This book reviews the monitoring approaches used in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) period, and its chapters highlight the significant gap between ?improved? water and sanitation and impacts on health.
The new 2030 Agenda includes water and sanitation at its core, with a dedicated SDG 6 declaring a commitment to “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”. Monitoring progress toward this goal will be challenging as direct measures of water and sanitation service quality and use are either expensive or elusive. However, a continued reliance on household surveys poses limitations that likely overstated progress during the MDG period. In this report, we review the landscape of technologies, methods and approaches that can support and improve on the water and sanitation indicators proposed for Sustainable Development Goals 6.1 “by 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all, and 6.2 “by 2030, achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations.” In some cases, technologies and methods are proven and readily available. In other cases, emergent technologies and approaches hold promise but require further field evaluation and cost reductions. Given the myriad monitoring and evaluation methods, each have their own advantages and limitations. It is often beneficial to leverage more than one method to get a fuller picture of water and sanitation behavior. Combined methodologies reinforce the advantages, while also addressing the limitations, of each of the monitoring techniques that comprise them. Surveys, ethnographies, and direct observation give context to electronic sensor readings that remain objective despite interim analyses. Sensors or spot checks may give a picture of household characteristics, but surveys, and ideally, structured observation is used to inform individual behavior, which further refines the algorithm or index for streamlined analysis during subsequent monitoring periods. Overall, combined methodologies can provide a more comprehensive and instructive depiction of water supply, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) usage.
