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Operational review and institutional assessment of the African Water Facility

Main report – 4 October 2010

FINAL VERSION – RESTRICTED CIRCULATION

Title: Operational review and institutional assessment of the African Water Facility

Status of the report: Main report – Draft version

Client: African Water Facility

Consultant: Association WEDC-HYDROCONSEIL (leading company: HYDROCONSEIL)

Effectiveness of contract: 30 October 2009

Date of submission: 04 October 2010 via e-mail (English version)

Version revision number: 10

Contributors: Laura Hurter (Ms), Alain Morel (Mr), Kevin Sansom & Bruno Valfrey-Visser (Mr)

Coordination, editing & quality control: Bruno Valfrey-Visser (Mr)

For any query or question regarding this report: [email protected]

AFRICAN WATER FACILITY

Operational review and institutional assessment of the African Water Facility – Main report HYDROCONSEIL/WEDC – Version 10 (final version) – 04 October 2010 – [AM, B2V, KS, LH, coord. B2V]

Table of content

A. Executive summary ............................... .............................................................. 8

A.1. Rationale behind this assessment........................................................................... 8

A.2. Objective and methodology..................................................................................... 8

A.3. The assets of the Facility ........................................................................................ 8

A.4. AWF’s portfolio of projects ...................................................................................... 9

A.5. Project appraisal, approval and implementation.....................................................10

A.6. AWF’s institutional relationships.............................................................................10

A.7. The way forward – overview of recommendations..................................................10

Improving AWF’s strategic functions: planning, AMCOW involvement, resource mobilisation, knowledge management and communications .................................................................................... 11 Enhancing the quality of AWF-funded projects by focusing on identification, supervision and monitoring............................................................................................................................................. 12 Improving AWF’s leadership and organisation: towards an adequately staffed and more decentralised Facility .................................................................................................................................................. 13

B. Objectives and rationale behind this assessment of the AWF ...................... 14

B.1. Rationale behind this assessment..........................................................................14

B.2. Objectives and expected outputs ...........................................................................14

B.2.1. Objectives .................................................................................................................................. 14 B.2.2. Expected outputs ....................................................................................................................... 14

B.3. Framework and method of the assessment ...........................................................15

B.3.1. Consultant .................................................................................................................................. 15 B.3.2. Overview of framework............................................................................................................... 15 B.3.3. Consultative approach ............................................................................................................... 16 B.3.4. Status of this report .................................................................................................................... 16

C. Overview of the AWF ............................. ............................................................ 17

C.1. Original concept of the Facility ...............................................................................17

C.1.1. Rationale behind the establishment of the Facility .................................................................... 17 C.1.2. Initial ambition of the Facility...................................................................................................... 18 C.1.3. Origin of the current institutional and organizational setup........................................................ 18

C.2. AWF’s goal and areas of intervention ....................................................................18

C.2.1. Overall goal of AWF................................................................................................................... 18 C.2.2. Areas of intervention .................................................................................................................. 18

C.3. Five years of efforts and accomplishments ............................................................20

D. AWF’s projects and operations ................... ..................................................... 21

D.1. Analysis of AWF’s portfolio of projects...................................................................21

D.1.1. The AWF has built a unique portfolio of projects ....................................................................... 21 D.1.2. Overview of the portfolio from a financial angle ......................................................................... 21 D.1.3. Geographical spread of projects ................................................................................................ 23



D.1.4. Thematic spread of projects....................................................................................................... 24 D.1.5. Financing leverage effect........................................................................................................... 27

D.2. Disbursement of project funds ...............................................................................30

D.2.1. Disbursement status 2006-2010................................................................................................ 30 D.2.2. Analysis of projects waiting to start up in April 2010.................................................................. 31 D.2.3. Main issues in the disbursement process.................................................................................. 32

D.3. Assessment of African Water Facilities’ projects and operational procedures........33

D.3.1. Overview of the assessment of visited projects: good realization of project outputs and outcomes, but at a slower implementation phase than planned .......................................................... 33 D.3.2. Emerging AWF priorities for project development ..................................................................... 43 D.3.3. Overview of AWF project cycle and processes.......................................................................... 44 D.3.4. AWF portfolio management ....................................................................................................... 48 D.3.5. AWF operating procedures........................................................................................................ 49 D.3.6. Cross-cutting issues .................................................................................................................. 49 D.3.7. Project reporting......................................................................................................................... 50 D.3.8. Support to executing agencies at each stage of project cycle ................................................... 51 D.3.9. Organization of quality control ................................................................................................... 52 D.3.10. Use of logical frameworks........................................................................................................ 52 D.3.11. Areas for improvement............................................................................................................. 53

E. Review of AWF institutional arrangements ........ ............................................. 54

E.1. Review of AWF key documents .............................................................................54

E.1.1. Strategies................................................................................................................................... 54 E.1.2. Work plan................................................................................................................................... 54 E.1.3. Operational Procedures ............................................................................................................. 56 E.1.4. Operations Manual..................................................................................................................... 56

E.2. Relationship between AWF and AMCOW ..............................................................58

E.2.1. A strategic relationship for the AWF .......................................................................................... 58 E.2.2. AWF is a key instrument for AMCOW........................................................................................ 58 E.2.3. Collaboration on resources mobilization could improve............................................................. 58

E.3. Hosting of the Facility by the AfDB.........................................................................59

E.3.1. An hosting arrangement beneficial to the Facility ...................................................................... 59 E.3.2. Collaboration with OWAS and other Bank departments ............................................................ 59 E.3.3. Collaboration with Bank Field Offices ........................................................................................ 60 E.3.4. Interaction between AfDB procedures and AWF operations ..................................................... 60

F. Review of AWF organisation and management....... ........................................ 61

F.1. Organisational assessment findings.......................................................................61

F.1.1. Review of the Areas of Intervention in relation to the Sharm El Sheikh commitments............... 61 F.1.2. Systems for project and fund management................................................................................ 63 F.1.3. Performance monitoring............................................................................................................. 64 F.1.4. Performance monitoring of AWF as an organization ................................................................. 65 F.1.5. Knowledge transfer and management ....................................................................................... 65 F.1.6. AWF communications ................................................................................................................ 67

F.2. AWF Resource mobilization ...................................................................................67

F.3. Management of AWF .............................................................................................70

F.3.1. Developing closer links with country partners ............................................................................ 70 F.3.2. Leadership issues ...................................................................................................................... 70 F.3.3. AWF’s autonomy........................................................................................................................ 70 F.3.4. AWF’s visibility ........................................................................................................................... 71



F.4. Management of human resources..........................................................................71

F.4.1. Recent trends in staffing ............................................................................................................ 71 F.4.2. How staff spend their time.......................................................................................................... 72 F.4.3. Current AWF staffing plan for the future .................................................................................... 73 F.4.4. Staff recruitment ......................................................................................................................... 75 F.4.5. Staff development ...................................................................................................................... 75

F.5. AWF functional review............................................................................................75

F.6. Organizational development for the future..............................................................77

F.6.1. Sustainable growth of AWF........................................................................................................ 77 F.6.2. AWF vision and mission............................................................................................................. 77 F.6.3. A decentralized approach........................................................................................................... 78 F.6.4. Limited targeted calls for proposals ........................................................................................... 80 F.6.5. Outsourcing to enhance AWF performance............................................................................... 80 F.6.6. Strengthening of AWF leadership and autonomy ...................................................................... 81 F.6.7. Guiding principles for organizational development..................................................................... 82 F.6.8. Organizational development scenarios ...................................................................................... 83 F.6.9. Proposed AWF staffing projections............................................................................................ 84 F.6.10. Organizational structure proposals........................................................................................... 85

G. Recommendations................................. ............................................................ 87

G.1. Concluding remarks...............................................................................................87

G.2. Overview of recommendations ..............................................................................88

G.3. Strategic issue recommendations..........................................................................91

G.3.1. Strategic planning...................................................................................................................... 91 G.3.2. Involvement of AMCOW ............................................................................................................ 94 G.3.3. Resource mobilisation ............................................................................................................... 94 G.3.4. Knowledge transfer and management....................................................................................... 95 G.3.5. Communications, visibility and outreach.................................................................................... 95

G.4. Operational activities .............................................................................................96

G.4.1. Project identification .................................................................................................................. 96 G.4.2. Project preparation and appraisal.............................................................................................. 97 G.4.3. Project implementation .............................................................................................................. 98 G.4.4. Project performance monitoring................................................................................................. 98

G.5. Institutional issues .................................................................................................99

G.5.1. Human resources management ................................................................................................ 99 G.5.2. Institutional framework............................................................................................................. 101

H. Annexes ......................................... ................................................................... 105

H.1. Persons met or interviewed..................................................................................105

H.2. Documents consulted ..........................................................................................106

H.3. Terms of reference ..............................................................................................108

H.3.1. Background.............................................................................................................................. 108 H.3.2. Context..................................................................................................................................... 109 H.3.3. Reasons behind this operational review and institutional assessment .................................... 110 H.3.4. Audience of the operational review / institutional assessment................................................. 110 H.3.5. Scope and focus ...................................................................................................................... 110 H.3.6. Methodology ............................................................................................................................ 113 H.3.7. Accountabilities and responsibilities ........................................................................................ 115 H.3.8. Deliverables and time frame .................................................................................................... 115



H.3.9. Consultant qualification............................................................................................................ 117 H.3.10. Annex A ................................................................................................................................. 118

H.4. Methodological aspects........................................................................................118

H.4.1. Work plan................................................................................................................................. 118 H.4.2. Selection of projects to be surveyed ........................................................................................ 121

H.5. Report of the Pretoria workshop ..........................................................................123

H.5.1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 123 H.5.2. Main points discussed.............................................................................................................. 123 H.5.3. Proposals for priority actions from the working groups ............................................................ 125 H.5.4. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 128 H.5.5. List of Participants ................................................................................................................... 128

H.6. Projects assessment report (separate volume) ....................................................129



Abbreviations and acronyms

AFD ....................French Development Agency AfDB ...................African Development Bank AMCOW .............African Ministers’ Council on Water APPR .................Annual Portfolio Performance Review AU ......................African Union AWF ...................African Water Facility CHRM ................Corporate Human Resources Management Department CSO....................Country Status Overview DAC....................Development Assistance Committee (within OECD) DFID ...................Department for International Development (UK) ECOWAS ...........Economic Community of West African States EUWF.................European Union Water Facility EUWI..................European Union Water Initiative FTI ......................Fast-Track Initiative GECL..................General Counsel & Legal Services Department IWRM .................Integrated Water Resources Management MDG ...................Millennium Development Goals NEPAD ...............New Partnership for Africa's Development NGO ...................Non-Governmental Organization NWRM................National Water Resources Management OECD .................Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OWAS ................Operations Water and Sanitation (department within AFDB) QPR....................Quarterly Progress Report (SAP terminology) RBO....................River Basin Organization REC....................Regional Economic Community RMC ...................Regional Member Country RWSSI ...............Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Initiative SADC .................Southern Africa Development Community SAP ....................Systems, Applications, and Products for data processing STS ....................Short-Term Staff TA.......................Technical Assistant (or Technical Assistance) TWRM ................Transboundary Water Resources Management WASH ................Water, Sanitation and Hygiene WEDC ................Water and Engineering Development Centre WSP ...................Water and Sanitation Program



A. Executive summary

A.1. Rationale behind this assessment

The establishment of the African Water Facility (AWF) was a response to the regional and international consensus to address the need for increased investments for the development and management of water resources in Africa. Following the adoption of the African Water Vision 2025, the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) took steps to make the dec-laration effective in collaboration with the African Development Bank (AfDB).

