Country-led and country-wide monitoring of rural and small towns water supplies

Ensuring that all rural dwellers access sustainable and safe drinking water is enshrined in many constitutions. To make it happen, decision-making and action needs to be based on up-to-date and reliable information. Evidence is needed regarding the effectiveness of policies, stakeholder
performance and whether or not water services are meeting their targets and customer’s expectations. Robust and transparent monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is essential in order to generate such information. Good M&E enables timely acquisition, analysis, and verification of high quality data. It results in information that is well-documented and can be shared, discussed, and challenged. Effective M&E systems can facilitate decision-making and action. M&E however, is just one aspect of water governance. Where water governance is weak, it is difficult to establish reliable M&E systems while the information that they generate may not be readily used for decision-making. In many aid-dependant countries externally-driven development efforts often side-step water governance. Although such projects may incorporate some M&E, it tends to serve the accountability needs of funders rather than strengthening the governance or the M&E systems of the country as a whole. [authors abstract]