What is the potential role of the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) beyond the Millennium Development Goals and the 2015 target on water and sanitation?

Monitoring efforts need to refocus from tracking coverage (the number of systems built and users who have access) to tracking sustainable service delivery. This was the main message of the keynote paper delivered by Triple-S director Ton Schouten at the First Consultation on Post-2015 Monitoring, held in Berlin 3-5 May 2011.

The Consultation, organised by WHO and UNICEF, brought together over 60 WASH professionals including representatives from UN organisations, Development Banks, donors and international networks and knowledge centres to look at the future of water supply and sanitation monitoring and in particular the Joint Monitoring Programme, the official instrument for measuring progress towards the MDG target on drinking water and sanitation.

Monitoring sustainability

While the current approach to monitoring has been useful in feeding high level decision making and international comparisons, it has left sustainability out of the equation. The actual water supply coverage in many countries has ‘slipped’ as systems break down prematurely due to a lack of proper maintenance and planning for the full life-cycle costs.

The keynote paper outlines the implications for the JMP. ‘We need develop sustainability indicators that go beyond simple functionality (is the system working or not)’ Schouten said, ‘to indicators that will give us information on the actual level of service delivered and the supporting structures (capacity, financing, availability of parts) that determine whether the service can be maintained over time.’

Linking to performance management

This implies strengthening monitoring at the sub-national level, and, to take it one step further, linking monitoring to performance management. Ghana, Uganda and Honduras are some of the countries included in a recent IRC/Triple-S study that are using monitoring as a tool to improve performance of service providers and of the bodies (usually local government) that have responsibility for ensuring service delivery.

Expanding the JMP focus would have implications for cost of collection, storage and communication of data as well. Schouten said, ‘New technologies such as handheld applications for mobile phones have great potential for both data collection and reducing costs.’ As an example, Schouten pointed to a newly launched mapping tool developed by Water For People, Field Level Operations Watch (FLOW), which helps monitor the distribution and status of water points and supports map and report production without the need for expensive GIS software or internet.

In closing, Schouten appealed to the JMP to go beyond developing indicators to supporting countries in their efforts to strengthen their monitoring systems at the level of service provision, primarily at the decentralised local government level. ‘This is where monitoring enables better services and better performing service providers,’ Schouten noted.