After 5 years of operation (2005-2009), the African Water Facility has many accomplish-ments to its credit. But as it enters a new phase of its development, it faces crucial issues in terms of resource mobilisation, internal organisation, capacity to scale up projects and more systematic formulation and dissemination of lessons learnt from all the projects.

A.2. Objective and methodology

This effectiveness assessment was awarded to a consortium of two consultancy firms, Hy-droconseil and WEDC in October 2009. As stated in the Terms of Reference (ToRs):

“The objective of this assignment is to undertake a review of the operational activities and the institutional set-up to determine the effectiveness of the AWF and identify areas of im-provement needed to achieve its objectives and mandates.”

The ToRs are wide ranging and comprehensive which is reflected in the number of recom-mendations included in this report. The consultants comprehensively reviewed the docu-ments together with semi-structured interviews with AWF staff, selected key AfDB staff and key players, including major donors, CSOs, partner agencies (AMCOW, EUWI, etc.). Field visits allowed assessing in details the performance of 8 projects (5 country projects and 3 multi-country projects) using an output to outcome methodology specially designed for this assignment. The consultants participated in consultative workshop/events/meetings in Tu-nis, Nouakchott, Paris and eThekwini, which helped building consensus on findings and on the way forward to improve AWF’s performance.

A.3. The assets of the Facility The AWF project portfolio with many innovative and relevant projects is one of the main ac-complishments of the Facility and its strongest asset. Other important assets are:

i. The open eligibility for a wide variety of applicants across Africa is rightly seen as a strength of the Facility and should therefore be maintained and even further developed (for instance few applications have been received from private entities);

ii. There is an effective operating system with strong financial controls anchored to an efficient institution (AfDB) – this has been recognized in a recent EC evaluation;

iii. AWF provides valuable support to applicants during the project development process. This is a flexible, innovative and participative way of appraising projects;



iv. Its skilled and highly motivated staff have contributed to AWF’s success; except for top management, turnover has been limited;

v. AWF is an African-based organization with strong links with AMCOW and therefore the ministerial level of the water sector in all African countries; it reinforces the leading role of AMCOW in the water sector in Africa;

vi. The potential for important knowledge accumulation from its projects and scaling up of the more promising approaches – even if this potential is yet to be fully realized.

The Facility has also promoted the water and sanitation sector in Africa, in partnership with many other institutions such as NEPAD, the EUWI, the Global Water Partnership and many donors. It has created promising synergies with civil society organisations and contributed to fundamental sector issues such as trans-boundary water resources management.

A.4. AWF’s portfolio of projects

In April 2010, out of the nearly 120 applications received since the AWF started its opera-tions, the Facility has approved 58 projects, 13 other projects are currently in the pipeline, under appraisal or under preparation. A majority of projects (42%) are currently being im-plemented. The total value of the portfolio is approximately 121 million Euros. Only 7% of the projects have been completed to date, although many are near completion. A review of the portfolio of projects, including more detailed assessments of some projects revealed:

i. The 8 project assessments as part of this assignment reveal these AWF projects to be generally effective and are delivering stated ou tcomes , even if progress has been somewhat slow in some cases;

ii. The Facility’s intervention covers all types of countries, including fragile states. The diversity of themes and issues gives the Facility an unique ability to deal with water in the broadest sense and to meet the wide demand of the African water sector;

iii. For many AWF projects a strong leveraging effect can be demonstrated and AWF’s interventions have triggered substantial additional funds. This leveraging effect gives the Facility a very strong argument in favour of the approach developed;

iv. Diversity of beneficiary organisations: government agencies, river basin organisa-tions, regional institutions, non-governmental organisations, etc.

The AWF finances essentially project preparation or pilot projects for future scaling up. The common types of projects are National Water Resources Management projects, and to a lesser extent WASH projects. The assessment has determined that several of the AWF main themes cut across any one project; however, there is an imbalance in favour of invest-ment preparation and water resources management. Despite the greater value addition of projects that deal with improving service delivery, finance and knowledge management, these types of projects are few. There is a wide diversity of types of projects in the portfolio. It would be advantageous in the future to select projects around common priority themes.

The average grant amount per project has regularly increased since 2006 to around 1.7 mil-lion Euros. This is an encouraging trend as larger projects tend to attract more interest from in-country stakeholders. Analysis of recent trends reveals that AWF financing is remarkably balanced between the different AMCOW regions, demonstrating the capacity of the AWF to give priority to under-represented regions and countries in the screening process.



A.5. Project appraisal, approval and implementation

Cross-cutting issues such as governance, poverty reduction and equity issues are gener-ally recognised as important amongst AWF staff, but these issues are dealt with in a rather informal way. More emphasis needs to be placed on project cross-cutting issues with spe-cific guidance, checklists and indicators developed or refined for reviewing during project de-sign and implementation, in order to ensure that these issues are adequately addressed.

Disbursement rate has remained rather stable since 2006, varying from 31% to 37% in 2008, when simulation shows that a smooth implementation of projects could lead to a higher disbursement rate (around 45%). Many projects are approved or grant effective but are still waiting for their first disbursement; average duration between approval and first dis-bursement was 9.9 months. This has risen in recent years and is a cause of concern. One reason for this is the lack of capacities at the level of the implementing agencies in terms of complying with AfDB procurement rules. For more recently approved projects, delays in the AfDB legal department (GECL) constitute the main bottleneck.

Supervision of AWF-funded projects is important throughout the project cycle. Many pro-jects could be more efficiently run if the AWF has the capacity to increase its’ in-country presence. Project reporting from beneficiary agencies is sporadic and the quality is ques-tionable. Nevertheless, improvements have been made recently in the first half of 2010.

Support to executing agencies is reported to be excellent during the preparation phase, when AWF maintains a good level of interaction with the executing agencies. But AWF is less effective in providing support during the implementation phase. The reason for this fo-cus on project preparation is the pressure on AWF to develop a large portfolio.

A.6. AWF’s institutional relationships

The relationship between AWF and AMCOW is strong with AMCOW being an active mem-ber of the Governing Council. This gives the Facility unique access to the political and minis-terial level in all African countries as well as at regional and continental levels. The African Water Facility is rightly seen as an instrument of AMCOW and the Facility therefore benefits from the growing recognition of AMCOW as a central guiding body for the water sector in Africa. Improvements could however be made to ensure better co-ordination between these organisations to enhance AWF resource mobilisation and to explore further synergies.

The hosting of the Facility by the African Development Bank has provided the Facility with an administrative and financial framework that allowed the Facility to commence its operations within a few months after the Instrument itself was established. The rigor of the AfDB in managing funds has been confirmed in a recent evaluation commissioned by the European Commission. Some AfDB procedures can be a constraint for flexible operation of the Facil-ity. New Bank procurement rules (e.g. on approval thresholds) and decentralisation propos-als should help the Facility in the future. The Bank also provides visibility to the AWF. This is a double edge sword: whilst AWF benefits from the Bank’s visibility and credibility which opens doors, it also gives the impression to some donors that it is an AfDB initiative to be funded by AfDB, and this may adversely affect fund raising opportunities.

A.7. The way forward – overview of recommendations

The key issue is how to build on the many assets outlined above to maximize AWF’s contri-bution to the development of the African water and sanitation sector. The Facility has ex-perienced ‘over-stretch’ with a limited number of staff that has not been able to devote suffi-



cient time and resources to support projects being implemented. The AWF now needs to expand to fulfil its many functions and be a high performing Africa-wide project funding and support Facility. A number of areas for improvement and organisational changes have been identified as part of this assessment and are encapsulated below.

Improving AWF’s strategic functions: planning, AMCO W involvement, resource mobilisation, knowledge management and communicatio ns

Enhancing AWF’s strategic planning

It is proposed that AWF can work towards enhancing its autonomy and its performance management if it develops its own 5 year Medium Term Strategy (MTS), building on the pro-posals contained in this report. It has been argued that AWF should reduce the scope of its areas of intervention in order to focus its resources. While this is true, it is proposed that AWF retains its broader areas of intervention in order to build on its track record and con-tinue to be adaptable to changing demands for different types of projects. A more focused approach can therefore be achieved by having priority themes for which applications would be particularly welcome over say a 2 to 3 year period, in parallel with the “traditional” selec-tion process. Another important way of structuring the project portfolio is to re-align AWF’s strategy with AMCOW’s recent commitments and especially the Sharm El-Sheikh Declara-tion (2008) that should set priority themes for the intervention of the Facility such as water resource management and hygiene and sanitation. This assessment report suggests an approach to deal with the themes highlighted in the Sharm El-Sheikh Declaration.

Strengthening the involvement of AMCOW

The relationship between AMCOW and the AWF is formally well founded and it is an impor-tant aspect of AWF’s image. However, the leadership and involvement of AMCOW in AWF activities should be strengthened for the relationship to become more beneficial to the Facil-ity. AWF should have a liaison officer working with the AMCOW secretariat, in order to facili-tate the relationship and explore future synergies, and raise the profile of AMCOW’s com-munications in relation with the activities and outcomes of the Facility.

Mobilising new resources for the Facility

There are worrying funding shortfalls from 2011 onwards. AWF should recruit an experi-enced resource mobilisation officer who can also assist with functions such as AWF out-reach, communications and relationships with strategic partners. It would be beneficial if AMCOW was more involved in mobilising resources for AWF in the near future and took the lead in organising the donor round table for the replenishment of the Facility. Given the many priorities of AMCOW, AWF should intensify its effort towards increasing future funding for its own operations and projects, with AMCOW and others institutions supporting such ini-tiatives. The resource mobilisation strategy should build on AWF strengths and the sug-gested improvements outlined in this report. But assurances on future funding will be needed to enable effective AWF planning in the medium term.

