Published on: 30/06/2014
A recent study reviewed 25 sustainability tools and conducted an on-line survey to gauge demand.
- 78% of respondents are currently using tools; 92% are interested in new tools to help ensure greater sustainability of WASH services.
- The majority of the indicators target rural conditions (63%) and were designed generi-cally for WASH (38%). Only 1% of indicators target urban/peri-urban conditions and only 4% hygiene.
- Information on the cost of application was only available for four tools. Costs ranged from $5,000 to $65,000 per application.
- The most common area of sustainability assessed was institutional or management (34%) followed closely by technical areas (29%); less common are financial (15%), envi-ronment (12%), and socio-cultural (10%) areas. "Given that strong financials are regu-larly cited as a pre-requisite for sustainability..., it is surprising to find that it is poorly represented across these key areas in the tools reviewed," commented the authors.
- Only three tools in this review were developed by government entities (CUPSS, Sus-tainability Index Tool, and SIASAR). Say the authors, "Going forward there is the need to link these efforts (largely of development partners) to those of national govern-ment. Making the outputs of each tool more accessible, relevant and actionable for permanent stakeholders, especially at local (government) level is of critical concern if they are to achieve scaled up impact."
