SWA’s Role in Improving Aid Effectiveness in the WASH sector SWA Country Processes Task Team Geneva, November 2013

2 Agenda 1.Background 2.Aid effectiveness and the WASH sector 3.Strengthening country processes: examples from Liberia and Niger 4.Learning from other sectors 5.Trends: the changing aid landscape

Aid Effectiveness - Background ‘Aid effectiveness is the effectiveness of development aid in achieving economic and social development.’ ‘It is about improving the quality of aid and its impact on development.’

4 Why the need for increased effectiveness? Delivering effective development assistance is not only about quantities of aid but also about how it is delivered and used From 1970s to mid 1990s the predominant financing modality was the project based approach High transaction costs; burden on recipient countries to comply with many different donor requirements and procedures Fragmentation (donor darlings and orphans), duplication, lack of coordination, wasted resources Little accountability Isolated stand-alone projects, lack of longer-term focus on strengthening country processes; no capacities to sustain project results

5 The International Aid Effectiveness Agenda 2005 Paris Declaration 2008 Accra Agenda for Action 2011 Busan Partnership Agreement complemented by the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States

6 Principles of Aid Effectiveness 1.Ownership: Partner countries exercise effective leadership over their development policies and strategies and coordinate development actions 2.Alignment: Donors base their overall support on partner countries’ national development strategies, institutions and procedures 3.Harmonisation: Donor actions are coordinated, where their procedures are simplified and they share information to avoid duplication 4.Managing for results: Managing resources and improving decision making for results; and 5.Mutual accountability: Donors and partners hold each other accountable for development results.

Aid Effectiveness in the WASH Sector

8 Strengthening Country Processes to deliver universal access to lasting services Increased sector capacity ensures governments can be held accountable for delivering sustainable WASH services to all citizens. Sector’s capacity to organize and oversee the delivery of services are fundamental to accelerating progress. Key building blocks of an effective sector include: Sector policy/strategy Sector coordination and dialogue Sector financing and budgeting Sector performance monitoring and learning Systemic approach to strengthening WASH sector capacities

9 Virtuous cycle of aid effectiveness Source: Adapted from Williamson et al., 2008

10 In practice… Remarkable gains in access to WASH Benefits are very unevenly distributed Aid is not well targeted Harmonisation and alignment continue to be a challenge. Processes remain highly fragmented, with multiple funding sources and dispersed domestic institutional arrangements Aid dependency and unpredictability Budget (Sector) support not significant Funding focused on new infrastructure insufficiently for sustaining a service Weak absorption capacity at all levels

Strengthening WASH Systems: The Cases of Liberia and Niger

12 Key Findings Persistent aid dependence Susceptibility of the sector to broader institutional gaps of parent Ministries Improving policy and governance environment often not followed by expected investments Continuation of traditional funding modalities Need for cross-sector learning The 2015 Funding Cliff: Drastic funding falls beyond 2015 Balancing the need for improving access, capacity, and institutional development

13 Declining levels of Available funding: 2015 funding cliff?

14 Liberia Funding gap after 2015

Learning from Other Sectors Lessons from the health and education sectors

16 Global Partnership for Education (GPE) Linking Partnership Mission with aid effectiveness - GPE Compact on Mutual Accountability outlines commitments of developing country governments, donors, and other partners respectively Strengthening structures and institutions e.g. through national education plans, Local Education Groups, sector coordination framework document and JSRs Sector-specific indicators to measure aid effectiveness

17 Education example

18 Mutual accountability

19 International Health Partnership (IHP+) IHP+ Global Compact provides a set of principles and commitments for all signatories, calling for well-coordinated collective efforts focusing on delivering accessible sustainable health systems, and backing comprehensive country owned and developed health plans. IHP+ Results monitoring process reports donor and country progress against adapted Paris indicators

20 Examples of IHP+ SPMs

21 IHP+ Example 2

22 Lessons learned Global and Country Compacts provide measurable tools for reinforcing mutual accountability at the country level Linking Partnership vision and mission to aid principles necessitates discussion of ways of working to achieve these goals Shared understanding of sector specific milestones and indicators promotes open dialogue to define and measure commitments Use and support country level networks increases bottom-up accountability and enhances feedback on partner performance Utilising existing data collection processes minimises transaction costs Assessing performance between partners and non-partners provides evidence of the role of a common framework for action

The Role of SWA

24 Trends Aid Effectiveness is more important than ever... Fiscal austerity in OECD countries is putting pressure on donor aid - increased emphasis on “value for money”, sustainability and impact of ODA Relative decrease for WASH as a proportion of total ODA In many low income countries, WASH sector remains highly dependent on aid But the landscape it becoming more complex.... Significant increase in the share of non-traditional donors

Discussion points

Thank You!