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This report assesses sanitation and hygiene implementation programmes funded by the Global Sanitation Fund (GSF) of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC). It gauges current levels of economy, efficiency and effectiveness by applying standard Value for Money (VFM) analysis procedures and producing current unit costs of outcomes.

TitleValue for money study in Global Sanitation Fund programmes : synthesis report
Publication TypeResearch Report
Year of Publication2016
AuthorsWhite, Z, Burr, P
Pagination52 p. : 9 fig., 12 tab.
Date Published12/2016
PublisherOxford Policy Management (OPM) and Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC)
Place PublishedOxford, UK
Publication LanguageEnglish
KeywordsGlobal Sanitation Fund, indicators, value for money
Abstract

This report assesses sanitation and hygiene implementation programmes funded by the Global Sanitation Fund (GSF) of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC). It gauges current levels of economy, efficiency and effectiveness by applying standard Value for Money (VFM) analysis procedures and producing current unit costs of outcomes.

Building upon the structure developed by WASHCost and Trackfin projects, the authors recommend a better cost classification structure and aggregation procedure to facilitate future VFM analyses, so that it can be used for cross-sector benchmarking. Finally, they compare findings from GSF programmes with existing data in the sanitation/hygiene sector so as to benchmark GSF performance.

The VFM indicators generated for GSF country programmes were based on two detailed country studies conducted in Cambodia and Madagascar and four desk-based country analyses in India, Malawi, Nepal, and Senegal. The GSF-VFM indicators are compared with similar published data emerging from a 'VFM-WASH' study of WASH interventions in six of the UK Department for International Development's (DFID's) large country programmes, including Bangladesh, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Zambia.

Key limitations of the analysis were the reliability of secondary data and the different data sources for the country studies and desk reviews.

With the exception of India, the direct implementation costs of GSF programme activities – capital expenditure (CapEx) software – were the largest component of total country programme expenditure.Expenditure was well dispersed amongst the three cost categories: proportional expenditure on CapEx software only exceeded 50% in Senegal and Madagascar.

Expenditure on directly supporting the delivery of programme activities is, in most cases, the second largest component of programme expenditure. The overall institutional and management costs of the entire GSF programme (indirect programme support) is often the smallest component of overall costs – but is still considerable, at around 25% of overall country-level expenditure.

Taking the cost-efficiency of achieving an open defecation free (ODF) village as an example, indexing showed that in India, Malawi, and notably Cambodia, the costs of achieving ODF status are high compared to the costs of triggering communities. This is reflective of the lower conversion rates from triggered communities to ODF communities. However, when comparing the cost-efficiency indicator for people living in ODF environments there is considerable more clustering around the mean. The difference in definitions implicit here is the average community size in each country. For Malawi, Nepal, Cambodia, and Madagascar the costs per person living in an ODF community are higher relative to the mean than the cost of achieving ODF status. This is reflective of the smaller community size for declared ODF communities (as defined by the reporting indicator used).

The above example demonstrates the dangers of focusing on any one economy of efficiency indicator in isolation, without fully appreciating the different drivers of these costs. Dispersion reduces around the mean as one moves further along the results chain. This is partially due to the fact that the definitions behind the monitoring indicators implicitly become more closely aligned. Outcome indicators partially control for the differences in conversion rates (between triggered and ODF communities), and, more importantly, community size. [Extracts from the executive summary]

 

URLhttp://wsscc.org/resources-feed/value-money-study-global-sanitation-fund-programmes-synthesis-report/
Citation Key82464

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