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TitleWater point mapping : a tool for increasing transparency and accountability : paper presented at the IRC symposium ‘ Pumps, Pipes and Promises: Costs, Finances and Accountability for Sustainable WASH Services' in The Hague, The Netherlands from 16 - 18 No
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2010
AuthorsWelle, K
Pagination16 p.; 19 refs.; 5 fig.
Date Published2010-11-16
Place PublishedThe Hague, The Netherlands
Keywordsaccounting, east africa, mapping, monitoring
Abstract

Sector performance monitoring is promoted in many developing countries in order to improve transparency and accountability in delivering water supply, sanitation and hygiene services. Water Point Mapping (WPM) is a tool that visualises sector information highlighting, for example, equity in distribution of water supply services. Through the visualisation of sector information, WPM has the potential to support sector performance monitoring. The paper argues that the availability of WPM evidence in itself does not yet bring about any changes. The information needs to be made accessible to different actors to increase transparency and its use needs to be encouraged to increase accountability of water supply service provision. The paper discusses the challenges of WPM in improving transparency and accountability of rural water supply services and ways to overcome them based on WaterAid’s experience in WPM in East Africa. It differentiates between three types of challenges: technological, operational and governance-related; and argues that, generally, not enough attention is paid to overcoming the latter. It holds that operational and governance-related challenges impact on the use of WPM information but cannot be overcome by mapping alone.  The paper proposes ‘”policy space analysis” based on a power analysis tool by Gaventa et al to identify entry points for engagement through WPM.  Depending on the openness of the policy space in a country, formal government reporting and alternative feed-back channels can be used to support sector performance monitoring through WPM in East Africa. The paper concludes by providing examples for engaging with formal reporting mechanisms and alternative feed-back channels based on experiences from WaterAid in East Africa. [authors abstract}

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