Harmonisation and coordination entails all actors –national and local government, donors, lending banks, NGOs and other water sector stakeholders – recognizing and adhering to common principles and approaches when supporting rural water services. It includes the principles of 'aid effectiveness', meaning especially that external actors better coordinate amongst themselves and align behind a recipient country's national policies, priorities, and systems. It means implementing programmes (at local level) should follow nationally-set guidelines and standards.
Published on: 16/05/2013
Establishing common ‘rules of the game’ with standardized policies - on things like levels of service, technology, cost recovery, types of operator and monitoring frameworks - means that all stakeholders can work toward supporting the development of the sector. With improved coordination it is likely that newly built infrastructure will be better maintained and supported by permanent institutions, regardless of provenance of investment.
Although the basic premise is that support should be aligned with national policies and frameworks, a major risk is that such efforts do not automatically cascade down to local (or district and sub-district) levels.
It is not uncommon to find situations where aid programmes work in parallel to local government planning and once constructed, infrastructure projects are not embedded into permanent support mechanisms and services.
A SWAp is a mechanism for improved alignment and coordination, which includes a common policy, development plan and set of programmatic approaches, and is led by government. Such an approach makes use of country systems and processes to ensure alignment and includes development agencies as partners. Experience indicates a number of success factors for a SWAp: vision, collaboration, ownership and good governance. Collaboration needs to happen from the outset with all stakeholders brought into the process.
There is no blueprint for improving harmonisation and coordination and there are alternatives to SWAps. However, experience points to a number of essential
components which need to be in place. These are:
It is important to stress that increased harmonization should not work against innovation and learning, which should be addressed as a sector priority.