Knowledge transfer and management

The AWF has gathered a unique material of projects and experiences that could be used to produce knowledge and transfer this knowledge to the African water sector in a structured way. Key elements of a good approach need to build on a good project M&E system and syntheses across projects around key themes and versioning outputs for different audi-ences. A knowledge management guide can be developed to bring this about.



AWF’s profile and communication

In order to increase AWF’s profile, while maximising its positive influence on the water sector in Africa, a few proposals are included in this assessment report on the further development of AWF’s communication, mission, visibility and outreach. Even if this specific aspect is comparatively less strategic than the other items listed above, it is very important for the Fa-cility to work on increasing its visibility and communication print in the sector.

Enhancing the quality of AWF-funded projects by foc using on identification, supervision and monitoring

Identification of priority projects and themes

This can be done in a variety of manners such as by thoroughly reviewing project evalua-tions and research to determine future promising project concepts with good scaling up prospects. This could be done in a systematic way with the current portfolio.

Testing targeted calls for proposals in line with priority themes is another option that should be tested in the coming years. This could be done by launching a few experimental targeted calls and thoroughly assessing their impact in terms of quality of projects selected but also in terms of selection procedures and additional workload for the Facility.

Better alignment of future project selection with national policies and priorities is a key ele-ment in order to influence the structure and the content of project portfolio. This can be done by developing the capacity of the AWF of interacting with governments in a structured way, through policy dialogue at national level.

“Strengthening the financial base” is one of the key sector priorities expressed by AMCOW and is also one of AWF’s main areas of intervention. But the AWF generally does not re-ceive applications on this topic. An AWF funded pilot programme to develop national water sector financing strategies in selected countries is proposed for implementation.

Focus on support to projects and future scaling up

This is important to enhance the sustainability and effectiveness of AWF project outcomes, including making the best of opportunities for leveraging funding for follow on projects. Pro-posals include: i) support to project implementation rather than developing too many new projects in the coming months; ii) more support to project executing agencies during imple-mentation, including assessing the capacity of executing agencies before projects start; iii) a standard item in all future projects to encourage AWF and the executing agencies to work on are opportunities for leveraging more funds.

Performance monitoring of AWF projects

The latest ‘AWF operational performance indicators for 2010’ in the Annual Work Plan is too focused on quantitative aspects of the project portfolio. It should be converted to a logical framework and additional indicators included to capture the outcomes of AWF projects such as the ‘Percentage of AWF project outcomes and outputs that are largely or completely achieved’. This will emphasize AWF’s orientation towards achieving good project outcomes. This monitoring is needed to enable necessary changes to make improvements to project designs and plans. Proposed measures include the implementation and reviewing of an ac-tion plan for increasing project disbursements, a simplified LFA format and a greater use of logframes at all stages of the project cycle. Project progress reports should address over-coming constraints and progress towards achieving outputs and outcomes. An AWF per-formance monitoring guide is also needed.



Improving AWF’s leadership and organisation: toward s an adequately staffed and more decentralised Facility

Strengthening AWF’s leadership

The best way of achieving the necessary strong leadership and sufficient autonomy is for the African Water Facility to have its own Director, full time dedicated to the management and development of the Facility. In terms of the distribution of leadership roles, a new full-time AWF Director could focus more on strategy, and building strategic initiatives and resource mobilisation, while the Coordinator focuses more closely on operations and follow-up of pro-jects. AWF needs increased senior management capacity and to have a full-time AWF Di-rector who would be leading, supporting and sustaining changes at AWF, including enabling it to have greater profile, as well as participating in strategic dialogue with donors, regional organisations and at the country level.

Staffing of the AWF and outsourcing

To enable AWF to have appropriate staffing levels and skills mix to manage an expanding portfolio, it is proposed that staff numbers would rise up to 25 in 3 years from now (2013), building to 35 staff by 2015. The proposed staffing levels in 2015 are the suggested opti-mum staffing levels to maximizing effectiveness of AWF considering the expected portfolio if the recommendations proposed are fully implemented. The proposed staffing for 2013 can be successful, provided AWF lower expectations about the numbers of projects and coun-tries in which it can work effectively. It is also important that there is increased use of out-sourcing for the functions and tasks where it offers good value for money.

Promoting a more decentralised approach

AWF currently has quite a centralised approach for an organization that works across Africa; its staff are all based in Tunis, whereas most development organisations have strong re-gional or in-country presence in Africa. AWF should develop a more decentralised approach by having four regional representatives in AMCOW regions. Such representatives will be a valuable AWF presence closer to governments and projects. It would make sense to build on the decentralisation plans currently developed by the AfDB.



B. Objectives and rationale behind this assessment of the AWF

B.1. Rationale behind this assessment After 5 years of operation (2005-2009), the African Water Facility has several accomplish-ments to its credit indeed, but is also facing crucial issues in terms of resources mobilization, internal organisation, capacity to scale up, communication and capacity to formulate and dis-seminate the lessons learnt from all the projects that were financed. Many see 2010 as a turning point for the Facility which may need reforms to find a new way forward – and sound reforms need to be based on a thorough assessment of the current situation.

The revised Operational Procedures approved by the Board of Directors of the African De-velopment Bank in December 2007 stipulates in Section 9.5 that “At the end of 2009, an effectiveness assessment of the Facility will be conducted; the targeted objective is to assess the actual impact of the Facility and the effectiveness of operations financed. It would draw lessons and provide guidance for the future operations”.

This effectiveness assessment, as it was originally planned in 2007, anticipated a higher number of AWF-financed projects to be completed by the end of 2009, which is not exactly the case (4 projects were completed by the end of 2009, 9 projects are completed as of April 2010, out of the 57 projects approved by the Facility as of the end of 2009). For this reason, the impact dimension of the effectiveness assessment would be difficult to fulfil, as a real impact assessment would require a higher level of completion of the projects financed by the Facility. This difficulty is reflected in the terms of reference finalized in June 2009.

B.2. Objectives and expected outputs

B.2.1. Objectives As stated in the Terms of reference:

“The objective of this assignment is to undertake a review of the operational activities and the institutional set-up to determine the effec tiveness of the AWF and identify ar-eas of improvement needed to achieve its objectives and mandates. ”

B.2.2. Expected outputs As stated in the Terms of reference:

“The expected outputs of the Effectiveness Assessment are:

• A comparative assessment of actual/expected versus planned operational results at project and overall Facility levels;



• A review and assessment of African Water Facility institutional set-up and effective-ness in undertaking its operations;

• An assessment as to whether the AWF is achieving its objectives and the improve-ments needed for effective implementation of its operational mandate;

• An assessment as to whether the AWF operational strategy and areas of interventions respond to the priorities of the Africa water agenda as reflected in the recent political commitments and recommendations on the alignment required;

• An assessment of the relevance/effectiveness of AWF activities including operations, support to African initiatives and participation in international events to make the Afri-can water sector more attractive;

• An assessment of the value addition prospect of the AWF and its niche in the sector;

• An assessment of synergies with traditional donors in the sector;

• Lessons learned including strengths and deficiencies with appropriate recommenda-tions for the future development of the Facility;

• Recommendations on how to improve operational and institutional effectiveness.”

B.3. Framework and method of the assessment

B.3.1. Consultant After a competitive bidding process, the Facility has selected an association of two consul-tancy firms, Hydroconseil and WEDC, to carry out the assessment. The association is led by Hydroconseil. The members of the team are: Ms. Laura Hurter, Mr. Alain Morel and Mr. Bruno Valfrey-Visser (Hydroconseil) and Kevin Sansom (WEDC).

B.3.2. Overview of framework

As suggested in the Terms of reference, the Consultant worked in two main directions:

• Reviewing the projects financed by the Facility. This was done through an analysis of the portfolio using data provided by the Facility itself, interviews with the task managers and field visits in relation to a sample of 8 projects already completed (or near comple-tion). To anticipate the results to be achieved and assess projects which are still on-going, the consultant used a specific “output to outcome” methodology based on guidelines developed by DFID. All the details about the methodological aspects of the project assessment are annexed to this report.

• Addressing the organizational and institutional issues which obviously represent an im-portant part of such an assessment. This was done through numerous meetings with the AWF staff as well as individual interviews of key AWF staff members. All available literature produced by the AWF was reviewed by the team. Lastly, key stakeholders (AMCOW, AfDB senior management, donors, strategic partners of the Facility and key players in the water sector in Africa) were individually interviewed using tailored guide-lines. All the tools used by the team for the interviews are annexed to this report.



B.3.3. Consultative approach The assessment of the Facility involves many players and the targeted audience is highly diverse. As recommended in the Terms of reference, this assessment was conducted in a participatory fashion. The Facility made sure that all key stakeholders had been informed that a consultancy was going on to assess its performance. More specifically:

• The Consultant attended the Governing Council meeting held in Nouakchott in De-cember 2009. This constituted an opportunity to present the methodology of the as-sessment, discuss the countries/projects to be visited, meet the members of the Effec-tiveness Assessment Committee as well as the other members of the GC.

• In March 2010, the Consultant attended a donors meeting in Paris, specifically held to feed into this assessment. This meeting constituted an opportunity to meet all the do-nors of the Facility, present and discuss preliminary findings and finally address spe-cific issues as well as expectations of the donor community regarding the assessment.

• The Consultant attended the two-day workshop held in Pretoria (RSA) at the end of April. Preliminary findings and recommendations were presented and discussed with representatives of the donor community, the civil society as well as AMCOW-TAC members. Report of the workshop is annexed to this report.

B.3.4. Status of this report This document is the third draft report to be submitted by the Consultant as per its Terms of reference. A first draft has been reviewed by the African Development Bank (and more pre-cisely the AWF Oversight Committee set up within the Bank). A second version has been submitted to the Effectiveness Assessment Committee set up within the Governing Council and reviewed by this Committee during a meeting held on 18 June 2010 in Tunis. This document is therefore the final draft report to be presented and discussed during a Govern-ing Council meeting scheduled for July 2010 for final approval.



C. Overview of the AWF

C.1. Original concept of the Facility

C.1.1. Rationale behind the establishment of the Facility

The establishment of the African Water Facility (AWF) was a response to the regional and international consensus to address the need for increased investments for the development and management of water resources in Africa. Following the adoption of the African Water Vision 2025 and the Millennium Declaration setting the MDGs, the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) took steps to make the declaration effective. To a large extent, it would be considered that the African Water Facility was established to implement the African Wa-ter Vision (see Error! Reference source not found. ). This new instrument was designed to enable African countries, that is, governments and non-governmental / para-governmental

organizations / private entities, to turn these goals into reality.

The African Water Vision was accompanied by a Framework for Action for putting into action the Vision. The Framework for Action prioritized action projects involving policy develop-ment, institutional reforms, knowledge and transboundary water resources management in order to create the enabling environment for investments in expanding water supply and sanitation services as well as enhance water for productive uses in agriculture, hydropower, ecosystems and mitigate effects of floods and droughts.

