WaterAid Reviews ADB South Asia Projects
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The Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved its first water policy, Water for All, in 2001 and in 2005 began conducting a Comprehensive Policy Implementation Review. WaterAid has undertaken this study to provide an informed, evidence-based input to the Review process and to use the findings to seek changes to ADB’s project design, implementation and evaluation procedures so that ADB supported projects ensure sustainable water supply and sanitation services for the poor.
The study looked at 11 ADB supported water supply and sanitation (WSS) projects in Bangladesh, India and Nepal. A common methodology was followed to allow for an examination of the same themes in each country. The themes examined related to ADB’s involvement in the WSS sector; the effectiveness of ADB projects in ensuring sustainable services for the poor; monitoring and evaluation systems and what they tell ADB about serving the poor; the financial implications of ADB project funding; and implementation of certain policy actions from the ADB water policy. The methodology included a combination of primary data, collected in 21 villages/ towns/cities, and a review of documents. Eight consultation meetings were held to discuss the findings with local stakeholders, including Civil Society Organisations. A series of four workshops were held to plan the research and discuss the findings with participation of WaterAid, ADB, consultants, a Peer Review Group and Civil Society Organisations. Main findings of the Study: On the effectiveness of projects in ensuring sustainable services for the poor: - Projects have generally resulted in overall improvements in water supply and sanitation services. However here is a distinct poor/non-poor divide in access to services as the poor are excluded from benefits due to budget allocations, project design and affordability: i) Allocations in urban WSS projects for slum improvement components are very low and inadequate for providing services to all the poor in the project area ii) In urban projects, land tenure is a major barrier to serving the poor. Many poor settlements are excluded at the project design stage because projects do not provide services to people living on non-tenured land iii) Connection charges ranged from between less than one to more than ten months’ income for poor households. These charges are a barrier to the poor’s ability to connect to a piped water supply (in some cases this charge is not a part of project designs and is introduced by local authorities in an attempt to raise revenues) iv) Tariffs were found to be as high as 6% of a poor family’s monthly income and set to increase if tariffs are raised as stipulated in the project’s conditions of service. No examples were found of different tariffs for the poor - Latrine coverage in the communities studied was found to have increased after projects, however in all projects open defecation was still being practiced - Sustainability of physical outputs and user groups was found to be mixed, with some projects performing well several years after implementation and other services falling into disrepair; user groups were found to be becoming inactive soon after project completion. Temporary institutions are established for project implementation with weak linkage to permanent government institutions, which are responsible for Operation and Maintenance (O&M) after project completion, and robust systems for O&M are not developed under the projects - Water quality was perceived by users to be poor in many of the ground water systems studied - Processes for community engagement in projects were found to be weak resulting in low levels of participation. Where structures for engagement were established, the poor were not able to influence decisions. Participation of wider civil society in most projects was also found to be negligible - All WSS projects include capacity building components but these do not build knowledge and skills of Executing Agency staff and Local Government institutions on the barriers facing the poor in accessing WSS services and ways to address these On the quality of ADB systems for monitoring and evaluation of sustainable services for the poor: - Serving the poor and participation are major thrusts of the Water for All policy. Yet, from the information provided in monitoring and evaluation (M&E) reports, it is not possible to tell whether projects are being implemented in a participatory manner and whether the poor are benefiting - Community and local government involvement in monitoring and evaluation is low, resulting in low ownership and lack of capacity to make decisions and measure change and lessening the chances of continuation of M&E procedures after project completion - ADB projects use different WSS indicators in different projects, within cities under the same project and between baseline and end of project evaluations. This limits the utility of M&E data. Indicators focus on counting physical outputs and not on either community mobilisation processes or sustainability - A weak feedback loop between the results of M&E, and decision-making and rigid project designs result in minimal changes to implementation on the basis of M&E results On the financial implications of ADB project funding: - On-lending of concessional ADB loans at increasing interest rates between multiple stakeholders means that the end borrowers receive relatively high interest loans In some projects the cost recovery principle is over-zealously applied with users required to pay O&M and capital costs, in some cases 50% of the capital costs of the water component. Attempts at capital cost recovery result in unrealistically high tariff projections, high and unaffordable connection costs and lack of political support for projects On water policy implementation: - Water policy implementation is mixed for the policy action points assessed and varies across the three countries. Implementation is weakest in the areas related to serving the poor and ensuring participation of users and civil society The recommendations in this report: The recommendations laid out in more detail in the main sections of the report try to address the issues uncovered by the study. They are designed to help the ADB in its implementation of the water policy, so that sustainable services can be provided for the poor. Some of the key specific recommendations are as follows: - Support the integration of pro-poor approaches in national sector policies by financing studies and supporting consultative forums with active participation of a wide range of stakeholders - Develop implementation strategies during the preparation of each WSS project on: how to serve all the urban poor, including safety nets to ensure affordability; better designed and adequately resourced processes for ensuring participation of communities and civil society; training for Executing Agency and Local Government institutions’ staff to work with the poor - Prioritise coverage of sanitation and sewerage infrastructure, not excluding slums and poor populations, and track and report on investment in sanitation - Design for and monitor the sustainability of services provided under projects - Open up discussions with local government and the public on tariff policies to get agreement and commitment - Attempts at recovering costs should include safety nets for the poor, tariffs should recover at least O&M costs to ensure sustainability, and in using any additional revenue (above and beyond that needed for O&M) priority should be given to expand services to unconnected poor areas rather than repaying loans - Review on-lending terms of concessional ADB loans for affordability - Improve monitoring and evaluation of WSS projects by disaggregating all data, tracking the impact of projects on the poor and vulnerable and developing processes for community and local government certification of all M&E reports - Continually monitor implementation of the pro-poor components of Water for All, by reporting against them in Project Completion Reports and other evaluations and by carrying out a further participatory Review after five years. This review will assess overall policy implementation, with an emphasis on all pro-poor components, after the first generation of post-policy projects have either completed or have significantly progressed in terms of implementation. For the complete report |
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