Messy, varied, and growing : country-led monitoring of rural water supplies

Country monitoring, led by governments, together with civil society and the private sector, is essential for decision making and action to realize and improve water supply services. However, in low- and middle-income countries, the lack of a voice for rural dwellers coupled with weak incentives for accountability, government resource constraints, fragmented funding, and donor dominance pose great challenges to country-led monitoring. Project- and donor-led reporting that overshadow country priorities exacerbate these difficulties. The result is a partial, messy, and fragmented monitoring landscape. Nevertheless, some governments are starting to undertake performance measurement and water services monitoring. There appears to be a resurgence of inventories, fuelled by technical innovations around water point mapping. Reflections on twelve country case studies show the diverse journeys taken by each, and provide an insight into the realities of developing comprehensive and systematic country-led monitoring processes. This takes years, has no blueprint, and has no guarantees to deliver expected results in the short term.