Box 1: Goals set by the African Water Vision

1. Sustainable access to safe and adequate water supply and sanitation to meet the basic needs of all;

2. Sufficient water for food and energy security;

3. Water for sustaining ecosystems and biodiversity is adequate in quantity and quality;

4. Institutions that deal with water resources have been reformed to create an enabling environment for effective and integrated management of water in national and trans-boundary water basins, including management at the lowest appropriate level;

5. Water basins serve as a basis for regional cooperation and development, and are treated as natural assets for all within such basins;

6. An adequate number of motivated and highly skilled water professionals;

7. An effective and financially sustainable system for data collection, assessment and dissemination for national and trans-boundary water basins;

8. Effective and sustainable strategies for addressing natural and man-made water-resources problems, including climate variability and change;

9. Water is financed and priced to promote equity, efficiency, and sustainability;

10. Political will, public awareness and commitment among all for sustainable water-resources manage-ment, including the mainstreaming of gender issues and youth concerns and the use of participatory approaches.



C.1.2. Initial ambition of the Facility

When establishing the Facility AMCOW and the AfDB had to decide on what was to be the new instrument’s value addition, compared to donors, on one hand, and compared to other AfDB initiatives, on the other hand. The debate was finally set by assigning to the African Water Facility the following overall purpose1: “to pool the resources mobilized from donors to finance water infrastructure and water investment facilitating activities in Africa”.

The Facility was also vested with some specific responsibilities that distinguish it and add value vis-à-vis funding agencies or and other water initiatives:

• It is to be a fast-track instrument , responsive to financing requests, and able to proc-ess them, disburse grants and have projects implemented quickly;

• Whether projects financed are “soft” or “hard” activities, they should have a leveraging impact on the water sector at all possible levels.

C.1.3. Origin of the current institutional and organizational setup AMCOW requested the AfDB to host, administer and manage the resources of the Facility. The Bank welcomed this request and the Board of Governors approved its establishment as a Special Fund in May 2004. In pursuing its Trustee function, the AfDB created the AWF within its organizational structure in April 2005, and appointed a Director and key staff. Fol-lowing the initial period of establishment in 2005, the AWF started its core operational activi-ties in January 2006 after, implementing, receiving and processing requests for funding based on the initial five year operational programme spanning 2005-2009.

C.2. AWF’s goal and areas of intervention

C.2.1. Overall goal of AWF

The AWF is an initiative of AMCOW to mobilize resources from donors to finance water in-frastructure and water investment facilitating activities in Africa. The overall goal that has been adopted by the African Water Facility is that of the African Water Vision:

“An Africa where there is an equitable and sustainab le use and management of water resources for poverty alleviation, socio-economic d evelopment, regional cooperation, and the environment .”

C.2.2. Areas of intervention To achieve this goal, the AWF provides support for the attainment of the following main Ar-eas of Intervention2. The main elements under each of the four “pillars” are as follows:

a) Strengthening water governance : This focuses on:

• National water resources management

• Transboundary water resources management

1 Instrument establishing the Water Facility, Section 1.2. 2 Source: www.africawaterfacility.org/en/areas-of-intervention/ – downloaded on 03/11/09.



• Improving service delivery for water and sanitation

b) Investments to meet water needs : to provide targeted and strategic capital grants for the piloting of small-scale water infrastructure projects that are innovative, knowledge ori-ented and catalytic. Preparatory activities to trigger large investments and knowledge orien-tated activities and products.

The many types of project activities to be supported by the AWF are:

• Meeting basic needs for safe water

• Better health through Improved sanitation and hygiene

• Water for productive uses

• Project and programme preparation

c) Strengthening the financial base : given the mandate of the Facility to mobilize re-sources from donors to finance water resources development activities in Africa, the Facility will provide support the following areas:

• Improve cost recovery and pricing policies

• Mobilize domestic Government financing

• Attracting and benefiting from private sector Investments

• Strengthening donor actions to support domestic investment

• Increasing financing availability and access.

d) Improving water knowledge : This includes:

• Information management

• Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) for the wider African water and sanitation sector

• Knowledge dissemination and generation.

The four pillars / areas of intervention are extremely broad, and any project related to water could fall under one these areas. As a result, the four pillars do not really provide guidance to the African Water Facility about what type of projects the Facility should undertake or ac-cept for financing. Broad scope and eligibility are definitely strengths, since it helped the Fa-cility build a very diverse portfolio; however the very same broad eligibility also allowed unfo-cused interventions which make it extremely difficult to actually and rigorously assess the impact of the Facility on the African continent. This paradox (or this trade-off) is embedded in the very origin or the Facility and the way it was designed.



C.3. Five years of efforts and accomplishments The Facility is now a five-year-old instrument which has been processing projects for five years. During this first 5-year period of its existence, the Facility has gone through a sub-stantial evolution. Whereas in the first years there was a concern that requests would be too scarce, there were until recently3 more projects in the pipeline than AWF was able to deal with, although the productivity has increased over time to compensate for the structural un-der-staffing of the Facility. In April 2010, out of the nearly 120 applications received since the AWF started its operations, 58 were approved, 32 are under implementation and 9 are completed (the 17 remaining projects are approved but not grant effective yet). This portfo-lio is obviously one the main accomplishments of the Facility and its strongest asset.

During this first period, the AWF also managed to establish the conditions for its functioning, in terms of financial resources, staffing and capacity. In 2007, during a workshop gathering main stakeholders, the Facility reviewed its operational focus and areas. From this collective work arose several key documents related to the strategy and the management of the AWF:

• The AWF Operational Strategy (2007)

• The revised AWF Operational Procedures (2007)

• The establishment of the 3 years rolling programme (2007-2009) in support to the an-nual budget and resources mobilization toolkit (October 2008)

• The AWF Operation Manual (2009)

By doing so, the Facility demonstrated its capacity to strategize its original idea and operate in a sustainable way, in synergy with the institution that has been hosting it since the begin-ning, to the satisfaction of the founders of the Facility (AMCOW and AfDB) and of the main stakeholders involved in the governance of the Facility.

The Facility also played an important role in promoting the water and sanitation sector in Af-rica, in partnership with the main partners such as the NEPAD, the EU Water Initiative, the EU/Africa Infrastructure Partnership, UN Water, the Global Water Partnership, and major multi and bilateral donors, among many others. It created promising synergies with civil so-ciety organisations and contributed to mainstream fundamental issues for the sector such as transboundary water resources management or financing. Last but not least, the AWF rein-forced substantially the leading role of AMCOW in the water sector in Africa.

3 As of now, the number of projects on the pipeline is much lower than 3 years ago, especially in proportion to the size of the portfolio. Main explanation for that situation seems to be the focus the Facility on appraising new pro-jects over the last three years.



D. AWF’s projects and operations

D.1. Analysis of AWF’s portfolio of projects

D.1.1. The AWF has built a unique portfolio of projects

After four years of operation (2006-2009), the African Water Facility has built a unique port-folio of projects, for various reasons among which the following ones can be underlined:

• Diversity of beneficiaries: government agencies, river basin organisations, regional in-stitutions, non-governmental organisations, etc.; this very open eligibility is rightly seen as a strength of the Facility and should therefore be maintained and even further de-veloped (few applications have been received from private entities);

• Number of countries covered (34 countries for the approved projects – see analysis below) and large number of projects dealing with several countries (a very important features considering the weight of TWRM projects in the portfolio);

• The Facility’s intervention covers all types of countries, including fragile States where the Bank itself and most other bilateral and multilateral donors have more limited in-terventions Diversity of themes and issues covered by the financed projects, and no-tably projects dealing with multiple uses of water (domestic / agriculture / industry / hy-dropower etc.); the Facility has a unique ability to deal with water in the broad sense of the term, when many institutions and financing instruments focus only on WSS;

• For a substantial proportion of the projects, a leveraging effect can be demonstrated and AWF’s intervention did trigger additional funds (see below); even if this leveraging effect could be better anticipated at the screening stage and measured beforehand; specific resources in the budget could be dedicated to the activities aiming at mobiliz-ing additional resources in the course of the project implementation;

• All these projects are largely coming from a demand-driven approach and therefore the portfolio provides a good summary of the current needs in the water sector (and the capacity of the players – especially the public ones – to prepare bankable projects).

D.1.2. Overview of the portfolio from a financial angle

From its establishment until April 2010, the Facility has approved 58 projects, for a total grant amount of 64 million Euros. 13 other projects are currently in the pipeline, under ap-praisal or under preparation, for a total grant amount of 21.3 million Euros. 42% of the pro-jects are currently being implemented; this “active” part of the portfolio represents 36 million Euros. Only 7% of the projects have been completed to date.



Table 1: Breakdown of AWF’s portfolio according to the project status, for the 71 projects listed in AWF’s database as per April 2010

Status of the projectNumber of projects

Amountin Euros

%Amountin Euros

%

In pipeline 8 11 999 357 14%

Under appraisal 2 3 529 000 4%

Under preparation 3 5 833 582 7%

Approved 17 22 015 973 26%

Under implementation 32 36 043 925 42%

Completed 9 5 953 704 7%

All projects 71 85 375 541 100% 85 375 541 100%

21 361 939

64 013 602

25%

75%

Source: HYDROCONSEIL-WEDC based on data collected during the study. The “In pipeline” category contains

one project (grant amount 1 000 000 Euros) which status is actually “further dialogue”

The average grant amount has steadily increased since 2006. The average grant amount of the 20 projects appraised in 2009 is 2.76 higher than the average grant amount of the 12 projects approved in 2006, fist operation year of the Facility. The same ratio is 3.32 when comparing 2006 with the 3 first projects approved in 2010.

Table 2: Average project grant amount per year, 200 6-2010

YearAverage amount per

project in EurosNumber

2006 520 177 12

2007 1 054 000 17

2008 1 239 750 8

2009 1 437 248 20

2010 1 726 364 3

Still in pipeline 1 579 396 11

Source: HYDROCONSEIL-WEDC based on data collected during the study.

Even is the average grant amount for projects still in the pipeline is lower4 than the 2010 av-erage (but still higher than the 2009 average) this trend seems to be a long term one, and should continue in the future, as the ceilings for approval thresholds should be revised up-ward following the implementation of the new AfDB clearance rules.

4 This is due to the presence of two “small” projects in the pipeline – 400 and 480 k€. Excluding these two small projects, the average grant amount for the projects in the pipeline is 1.83 million Euros. Current pipeline also includes the three first projects for which the AWF contribution might exceed 2 million Euros.



