Mozambique, Global  Show on interactive map

WSUP

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Simon Hearn

WSUP is a tri-sector partnership between the private sector, civil society and academia focused on addressing the increasing global problem of inadequate access to water and sanitation for the urban poor and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets, particularly those relating to water and sanitation.

The Gates project focuses on capacity development and institutional strengthening of WSUP.

OM was proposed by the project's programme manager at Gates as a way of simplifying the existing M&E procedures of the project, in particular to gain a better understanding of capacity development and institutional strengthening. In country use of OM tools in 2010 was used to create a 2008 baseline. By January 2011, Boundary Partners were defined and Outcome and Strategy Journals were in place. A retrospective assessment of the project was undertaken using this OM framework early in 2011. Quarterly reporting using OM was introduced in 2011.

Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning

WSUP are now trying to use some aspects of OM (aspects which may not be unique to OM) in creating simpler processes for evaluating capacity development and institutional strengthening. Concepts being used include:
1. defining progress not in terms of absolute starting and finishing points but in terms of the magnitude of progress e.g. no progress / limited progress / progress as expected / progress beyond expected. This promises to be an informative and workable way to assess capacity development.
2. getting partners involved in defining targets and assessing progress is very good, in principle. It is unlikely to be possible to do so routinely but we should always be aiming for this.
3. attempting to be clear about capacity development and the impacts of intervention on capacity development, in particularly the idea of assessing contribution vs. attribution. Simple reporting formats can work for this e.g. after asking the team if they have seen capacity development, ask which programme element contributed.