Impact evaluation of drinking water supply and sanitation programmes in rural Benin : the risk of vanishing effects

Support to water supply and sanitary facilities has been a priority for international development co-operation for many years. Current attention is guided by the international consensus on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). MDG 7 includes the target to reduce by half, in 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. Benin is for both the German and Dutch government a partner country to which major support to rural water supply and sanitary facilities has been provided. The Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Evaluation Department of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), in close cooperation with the Evaluation Department of the KfW Entwicklungsbank, conducted a rigorous impact evaluation of rural water supply and sanitation programmes in Benin. The impact evaluation covers several interventions to which a number of donors have contributed. In addition to Germany and the Netherlands, other main donors were multilateral banks, France and Denmark. Support provided has been aligned to national sector policies and harmonized between donors. The objective of the support to water supply and sanitary facilities goes beyond sustainable access: it aims to reduce the burden of water collection (typically a task for women and girls), improve health, raise school enrolment and attendance, improve livelihoods and, ultimately, reduce poverty. The study seeks to determine whether these effects materialize. Special attention is devoted to compare water quality between sources and to identify the linkages between water use, sanitation and hygiene behavior. In addition, the report addresses costs aspects of water and sanitation interventions, and reviews some major
organizational challenges to reinforce sustainability. There is a worldwide consensus on the potentially positive impacts of programmes for water
supply and sanitary facilities; conventional evaluation studies do not, however, normally quantify the realised net effects. This impact evaluation therefore uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods and techniques and a quasi-experimental design, supplemented by a small experiment. Through such an evaluation we also wish to explore different approaches to assess the net effects of these programmes. By accompanying the roll-out of a large government programme, supported by various donors, with this impact evaluation we hope to contribute to a more evidence based management. For the Netherlands the study belongs to a series of impact evaluations of water supply and sanitation programmes in different countries. [authors abstract]