Figure 1: Average project grant amount per year, 20 06-2010

0

200 000

400 000

600 000

800 000

1 000 000

1 200 000

1 400 000

1 600 000

1 800 000

2 000 000

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Still in pipeline

Average amount per project in Euros

Source: HYDROCONSEIL-WEDC based on data collected during the study.

Straight blue line represents the linear regression

D.1.3. Geographical spread of projects The following table gives an overview of the geographical spread of projects as per Septem-ber 2009 (51 projects had been approved then). In terms of amounts, the West Africa re-gion is beyond one third of the total AWF financing. It seems that the situation reflects the early years of AWF’s history and should therefore be seen as a consequence of the de-mand-driven approach, to which the Western African countries seem to have reacted more quickly and more massively. Although North and Central regions count about twice less countries than the other regions, Southern region and Northern region have less benefitted from AWF financing than the three other regions. At the end of 2009, West Africa and Cen-tral Africa represented more than half of the projects financed by the Facility.

Table 3: Regional distribution of the 51 approved p rojects (September 2009)

National Multinat. Total

West 9 6 15 29% 18 590 375 33%

East 11 2 13 25% 11 336 316 20%

Central 6 4 10 20% 12 105 659 21%

South 8 1 9 18% 10 027 374 18%

North 3 1 4 8% 4 780 390 8%

Total 37 14 51 100% 56 840 114 100%

Sub-Regions of Africa

Ratio of projects per

Region

Total AWF financing

amount (€)

Ratio of financing

per Region

Projects in each region

Source: Progress Report January to September 2009. November 2009

Analysis of recent trends (projects approved in 2009-2010 and projects still in the pipeline) reveals that AWF financing is now more balanced between regions, but to the detriment of Central Africa which weight dropped from 21% down to 7% in the portfolio. The respective weights of Eastern Africa and Southern Africa slightly increased, while the share of North Africa substantially increased, going from 8% to 14%.



Table 4: Regional distribution the 23 projects appr oved between January 2009 and April 2010 and the 11 projects in the pipeline in A pril 2010

West 12 35% 17 499 439 34%

East 7 21% 12 150 880 24%

Central 2 6% 3 574 000 7%

South 9 26% 10 970 811 21%

North 4 12% 7 102 282 14%

Total 34 100% 51 297 412 100%

Sub-Regions of Africa

Number of projects

Ratio of projects per

Region

Total amount in Euros

Ratio of financing per

Region

Source: HYDROCONSEIL-WEDC based on data collected during the study

In terms of proportion, the financing per region is actually remarkably consistent with the population of the regions, and reflects, as shown in the table below:

Table 5: Regional distribution of population across AMCOW regions

AMCOW regionNumber of countries

in the regionPopulation in the region(in million inhabitants)

%

West 15 303 29%

East 11 283 27%

Central 8 110 11%

South 12 163 16%

North 7 173 17%

Total 53 1 032 100% Source: Treatment by HYDROCONSEIL-WEDC of data from AU, AMCOW and RECs websites. Population es-timates for 2010 according to “World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision” published in May 2009 by the

United Nations, Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

It reflects the efforts made by the AWF to build the portfolio by actively taking regional distri-bution into account: projects from under-represented regions are given priorities and is some cases AWF has also approached countries to generate demand (e.g. Malawi).

D.1.4. Thematic spread of projects

a) Thematic spread against the 4 pillars

The thematic spread of projects according to the four pillars described in strategic docu-ments of the AWF is imbalanced... The AWF finances essentially Investment Preparation projects and National Water Resources Management projects, and to a lesser extent WASH projects. Governance for Services Delivery, Finance Base, Monitoring and Evaluation and Knowledge projects are not very prominent in the portfolio, even though those themes are often part of the significant project activities implemented. Note that Strengthening the Fi-nancial Base was only established as an area of intervention in late 2007 when the opera-tional strategy was finalised.



According to its mandate, AWF should promote Monitoring and Evaluation of the water sec-tor in Africa (this objective was reaffirmed during the first African Water Week), but the pre-liminary analysis of the portfolio shows few projects directly related to this theme, although some specific projects supporting national M&E systems are about to start.

Table 6: Thematic distribution of all 51 approved p rojects 5

Strategic themePillar 3Finance

Base

Typology NWRM TWRMService Delivery

WSSProduct.

UsesProject

Preparat.N/A IM M&E

Know-ledge

Primary Type of Intervention 20% 12% 0% 12% 8% 33% 0% 14% 0% 2% 100%

Significant Project Activity 2% 0% 7% 3% 2% 19% 36% 14% 10% 8% 100%

Pillar 1Strengthening Water

Governance

Pillar 2Investments to Meet Water

Needs

Pillar 4Improving Water Knowledge

TOTAL

Source: Adapted from the Progress Report January to September 2009. November 2009

b) More recent thematic trends

Data collected by the Consultant6 allows to compare the dominant and secondary project themes between the first years of the Facility (2006-2008) and more recently appraised, ap-proved and implemented projects (2009 + projects still in the pipeline).

Table 7: Distribution of 64 projects across sub-sec tors

NW

RM

TW

RM

Wat

er fo

r P

rodu

ctio

n

Urb

an W

ater

Urb

an S

anita

tion

Rur

al W

ater

Rur

al S

anita

tion

2006-2008 24% 24% 18% 21% 21% 15% 15%

2006-2008 15% 6% 21% 24% 12% 29% 12%

2009-2010 27% 23% 32% 18% 18% 9% 0%

2009-2010 27% 5% 14% 9% 9% 23% 9%

Pipeline 13% 0% 25% 13% 13% 13% 0%

Pipeline 13% 38% 50% 25% 13% 63% 25%

PeriodDominant / Secondary

Sub-Sector

Dominant sub-sector

Secondary sub-sector

Dominant sub-sector

Secondary sub-sector

Dominant sub-sector

Secondary sub-sector Source: HYDROCONSEIL-WEDC based on data collected during the study

From this analysis per sub-sector a few trends can be identified:

• Water Resources Management (National and Transboundary) has remain the first dominant sub-sector over the whole period (48% over 2006-2008 and 50% over 2009-

5 In this table “Primary Type of Intervention” and “Significant Project Activity” refer to the analysis already devel-oped by the AWF in the Progress Report (up to September 2009), Annex 3. 6 Task managers were asked to qualify the projects they are following in terms of sub-sectors, main activities and cross-cutting issues. Analysis concerns a total of 64 projects out of 71 projects listed in AWF’s database.



2010); however this is not the case for the pipeline projects, even if TWRM remain a very important secondary sub-sector;

• Sanitation (rural or urban) has never been a dominant sub-sector for the AWF-funded projects, and the trend remains the same for the pipeline projects;

• Water for production has become a major sub-sector in 2009-2010, and remains the dominant secondary sub-sector for the pipeline projects;

• Rural Water Supply has always been an important secondary sub-sector, and this trend is more evident for the pipeline projects.

Table 8: Distribution of 64 projects across project types

Pilo

ting

Inst

itutio

nal

Sup

port

Mon

itorin

g

Inve

stm

ent

Pre

para

tion

Kno

wle

dge

Dev

elop

men

t

2006-2008 18% 26% 21% 44% 18%

2006-2008 9% 21% 18% 3% 41%

2009-2010 45% 23% 18% 41% 27%

2009-2010 0% 27% 27% 9% 59%

Pipeline 63% 0% 25% 25% 13%

Pipeline 0% 25% 0% 38% 38%

Dominant project activity

Secondary project activity

Project Typology

Dominant / Secondary Period






From this analysis per project types a few trends can be highlighted:

• Investment preparation, which was the first dominant activity over the 2006-2008 pe-riod, has significantly decreased and become a secondary activity;

• At the same time, piloting has become progressively the first dominant activity for the pipeline projects (piloting went up from 18% to 63%);

• Knowledge development has been the first secondary activity over 2006-2010, but this trend is less perceivable when it comes to the pipeline projects.

Strengthening the financial base (additional information)

Strengthening the financial base, and in particular putting in place investment plans and na-tional financing strategies are central to AWF's mandate and yet this pillar has not had many projects apart from being a secondary focus on some projects. This area has also been de-clared a priority for RMCs by both AMCOW and Heads of State, but AWF has hardly re-ceived applications. It appears that when a donor offers a project as an additional compo-nent on a take or leave it basis, a country rarely rejects it. However, when the country is free to make requests to AWF for funding for basically any type of water sector project, financial planning is rarely considered a priority. Possible reasons are: pressure to show tangible re-sults which favours WSS and WRM projects, as well as a potential underlying lack of incen-tives to increase transparency and efficiency of financial management in government.

AWF is doing some Strategic Financial Planning as a component of several projects, but this is not enough. AWF is actively promoting finance projects, for example, on a regional level AWF recently took a proactive approach on developing financing strategies for Basin Or-



ganizations. AWF also takes opportunities to generate demand for assisting countries in strategic financial planning, but project concepts proposed to some RMCs have not been converted into project requests by the countries. The challenge is that AWF is demand driven, so they cannot "impose" projects on the RMCs.

So the question to be answered is: how best to generate demand for financial projects? Should the demand-driven concept be adapted to allow AWF to spend more time preparing projects? The need for improvements in strengthening the financial base would justify some up-front investment in developing demand for finance projects, together with enabling the production of good concept proposals for future projects, in selected countries. It must be recognised, however, that such preparation, especially of innovative ideas, takes time and some project concepts may not materialize into projects.

D.1.5. Financing leverage effect One of the main objectives of the AWF is to facilitate and secure sector financing. There is some evidence in the portfolio development of an increasing leveraging effect in the projects funded. This is linked to a focus on Investment Preparation projects (19% of projects funded), but also to the willingness of AWF staff and management to contribute more in the facilitation and support to development of sector programs at national level.

Those efforts toward development of programmatic approaches increase clarity of the sector framework at national level and attract interest of development agencies.

Several AWF funded projects have contributed to developing large investment programs and have facilitated discussions between beneficiary countries and a large number of develop-ment agencies on subsequent investment financing.

This leveraging effect corresponds to new funds that would not have been committed if the AWF-funded intervention had not make it possible. In this respect, the leveraging effect must not be confused with the co-financing of AWF projects by other donors or beneficiary countries. On average, over 61 projects, the AWF brings 71% of the project costs and the remaining funds are provided by other donors or by beneficiary governments (in the latter case this is often an in-kind contribution).

When assessing the leveraging effect on a qualitative basis, over a sample of 48 projects, according the task managers themselves, 38% of the projects funded by the Facility offer a high leveraging effect and 27% and average one (see table below).

Table 9: Potential of AWF-funded projects to levera ge funding, according to their task managers

Leveraging potential Number of projects %

Very high 18 38%

Average 13 27%

Low 8 17%

None 9 19%

Total 48 100% Source: HYDROCONSEIL-WEDC based on data collected during the study

Assessing the leveraging effect from a quantitative point of view is proven to be more diffi-cult, because the information is exclusively coming from the task managers – the Facility



does not really have a standardized approach for measuring and taking into accounts the additional funds that are expected to be triggered by the intervention of the Facility or that were effectively triggered for the completed and near completion projects.

