USAID Water and Development Strategy

Improving health outcomes through the provision of sustainable WASH is  the first strategic objective of USAID’s Water and Development Strategy,  2013-2018 (Water Strategy). These projections included persons receiving first- time and improved access to water supply and sanitation. Each mission’s total funding for WASH activities in these nine countries  ranged from about $53.4 million, in Indonesia, to about $4.4 million, in  Haiti. The most frequent key focus areas for these activities were  capacity building and behavior-change communication, followed by  infrastructure construction, technical assistance, policy and governance,  and financing. USAID Is Taking Steps to Enhance Strategic WASH Approach and Address WASH Sustainability

In the nine countries we selected for our review, we found that USAID  missions are taking steps to develop and implement WASH plans and are  incorporating the Water Strategy’s principles and approach into recent  and planned WASH activities. The remaining four  missions were in the process of developing or finalizing such plans. The reasons for lack of  verification for water beneficiaries were generally unclear, and mission  officials, as discussed later, generally provided varying reasons for the  inaccurate reporting for sanitation activities. Our interviews with mission officials and  reviews of monitoring documents indicated that the selected USAID  missions modified ongoing or planned activities—for at least 6 of the 10  we reviewed that had relevant evaluations—on the basis of evaluation  results. In response,  USAID missions in a number of priority countries are developing a more  strategic approach to WASH, and USAID’s Office of Water and missions  have begun taking steps to address sustainability of WASH investments. Moreover, unless USAID identifies and  addresses factors contributing to missions’ inconsistent adherence to  guidance for verifying beneficiaries of water activities and accurately  reporting beneficiaries of sanitation activities, USAID cannot ensure the  accuracy of its annual reports regarding progress in increasing access to  safe water and sanitation. Specifically, with respect  to inconsistent adherence to agency guidance for establishing annual  targets, for reporting gender disaggregated data, for verifying  beneficiaries of water activities, and for accurately reporting beneficiaries  of sanitation activities, USAID should  identify factors contributing to missions’ inconsistent adherence to  agency guidance and  take steps to address these factors. In its written comments, USAID generally concurred with our  recommendations and outlined steps it is taking to address our second  recommendation. 2. 3. 4. 6. GAO staff who made major contributions to  this report are listed in appendix V.

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

In this report, we (1) describe the types of water supply, sanitation, and  hygiene (WASH) activities the U.S. Agency for International Development  (USAID) has implemented in selected countries and the funding it has  provided for these activities; (2) assess the extent to which USAID  guidance has informed the agency’s efforts to plan and implement WASH  activities in these countries; and (3) assess USAID’s monitoring and  evaluation of selected WASH activities. The activities we selected included those  to which the missions in the selected countries had allocated the largest  amounts of WASH funding, with one exception: In Uganda, the selected  activities did not include the Uganda mission’s activity that received the  largest allocations of WASH funding in fiscal years 2012 through 2014,  because the mission had allocated the majority of funding for its largest  WASH activity before fiscal year 2012, did not initially inform us of this  activity, and did not provide the prior-year funding data until after we had  made our activity selection. To assess USAID evaluations for WASH activities in the nine countries,  we selected all evaluations for WASH activities completed in fiscal years  2012 through 2014. Monitoring. All 14 evaluations reported on monitoring of WASH activities.
Why GAO Did This Study

Millions of people in developing countries lack access to safe water and improved sanitation. Congress passed the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005 to improve access to safe water and sanitation for developing countries. In 2013, USAID released its first Water and Development Strategy , which includes the objective of improving health through sustainable WASH.
GAO was asked to review USAID's WASH efforts. Focusing on WASH activities in 9 selected countries, this report (1) describes recent activities and funding, (2) assesses USAID missions' efforts to plan and implement activities, and (3) assesses USAID's monitoring of activities. GAO selected a nongeneralizable sample of 9 countries from USAID's list of 22 priority WASH countries. These 9 countries received about 53 percent of funding attributed to WASH for fiscal years 2012 and 2013. GAO also selected 16 activities for detailed review in the 9 countries, primarily on the basis of levels of funding. GAO analyzed USAID WASH funding data for fiscal years 2012 through 2014 and reviewed agency documents, interviewed mission officials, and visited sites in 2 African countries.

What GAO Found

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) missions in the 9 countries GAO selected for its review reported implementing a variety of water supply, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) activities in fiscal years 2012 through 2014. WASH activities included capacity building, behavior-change communication, infrastructure construction, technical assistance, policy and governance, and financing. The missions' funding for WASH activities in these countries ranged from $4.4 million to $53.4 million.
Note: Funding shown generally represents allocations for activities through Sept. 2014.
USAID missions in these 9 countries are taking steps to develop and implement plans for WASH activities, with some missions making more progress than others. These missions are also generally taking steps to address long-term sustainability when planning WASH activities, as directed by USAID guidance, including the Water and Development Strategy . USAID is in the process of developing additional guidance to help all its missions address the sustainability of WASH activities.
The completeness and accuracy of USAID's monitoring of WASH activities varied in the 9 selected countries. GAO found that, inconsistent with agency guidance, these missions did not (1) consistently set annual targets for 6 of 16 WASH activities, (2) disaggregate beneficiaries by gender for 6 of 10 water supply and sanitation activities, (3) verify the accuracy of beneficiary data for 3 of 10 water supply activities, and (4) report accurate numbers of beneficiaries for 6 of 8 sanitation activities. Mission officials cited a variety of reasons for adhering inconsistently with agency guidance in some instances and in others the reasons for inconsistent adherence were not clear. These limitations in the completeness and accuracy of monitoring information for WASH activities may inhibit the effectiveness of USAID's oversight of such activities and affect its ability to accurately report on progress in increasing access to safe water and sanitation.

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that USAID take steps to improve monitoring and reporting of WASH activities, by identifying and addressing reasons for missions' inconsistent adherence with agency guidance. USAID generally concurred with the recommendations and, in particular, outlined steps it is taking to address the report's second recommendation.