system on water and agriculture with a special focus on water resources, water uses, and water management at a global, regional, and national level. AquaStat enables users to view country-specific data, and to access water balance sheets, sub-national irrigation data, a dams database, global water maps, thematic maps, and Millennium Development Goal water indicators. Reports can be downloaded or customized.
Best For:
Obtaining technical statistics on water resources, water uses, and water management at a global, regional, or national level
charity: water Map
charity: water
Category:
Monitor and Track, Scan the Field
Interactive map featuring charity: water's completed WASH projects. Project profiles include information about project sponsorship, partners and other organizations involved in the region, and the year the project was completed.
Best For:
Viewing charity: water WASH projects in a given country
Community Choices Tool for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene
Pacific Institute
Category:
The tool serves as both a WASH decision-making support tool and a database of technologies, approaches, financing options, and WASH contacts such as local water practitioners, NGOs, CBOs, and government agencies. The aim is to give communities, local and country governments, NGOs, and WASH practitioners access to the wealth of information on water, sanitation, and hygiene technologies and financing approaches in a single-source tool.
Best For:
Gaining expert knowledge about multiple dimensions of the WASH sector
Database of Impact Evaluations
International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3iE)
Category:
Database of more than 200 impact evaluations conducted in low and middle income countries. Studies evaluate impact using qualitative, quantitative, or mixed method study designs. The database can be searched by country, region, focus area (i.e. water), population group, or study type.
Best For:
Gaining insights on WASH program best practices, successes, and failures via academic evaluations
Field Level Operations Watch (FLOW)
Water for People
Category:
Monitor and Track, Outcomes and Impacts
FLOW provides real-time data using GPS and Google Earth software to monitor water points around the world. The tool allows funders, NGOs, and project managers to obtain crucial data points about their infrastructure projects: satellite images, service status, water system status, households served, and repairs needed. FLOW helps maximize and sustain the benefit of investment dollars in infrastructure projects by monitoring the current physical status of projects. Both Water for People and non-Water for People projects are included on the map.
Best For:
Tracking water infrastructure projects and measuring their impact
IBNET Data Base
International Benchmarking Network for Water and Sanitation Facilities
Category:
The IBNET toolkit provides comprehensive data comparing current and historical performance results of water and sanitation utilities. Aimed at providers of public utilities, specifically water and sanitation, the data facilitate the identification of best practices, knowledge-sharing, and the creation of benchmarks where participants can identify gaps and determine their performance in comparison to other participants. The performance data is in the public domain and can be useful for a foundation seeking to learn of the current and past performance of water and sanitation utilities in a given locale.
Best For:
Assessing the current or historical trends of water and sanitation utilities performance; Comparing the performance of utilities across countries and regions
Indicator Data
WHO / UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation
Category:
JMP provides global, regional, and country-level data on water supply and sanitation coverage from 1980 to present. Most reports have been updated recently and contain source data and graphs for both urban and rural settings between 1980 and 2008. The report database can be searched by topic (water or sanitation), year, country, region, or development category.
Best For:
Obtaining contextual and technical data on water and sanitation trends in specific countries
Mapping for Results Platform
The World Bank
Category:
Mapping for Results documents the location of World Bank projects to enhance transparency and social accountability. The map can be sorted by country or sector. WASH financing can be compared to financing of other sectors and can be viewed in relation to country-specific indicators. The tool includes outcomes of World Bank projects.
Best For:
Obtaining information, including outcomes data, on World Bank funding by region, country, or sector
my.Water.org
Water.org
Category:
Tool allows individuals to "join" a water project in a village in Haiti; Individuals can track the progress in the village through weekly reports from those on the ground and from local villagers involved in the project. Personal anecdotes about the project are shared, as are key milestones about the implementation of the project's structural features.
Best For:
Tracking water infrastructure projects
NGO Aid Map
InterAction
Category:
NGO Aid Map shows the water, sanitation, and hygiene projects of InterAction members and provides a landscape scan of current WASH initiatives. The map includes timelines of current projects, funding sources, and the implementing organization. Other development projects (i.e. agriculture, education, economic security) are also highlighted on the map for a comprehensive picture of funding in a given region.
Best For:
Partnering or coordinating projects among existing organizations and NGOs
Peer Water Exchange
Blue Planet Network
Category:
Monitor and Track, Outcomes and Impacts
Peer Water Exchange is a network-based decision-making platform where members (funders) can coordinate decisions, share information, leverage deep knowledge of peers, and scale the impact of WASH funding. The platform includes a mapping feature and detailed project information: project costs, duration of project, primary focus, secondary focus, maintenance costs, sustainability plan, implementation phase reports, project challenges, project successes, and implementing organization.
Best For:
Collaborating on water projects and learning best practices and experiences from peer funders
Prove It!
New Economics Foundation
Category:
Prove it! measures the effect of community regeneration projects on the quality of life. This method was originally conceived to help those managing neighborhood renewal projects look beyond the physical and environmental changes that had taken place and be able to highlight the positive outcomes of regeneration that can often go unnoticed. An accompanying Prove It! Toolkit supports a project manager in planning and undertaking a participatory evaluation for proving and improving.
Best For:
Measuring the holistic and qualitative impact of a water program on a local community
Proving It
a child’s right
Category:
Monitor and Track, Outcomes and Impacts
Interactive tool to see where contributions for children’s access to water are going, including relevant details of each local site, such as number of children served, water quality tests before and after implementation, and maintenance records. Though previous projects have a 5-year timeline for monitoring, newer projects aim for 10-year commitments.
Best For:
Viewing and monitoring projects supported by a child’s right in a given country
WASH in Schools Monitoring Package
UNICEF
Category:
Package consists of three country-generic modules to monitor and track WASH programming in schools, including: 1) basic monitoring questions; 2) more detailed and focused questions about WASH programs at a sub-national project level or thematic level; and 3) a guide and toolkit for teachers to monitor children's response to WASH in Schools.
Best For:
Assessing WASH interventions in schools
WASH Sustainability Charter
WashCharter.org
Category:
A collaboratively-developed mission and set of guiding principles to advance sustainable solutions in water, sanitation, and hygiene education. Funders can demonstrate commitment to these sustainability principles by signing on to the charter.
Best For:
Getting an overview of key sustainability principles
Water Conflict Chronology Map
Pacific Institute
Category:
Map documenting various water crises throughout the world from 3000 B.C.E. to present, giving a pictorial representation of historically conflict burdened geographic regions.
Best For:
Gaining contextual information about water access and water conflicts
Water Credit Map
Water.org
Category:
Map plots Water.org's WaterCredit initiatives, which uses microcredit financing tools to fund WASH activities. The interactive map highlights existing WASH microfinance programs and overlays the initiatives with socio-economic, demographic, and health indicators such as poverty level, prevalence of child malnutrition, and level of access to water and sanitation. The map also notes local financial support or partner organizations engaged in the project. Completed WASH microcredit programs and their impact on country or region served may also be viewed.
Best For:
Viewing WaterCredit projects in a given country
Water Point Mapper
WaterAid
Category:
Measures water supply service in rural and urban African areas where internet connectivity is not readily available. Aims to improve the accountability of water sector performance by mapping the following data points: service status of water sources, the distribution of water supply services in a given country or region, the distances populations must travel to a safe water source, distribution of investments in water supply services in a given country or region, water quality information, and water program performance.
Best For:
Tracking water projects in Sub-Saharan Africa and learning about local structural conditions