However, for the 13 projects where the leveraging effect can be quantified, including four projects that have not been approved yet, the total leveraged funds amount to an estimated 942 million Euros, i.e. 11 times the budget of the Facility since it was established. This fig-ure must be taken with a lot of caution though – main reason being that two thirds of the 942 million Euros are actually linked to only 2 projects (Egypt and Tanzania / Malawi) which have not been approved yet (the 13 projects are detailed on the next page).

Without taking into account the projects which have not been approved, the total leveraged funds can be estimated around 286 million Euros, which still represent an average of 32 mil-lion Euros per project. But it is already clear that the Facility has already gained a few suc-cesses in terms of leveraging funds – most important ones being the CAR project (22 million Euros), the Congo Brazzaville project (61 million Euros), the Botswana project (around 41 million Euros), the Mozambique project (42 million Euros) and, least but not last the Egypt project (120 million Euros). These amounts are more tangible in terms of leveraging effect since they concern mostly projects which are already completed.

One of the challenges faced by the AWF is to set so und indicators of financing lever-age effect, in order to demonstrate clearly this im pact of the Facility and potentially to use it at screening level or to monitor the project implementation phase.



Table 10: Overview of AWF-funded projects offering the biggest potential to leverage funding

Country Name of the project Status Grant amount (Euros)Estimated leverage

effect (Euros)Approval

Sahara and Sahel Observatory (SSO)

Geo-Aquifer: North-Western Sahara Aquifer System Knowledge and Water Resources Management Improvement by using satellite imagery

Completed 487 800 1 200 000 23/03/07

CARSupport to a water supply and sanitation study and priority invest preparation in 16 district capitals in centrafrica

Completed 1 438 000 22 000 000 03/09/07

Congo BrazzavilleSupport to a water supply and sanitation policy and priority investments preparation in Brazzaville and Pointe Noire

Completed 1 418 235 61 000 000 12/11/07

BotswanaDevelopment of Improved Water Control and Management System for Pandamatenga Agricultural Production Project

Under Implementation 1 169 000 40 920 000 19/11/07

Mozambique Preparation of the National Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Programme Completed 486 233 42 074 074 07/12/07

DjiboutiWater harvesting project for water supply and agriculture in rural districts of the republic of Djibouti

Under Implementation 1 937 000 70 560 13/05/08

EgyptComprehensive studies for the rehabilitation of the Nubaria and Ismailia Canals

Under Implementation 1 900 090 120 000 000 16/10/08

Seychelles Water Development Plan 2008 - 2030 Under Implementation 955 000 5 000 000 24/10/08

Burkina FasoFeasibility and disign Study of stormwater drainage solid Waste Management Systems in Ouagadougou

Under Implementation 642 000 5 000 000 08/11/08

Malawi CCODE (NGO) - WSS and Low Income Community Development Approved 610 790 1 500 000 Not yet

Swaziland Lower Usutu Smallholder Irgtion Project - Phase II Preliminary Studies Approved 999 000 32 000 000 Not yet

EgyptMaster Plan Study for the Rehabilitation / Replacement of Major Hydraulic Structures on the Nile

Approved 1 364 782 250 000 000 Not yet

Malawi / Tanzania Detailed Design of Songwe River Basin Development Programme (SRBDP) Under Appraisal 3 129 000 360 740 741 Not yet




D.2. Disbursement of project funds

D.2.1. Disbursement status 2006-2010

To date (April 2010) the African Water Facility has approved 62 projects for a total amount of 71 million Euros, of which 22.7 million Euros have been effectively disbursed. After being exceptionally low in 2008 (with less than 4 million Euros disbursed), the situation considera-bly improved in 2009 (close to 8 million Euros disbursed) and first figures available for 2010 indicate that the trend should remain the same for 2010 (2,653 million Euros disbursed in 4 months would lead to exactly the same level of disbursement than in 2009).

The rate of disbursement per year has remained rather stable since 2006, varying from 31% to 37% in 2008, best year for the Facility in terms of disbursement rate (but worst year in terms of total amount disbursed). The disbursement rate and the amounts disbursed are considered as low by most of AWF’s financiers and AWF’s management globally agrees that the situation should and could be improved in the coming months.

Table 11: Disbursement and commitment from 2006 to 2010

YearAmount disbursed during the period

(Euros)

Cumulative disbursement

(Euros)

Cumulative commitment (Euros)

Global rate of disbursement

2006/2007 8 227 003 8 227 003 24 130 256 34%

2008 3 927 087 12 154 090 32 618 256 37%

2009 7 931 987 20 086 077 64 679 438 31%

Until April 2010 2 652 727 22 738 804 71 062 631 32%


However, “low” disbursement rate is a relative concept. To which extent AWF’s current dis-bursement rate could be improved? A theoretical calculation, based on initially agreed com-mencement date, duration and disbursement plan leads to the conclusion that “maximum” disbursement rate should be between 45% and 50%.

The consequence of the low performance of the AWF in terms of disbursement is the widen-ing gap between commitments and disbursements, as shown in Figure 2 below.



Figure 2: Disbursement and commitment from 2006 to 2010

0

10 000 000

20 000 000

30 000 000

40 000 000

50 000 000

60 000 000

70 000 000

80 000 000

2006/2007 2008 2009 Until April 2010

Amount disbursed

during the period

(Euros)

Cumulative

disbursement

(Euros)

Cumulative

commitment

(Euros)


Two elements are currently reducing the rate of disbursement on AWF projects:

• The fact that many projects are approved or grant effective but are still waiting for their first disbursement; as per the end of April, average duration between approval and first disbursement was 9.9 months, showing clearly that the situation is worsening in that respect (approval to disbursement times were 7.2 months at the end of 2008 and 8.9 in September 2009). Reasons for that situation are developed below.

• The fact that many on-going projects are not disbursing properly, for lack of supervi-sion and weaknesses of the implementing agency; recent analysis of AWF’s database shows that 12 projects have not disbursed any fund for a period exceeding one year, including 4 projects for which the last disbursement was done before September 2007. Reasons for that situation regarding on-going projects are developed below.

D.2.2. Analysis of projects waiting to start up in April 2010

Out of the 23 projects approved since the beginning of 2009, 21 have not disbursed any fund yet as per the end of April 2010. These 21 projects represent a total amount of 28 million Euros. Since the first disbursement represents on average 50% of the grant amount, solving the problem of these 21 projects7 could lead the Facility to disburse 14 million Euros in 2010 – not counting the projects that would be approved in the course of 2010.

It is interesting to analyse more precisely the reasons for the non disbursement, which are listed and summarized in Table 12 below. For the projects which have been approved more than 10 months ago, the dominant reason is that the recipient has not submitted the evi-dences of fulfilling the conditions for first disbursement yet (although the grant protocol has already been signed by the two parties). For the more recently approved projects (less than 10 months from April 2010), main reason for not disbursing is that GECL needs to prepare the grant protocol.

7 In the table we take into account 3 other projects (one in Niger and two in Burkina Faso) approved before 2009, and which are not grand effective yet because the national Central Bank refused the opening of an account in Euros by the recipient of the funds – a problem that has apparently been solved at the beginning of 2010.



Table 12: Summary of the reasons why projects have not started up yet

Time since approvalof the projet by AfDB

Numberof projects

Status of the projectReasons for not disbursing

More than 10 months 11Recipient not authorized to open EUR account (3)

Evidences to be submitted by the recipient (7)Addendum to be prepared by GECL (1)

Between 6 and 10 months 3Evidences to be submitted by the recipient (1)

Evidences to be forwarded to GECL (2)

Less than 6 months 10Grant protocol awaiting for receipient's signature (2)

Disbursement to be processed by AfDB (1)Draft grant protocol to be prepared by GECL (7)


The conclusion is that for recently approved projects, the intervention of GECL constitutes the main bottleneck and that for “older” projects, approved more than 10 months ago, the bottleneck is more at the level of the recipient. It seems clear that in the latter case the ca-pacity of the Facility to follow up with the recipient and provide support is also at stake.

D.2.3. Main issues in the disbursement process

Three levels need to be distinguished to explain the disbursement difficulties faced by AWF.

a) Issues at GECL level

The legal department (GECL) plays a very important role in the process of making approved projects grant effective. All the AWF staff interviewed by the consultant during the assess-ment mentioned GECL as being one of the major bottlenecks in the phase between the pro-ject approval and the grant effectiveness – and this is confirmed by the analysis above, even if objectively, the time taken by GECL to prepare the grant protocol cannot account for all the delays faced in the project implementation. In the past (2008) the Facility tried to solve this issue by proposing to have a legal officer/specialist within GECL who would work specifically on the AWF projects but this solution was never implemented.

b) Issues at recipient level

A lot of the reasons for the delays faced before and after the projects are grant effective can be found on the recipients’ side and these elements contribute significantly to the low dis-bursement rate identified in the analysis above. Main elements are the following ones:

• Some pre-disbursement conditions are not realistic and would better apply in the case of a bigger AfDB-like project (e.g. the first meeting of the steering committee);

• Some implementing agencies obviously do not have the required resources and skills to deal with the requirements of AWF in terms of procedures. This problem is more acute when the agency is a governmental body such as a ministry in charge of water – river basins organizations or NGOs are more responsive;

• A lot of delays faced by projects take root in the inadequate management of the pro-curement aspects of the projects – this has an impact on the second disbursement. The implementing agency might not be aware of aware of AWF/AfDB procurement rules or there might be conflicts with internal rules or co-donors’ rules.



c) Issues at AWF level

The following issues at AWF level have an impact on the disbursement rate:

• The task managers of the AWF are overburdened and management has focused more on project preparation than on project follow-up and supervision, especially at the early stage of the project when the implementing agency needs tailored support.

• There is a general lack of supervision over the project life that prevents the Facility from anticipating problems and making sure that milestones are not missed by the im-plementing agency, which has an impact on the disbursement delays.

• During the field visits, most implementing agencies mentioned the time taken by the Facility’s task managers to give their no-objection at the key steps of the project as a major reason to explain delays in project implementation.

• The AWF receives, on average, limited support from the Bank’s Field Offices which could also provide support to the implementing agencies with procurement-related is-sues or issues related to the operational rules of the African Development Bank. Some Field Offices have been very proactive in supervising AWF projects; others have not assumed the responsibility when it has been agreed. In addition, not all FOs have the knowledge capacity to effectively supervise the AWF projects.

