M&E NOTE

CS WASH Fund Mid-term Review

The Civil Society Water, Sanitation and Hy-

giene (CS WASH) Fund is an AUD103 million

investment by Australia’s Department of

Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) that is

supporting 13 Civil Society Organisations

(CSOs) to implement 29 WASH projects in

19 countries throughout Africa, Asia and

the Pacific over four years to 2018. The

Fund’s theory of change anticipates that

CSO ‘Delivery Teams’ will influence the

knowledge, motivation and skills of more

than 20,500 WASH sector ‘Change

Agents’ (typically institutional or community

actors), who will in turn deliver or support

improved WASH services for up to 3.66

million beneficiaries in poor communities

on a sustainable basis.

The Fund is supported by a three-member

Monitoring, Evaluation and Review Panel

(MERP) engaged by DFAT to oversee the

quality and effectiveness of the Fund. The

MERP is broadly aligned with a

‘developmental evaluation’ approach but is

also required to perform an oversight func-

tion that reinforces accountability to DFAT

and the Australian public. To achieve this,

the MERP has developed and implemented

the Fund’s performance assessment ar-

rangements and conducted monitoring

visits to 27 of the Fund’s 29 projects.

At midway through the life of the Fund,

DFAT will review the Fund with a primary

focus on assessing the appropriateness and

efficiency of the Funds modality, manage-

ment and M&E arrangements. To support

the review, the MERP is using data from

monitoring visit reports and the Fund’s

M&E system, to prepare a number of short

papers covering the following topics:

Key attributes/features of the Fund

An assimilation of WASH approaches and

strategies being applied across the Fund

Analysis of key themes of interest to

stakeholders e.g. private sector involve-

ment; gender and social inclusion; and

sanitation demand

An aggregation of performance metrics

including: notable achievements; pro-

gress/completion of deliverables; realisa-

tion of expected changes; and early evi-

dence of emerging impacts

An analysis of how the Fund has changed

since the inception phase and implica-

tions for achieving Fund objectives

An executive summary of monitoring

visit reports

The papers are currently being drafted and are expected to be available via the Fund’s website (http://www.cswashfund.org/shared-resources/tools) in June 2016.

FAST FACTS

Achievements to date:

Over half a million people (560,000) have gained access to an improved sanitation facility

1.3 million people have increased knowledge of hygiene practices

Over 117,000 people have gained access to an improved water supply

Over half a million additional people (555,295) are living in households where water is safely treated and stored

24,000 additional students have gained ac-cess to improved school latrines

25,000 students have gained access to an improved school drinking-water source

PARTICIPATING CSOs

Australian Red Cross

Concern Universal

Habitat for Humanity

International Development Enterprises

International Rescue Committee

Live & Learn Environmental Education

Plan International Australia

Save the Children Australia

SNV Netherlands Development Organisation

Thrive Networks

WaterAid

Welthungerhilfe

World Vision Australia

Project Locations

MERP

Bruce Bailey (brucebailey@griffin-nrm.com.au) Paul Crawford (pcrawford@aid-it.com.au) Paul Tyndale-Biscoe (paultyndale@fhdesigns.com.au)