We cannot reach everyone, everywhere by ourselves – to ensure change on a massive scale we must work with governments, the private sector and other NGOs. Together we are accountable for progress towards universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH).
WaterAid, global monitoring and accountability
Global monitoring helps governments benchmark data, see progress over time, understand the impact of their policies, and evaluate how they compare with others. It also makes it possible to hold them and other service providers, as well as donors, to account for their commitments.
In line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the role of regional and global monitoring is changing to focus more on experience sharing and periodic thematic reports, while the accountability for targets is based primarily on national monitoring.
Our vision is of an informed and accountable international community working together to make clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene normal for everyone, everywhere by 2030.
Our approach
We work closely with the World Health Organization (WHO), Unicef, UN-Water, and the Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) partnership to:
- Research the progress made by the WASH sector – asking questions like: How well do donors collaborate to strengthen service providers? How did the East Asian ‘tiger’ economies achieve universal access in a generation?
- Support improved data collection and use through participation in national data reconciliation processes. We participate in the WHO/Unicef Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) working groups to identify how best to monitor progress towards the SDGs. We were involved in developing the WASHwatch platform, which gathered evidence of country and donor progress towards WASH commitments.
- Advocate that promises are kept. We campaign for greater transparency in WASH sector funding and operation to ensure money is spent and improvements are made as efficiently as possible. We work in coalition to push for effective monitoring of the SDGs, to strengthen accountability for these commitments and ensure they are met.