• Lastly, AWF staff seems to use the SAP system only to a limited extent, when the SAP system is a rather powerful tool to follow up projects, organise their supervision and anticipate the problems linked to the lack of capacity of the implementing agencies.

D.3. Assessment of African Water Facilities’ pro-jects and operational procedures This part of the assessment rests on 8 field visits to projects financed by the African Water Facility, but also on data collected at the headquarters of the Facility in Tunis. Thus the as-sessment deals with the efficiency of projects that are funded by AWF, and with the Facility’s ability to process projects from the request up to project completion.

D.3.1. Overview of the assessment of visited projects: good realiza-tion of project outputs and outcomes, but at a slower implementa-tion phase than planned

The eight projects’ assessments have been briefly outlined below and presented as one ta-ble per project. For further details, projects’ assessments reports are annexed to the report, as a separate volume. A few remarks on the methodology:

• These brief case studies are meant to highlight the outstanding results of each pro-ject’s assessment. The right column of the table tries to enhance trends from more project-related findings. However, these “specific features” do not mean that the pro-ject is the complete opposite of the remaining ones.

• Besides, during the field visits, Executing Agencies were asked to rate AWF’s support during project preparation and implementation. For clarity purposes, the rating (very good, good, adequate and inadequate) has been turned into marks. They follow the same rationale as outputs/outcomes assessment and cross-cutting issues’ coverage assessment: the lower the average, the better the achievement.



• The scale used for the Executing Agency’s rating of AWF support during project preparation/implementation reads as follows:

1 = Very good; 2 = Good; 3 = Adequate and 4 = Inadequate

• The scale used for the Consultant’s rating of outputs/outcomes reads as follows:

1 Likely to be completely achieved. The outputs/ purpose are well on the away to completion (or are completed).

2 Likely to be largely achieved. There is good progress towards purpose completion and most outputs are likely to be achieved, particularly the most important ones.

3 Likely to be partly achieved. Only partial achievement of the purpose is likely and/or achievement of some outputs.

4 Only likely to be achieved to a very limited extent. Purpose unlikely to be achieved but a few outputs likely to be achieved.

5 Unlikely to be achieved. No progress on outputs or purpose.

X It is difficult to say whether there has been any progress towards the final achie-vement of outputs or outcomes. This score should not be used if at all possible.

• The scale used by the Consultant to rate cross-cutting issues’ reads as follows:

• 1 = Very good; 2 = Good; 3 = Adequate and 4 = Inadequate

Table 13: Lake Victoria Basin Commission Water and Sanitation Initiative

Topic Project findings Common trends/ specific features

Project design, appraisal and ap-proval

Logical Framework:

Activities planned in the logical framework are ade-quate but not appropriately sequenced.

Time provided for implementation was underestimated

Should include further details.

Did not provide for adequate monitoring, and therefore it did not allow anticipating delays.

Needs should be identified more precisely.

Capacity building programme:

The capacity building program is seen as too generic.

Beneficiaries and users could have been consulted to design the capacity building programme.

Rating of AWF’s support during project prepara-tion/approval: 3

Common trends:

Logical Framework is not specific enough.




Project imple-mentation

Delays in inception and delays in completion. At the end of 2009, 2 lots still need to be designed in compo-nent (i) and (ii).

Reasons for delays:

Political context

5 months for grant agreement preparation (because of difficulties in VAT exemption)

Obligation of publicity delayed the consultancy pro-curement procedure. Procurement procedures are considered cumbersome and can be a bottleneck for implementation.

1-month waiting time to get each “no objection” from AWF.

The consulting engineering firm poorly planned its work.

Unclear ToRs; need to redraft the consultancy’s Scope of Work.

Difficult data collection during field surveys.

Unrealistic schedule for capacity building component.

Rating of AWF’s support during project implemen-tation: 4

Common trends:

Project had significant delays

AWF took time in de-livering “no-objections”

Lack of coordination between AWF and AfDB for supervision of the implementation.

Operation and use of facilities, outputs and sys-tems created

Outputs’ achievement assessment: 2,6

Outcomes’ achievement assessment: 2,5

The project achieved its objectives in terms of outputs.

Very comprehensive investment proposal.

Short-term solutions are sometimes perceived as in-adequate.

Capacity building component is too weak and does not integrate capacity strengthening for Operation and Maintenance of facilities.

Comprehensive situational analysis.

Coverage of the 4 pillars:

Number of areas of intervention that are significantly or substantially covered: 2

Investments to meet water needs: substantial

Strengthening the financial base: Moderate to signifi-cant

Average coverage of cross-cutting interventions: 2

Environmental sustainability; Good governance: Sub-stantial

Gender mainstreaming: Significant

Specific features:

Significant contribution in terms of “Gender mainstreaming”




Project monitor-ing and evalua-tion

Insufficient TA resources to monitor 5 countries.

Appropriate reporting, performance indicators and milestones.

The reporting frequency during the project was ade-quate, with monthly, quarterly and annual reports.

The Steering Committee was very present and was meeting on a quarterly basis, but AWF could have been more present through their field office.

Quality of country-level monitoring was very uneven (good in Kenya and Uganda, but weak in Tanzania and almost inexistent in Rwanda and Burundi.)

Very comprehensive baseline information but no moni-toring system. Existing M&E systems at country level should have been better used.

Specific features:

Consistent reporting from the Executing Agency.

Comprehensive base-line survey.

Next steps, emerging follow-up on projects and leverage ef-fect

Expectations from beneficiaries are very high.

Need to keep some kind of political continuity for the project to become effective.

Projects to come should include alternative ap-proaches/solutions to serve the poor.

Common trends:

Project has been en-dorsed by executing agency/beneficiaries.

Uncertainty about out-puts turning into effec-tive outcomes.

Table 14: COFAMOSA Project (Mozambique)



The appraisal was carried out by OSAN, and project preparation was done in collaboration with AWF

A Logframe was designed but it is impossible to evalu-ate its adequacy while implementation is only starting.


Common trends:

Good AWF support during project prepara-tion.


The contract was signed in January 2010 whereas it was planned for December 2007. Reasons for delays:

4 months delay in getting the no-objection to the short-list (from June to November 2008) and then 4 months delay for the approval of the bidding procedures re-sults, and then additional waiting time for provided the no-objection regarding the modification of the ToRs (see below).

Due to these delays the terms of reference needed to be re-drafted which took a long time.

Common trends:

Project faced signifi-cant delays

AWF took time in de-livering “no-objections”.





As designed, the project significantly covers 3 AWF areas of intervention:

Water for productive uses (investment to meet water needs);

Attracting and benefiting from private sector Invest-ments (Strengthening the financial base);

Transboundary water resources management (Strengthening water governance).

No more information could be collected due to the fact that the consultant is just starting the study

N/A


No more information could be collected due to the fact that the consultant is just starting the study.

N/A


No more information could be collected due to the fact that the consultant is just starting the study.

N/A



Table 15: RWSS programme (Mozambique)



AWF helped orientate the definition of the project.

The Logframe was particularly well-designed.

The project appraisal shall have provided more de-tailed baseline information (such as financing gap, lack of planning, lack of capacity building etc.).

The fact that the project is quite straight forward helped design an appropriate LFW right from the beginning.


Common trends:

Good AWF support during project prepara-tion

Specific features:

Sound Logical Frame-work design


Project implementation followed the Log Frame, but suffered from delays.

The contract with the consultant was signed in August 2007 and was supposed to last 9 months. However, the completion date is 31st of September 2009. AWF had to provide an extension of the grant validity period.

Reasons for delays:

Miscellaneous events during the consultancy assign-ment (team leader had to be replaced).

Difficulties in meeting the special conditions for grant effectiveness. The 1st disbursement request was sub-mitted 10 months after the grant agreement was signed.

Long waiting time to get AWF’s “no objection”. (6 months to get a “no-objection” on the reallocation of 600$ from one activity to another).

The executing agency would have appreciated to get more guidance about procedures.

During implementation stage, the AWF did not merely act as a donor but also as a project promoter.

Rating of AWF’s support during project implementa-tion: 3

Common trends:


AWF took time in de-livering “no-objections”

Difficulties in under-standing/meeting AWF procedures to make the grant effective





Outputs’ achievement average: 1,2

Outcomes’ achievement average: 1,6

The expected outputs have been produced and met the required quality. Project’s funds were fully dis-bursed.

The project triggered a very wide coordination process between the implementing partners and between the implementing partners and the government.

Coverage of AWF’s 4 pillars:

Strengthening water governance ; Investments to meet water needs ; Strengthening the financial base : sub-stantial

Improving water knowledge : significant

Average coverage of cross-cutting issues: 3

Capacity building ; poverty reduction: significant

Common trends:

Project is endorsed by the executing agency/beneficiaries


No clear task-sharing between the OWAS and the AWF at the AfDB level in terms of monitoring.

The AfDB Task Manager went on monitoring visits (no monitoring mission from AWF). However the executing agency wishes the AfDB had brought stronger political support to the project.

Evaluation is still pending because AWF did not send back its comments on the project completion report (10 months after it was submitted).

Evaluation of impacts will probably be difficult because the baseline survey was too generic.

Specific features:

Lack of support from the AfDB whereas they submitted the project to AWF for funding.


The programme prepared by the study (the PRONASAR) was launched 1 year after the project’s completion, but is not under implementation yet be-cause of busy political agenda.

The Code of conduct in the water sector has been signed in March 2008 by the stakeholders, except AfDB.

A draft MoU for a Rural Water Supply and Sanitation common fund was prepared in February 2009 but has not transformed into a definitive one.

The AfBD has not committed any fund to the RWSSS programme yet.

The PRONASAR provides a very important tool in or-der to put back Mozambique on the track of the MDG for the rural water sector. The project will have impor-tant leverage effect on emerging projects and funding commitments.

Without greater support from AfDB, the project’s main outcome (PRONASAR) will become a void instrument.

Common trends:

Uncertainty about out-puts turning into effec-tive outcomes.



Table 16: WSS Services for the Urban Poor in Kagugu be (Uganda)



The Logical Framework was inadequate in several ways:

Outputs did not distinguish water from sanitation

Some outcomes rather fit in the “goal” category (reduc-tion in watsan-related diseases)

Some activities were missing (hygiene promotion work).

Rating of AWF’s support during prepara-tion/approval process: 2

Common trends:

Logical Framework design could be re-fined (e.g. by having more achievable out-come statements)


The project is nearly complete and has good prospects for being successful and achieving its objectives. This is despite some delays in the AWF approval of changes in the project design, following community consultations.

Some changes in project design. These improved cost recovery (shared yard taps replaced by pre-paid ki-osks) and demand orientation of the project (only one Ecosan toilet was constructed).

The project was due to be completed in 2009.

Reasons for delays:

Delay in getting AWF’s “no-objection” on changes in project’s design (because of Task Managers’ turnover)

The executing agency took time in procuring the local consultants.

Rating of AWF’s support during implementation: 3

Common trends:

The project has good prospects for achieving its objectives.


AWF took time in de-livering “no-objections”.

Specific features:

Improvement of the project’s design oc-curred during the im-plementation stage, based on community responses



Outcomes’ achievement average: 1,6

Project is nearly complete and has very good prospects for being successful and achieving its objectives.


Investments to meet water needs : substantial

Significant: 1 area of intervention (Strengthening water governance).

Average coverage of AWF’s cross-cutting issues: 2,8

Capacity building ; poverty reduction; environmental sustainability : significant





Brief Quarterly reports have been completed by the executing agency, but not all of them.

In fact good progress reports that describe approaches used were produced by consultants but AWF did not have copies

One supervision mission only in 2008. The Task Man-ager from AfDB’s FO provided support but did not have authority to take decisions.

Common trends:

Insufficient monitoring from AWF (no supervi-sion missions)

Specific features:

AWF did not have the good progress reports that were produced by consultants


Several factors are likely to make the project sustain-able:

- Good cost recovery

- Strong community commitment

- Long-term management of toilet blocks has been al-lowed for.

The executing agency envisages a €10 million project that could be funded by donors such as AfDB, KFW, World Bank etc. They would appreciate some support in developing a concept note.

Specific features:

Good prospects for scaling-up

Table 17: Water Information and Knowledge Managemen t Project (Ethiopia)



AWF’s support proved helpful during preparation pe-riod, though decisions seemed a little rushed, and fur-ther expert advice would have been required.

The ceiling set by AWF on the project budget was too little for the project scope

The outcome statements in the logframe assume that a water knowledge management was implemented. But this was mainly a project preparation project with consultancy studies


Common trends:

Logical Framework design could be re-fined (e.g by having more achievable out-come statements)

Good AWF support during project prepara-tion

Specific features:

The ceiling set by AWF on the project budget was too little for the project scope





The MoWR are generally satisfied with the consultancy outputs for 3 of the 4 components implemented. Output 1 on an integrated information system for the whole water sector was unsatisfactory. But the MoWR did well to expand the scope of output 2 (on an integrated WRM system) which was a good quality proposal

Project completion has been delayed by 2 years.

Reasons for delays:

- Change of project coordinator within the Executing Agency

- Difficulties with procurement (including lack of hard currency for international procurement)

- Support from AWF on procurement issues could have been quicker on some occasions

Rating of AWF’s support during implementation: 2

Common trends:

Project had substantial delays

AWF took time in pro-viding support on some procurement issues

Specific features:

Good AWF support during project imple-mentation



Outcomes’ achievement average: X (impossible to as-sess the outcomes against the Logical Framework)

The results of the research activities in one component could not be disseminated through a workshop be-cause of lack of funds

Big delays in ICT equipments procurement


Strengthening water governance: substantial

Improving water knowledge : significant

Average coverage of cross-cutting issues: 3,4

Environmental sustainability: significant

Specific features:

3 out of 4 outputs were of good quality


4 AWF supervision missions.

The monitoring reports did not capture the unsatisfac-tory study report output 1 and subsequent changes

It would have been helpful to have consolidated an-nual project reports

Specific features:

Good supervision from AWF (4 AWF mis-sions)

Inadequate monitoring reports


As for component 1, the scoping study proposals are considered not to be ‘sellable’ or implementable at pre-sent. The various sub-sectors are now implementing their own M&E systems, ignoring these proposals. But the other outputs were generally of good quality

The executing agency is using or planning to imple-ment most of the consultancy outputs.

AWF support would be helpful to draft sound proposals to get funding for outputs’ implementation.

Specific features:

One output was not endorsed by the exe-cuting agency

AWF support would be useful to draft sound proposals to get fund-ing for implementation of the main outputs.



D.3.2. Emerging AWF priorities for project development

During the initial years of AWF's development since 2006, it has naturally focused on devel-oping a substantial portfolio of projects, which has been achieved, to a large extent. But we need to consider the emerging priorities in AWF’s project work for the coming 3 to 5 years after considering the assessments described in previous sections.

a) Strategic project issues

1. Addressing the current Areas of Intervention – AWF is developing a balanced portfolio in relation to 3 of its 4 main intervention pillars on strengthening water governance (for IWRM and TWRM), investment in water needs, and improving water knowledge. AWF would benefit from more emphasis in terms of AWF staffing and resources in the fol-lowing aspects: strengthening the financial base (such as supporting water utilities to enhance their finances) sanitation and climate change linked to integrated water re-source management. This is based on regional declarations, recent commitments made by AMCOW and emerging changes in the sector.

2. More structured discussions with African country governments/ministries about lessons from previous projects and future priorities for AWF projects/programmes would be beneficial. These discussions can increase the value addition of the projects financed by AWF and relevance of the projects to the local context.

3. More efforts to review research outputs and project evaluations (and in a more sys-tematic way) to determine promising AWF pilot programme concepts with a good po-tential for scaling up and/or leveraging funds.

4. Development of more projects around agreed priority themes or programmes and less one-off projects (which assumes a basis for agreeing upon those themes or pro-grammes through a structured and regional mechanism). However this strategic orien-tation must not be taken to the detriment of the demand-driven principle.

5. Introduce limited targeted calls for proposals to AWF based on priorities expressed by AMCOW, AWF objectives and the emerging priorities from points 1 to 4. Targeted calls could be one of the “portals” to enter the AWF, together (or in parallel) with the current portal that accepts all applications, and that must be maintained.

6. Sector performance monitoring – In the medium term the Facility should place more emphasis on developing its’ strategic role in performance monitoring and reporting in the African water and sanitation sector (in line with the recommendations of the Road-map for Implementing and Reporting Actions to the African Union, a document to which the Facility contributed significantly).

7. Improve AWF knowledge transfer to the African WSS sector by developing and dis-seminating more briefing notes, synthesis reports, discussion papers, etc. on the emerging lessons from AWF projects/programmes, based on project re-views/evaluations. This is important for AWF resource mobilization.

8. Place more emphasis on project cross-cutting issues ,with specific guidance and checklists developed or refined for reviewing the project design and implementation, in order to ensure AWF cross cutting issues such as governance, poverty reduction and equity issues are adequately addressed. These cross-cutting issues should also be reflected in the tools used during the screening process.

9. Developing and reviewing of methodologies used in the framework of AWF commu-nity-based projects. Working with communities should be described, be based on good practice and reviewed at each stage of the project cycle, with a view to future scaling up of the project methodology or approach.



10. Increased focus on more fragile states or states recovering from conflict, where this is feasible. This means that the AWF would have to deal differently with the early stages of the project cycle, as a feature shared by all fragile states is the lack of capacity to prepare and draft proposals. Pre-identification missions could be envisaged.

11. Size of portfolio – AWF should continue to expand the overall size and value of its port-folio of projects as a means of increasing its impact and influence, in the medium term. In the short term AWF should focus more on supporting project implementation and in getting the best value from its portfolio of projects. This includes supporting scaling up opportunities emerging from its projects, as a means of fulfilling AWF’s mandate of mobilizing resources for the water sector in general.

b) Project support issues

12. More emphasis on supporting project executing agencies in implementing their pro-jects, including being able to respond promptly to proposed variations in the project design and budget allocations between project outputs. Part of this support could be outsourced to a specialized company or consultant.

13. Monitoring and evaluation of projects – Provision of more efforts and resources to re-view, monitor and evaluate AWF projects that are implemented (link with the decen-tralization of the staff and the increased presence at country level).

14. Scaling up for a leverage effect – Although AWF has some notable successes in sup-porting scaling up or replication opportunities emerging from some of its projects, the provision of more efforts and resources is necessary for this to be done on as many projects as possible. A specific standard item in future project budgets could encour-age both executive agencies and AWF to take this forward.

15. Increasing the intensity in the project supervision – It is true that the AWF is mostly dealing with small projects and close supervision requires additional human and finan-cial resources. However a key finding of this assignment is that supervision is a weak point in AWF’s project process. The AWF needs to argue that the complexity and the sometimes experimental aspects of projects require increased supervision.

Some of these issues are examined in greater detail in the remainder of this report, as well as the need for AWF to adapt as an organisation in order to deliver these priorities.

D.3.3. Overview of AWF project cycle and processes

The project cycle comprises mainly 3 parts, with the initial part from project identification until eligibility check, the funding preparation part, from project preparation up to grant agreement signature, and then the project execution, up to the completion.

The AWF project flowchart8 is presented below. It should be noted that the preparation phase is generally not carried out or combined with the appraisal phase, as one of the fast track aspects.

8 Source: AWF Operations Manual – August 2009.



Figure 3: Flowchart of AWF’s project cycle

This sequence of the project life matches well the conventional project cycle: Identification � Preparation (in a few cases) � Appraisal � Approval � Implementation � Completion.

It could nevertheless be completed by an evaluation phase, even though projects cannot be evaluated systematically. Evaluation would assess outcomes against the original objectives, sustainability of results and institutional development impact.

Projects review and discussions with beneficiaries and AWF staffs show a number of weak-nesses and bottlenecks in the project cycle. The screening process, the grant agreement preparation and associated conditions, recipient procurement, the project supervision and monitoring are the cycle areas generally requesting attention and improvement.

The screening process is a key element and has a strong impact on the portfolio composi-tion, and this aspect will be examined under section on AWF portfolio management.

a) Identification, preparation and appraisal

Regarding the identification, preparation and appraisal phases, the AWF is rather flexible in the way it receives requests. Applicants can send a simple concept note or a full formal ap-plication – both will be considered and will initiate the screening process. As indicated in Fig. 7, concept notes are reviewed at a smaller more informal level, and if found relevant, a full application has to be submitted which will be formally screened. When the applicant does not have the capacity to prepare the formal application, the AWF provides support through the Task Manager in charge of the project. The AWF offers to project promoters a unique op-

IDENTIFICATION

PREPARATION

APPRAISAL

NEGOTIATION

APPROVAL

SIGNATURE

IMPLEMENTATION

COMPLETION

PIPELINE Prepare Project (feasibility and Detailed Doc)

- Sign Grant Proto-col Agreement

- Fulfill Grant Condi-tions

- Implement Project

- Procure Goods, Works and Services

- Supervise Project

Prepare PCR

Concept Paper

Grant Application / Request

SCREENING REJECT

Prepare AWF PCR

Eligible?

Eligible?

Eligible?

YES

YES

YES

NO

NO

NO

AWF RECIPIENT



portunity to elaborate their project, and therefore to get it financed by AWF itself and/or by other donors.

Figure 4: Flowchart of the screening process 9

This constructive approach in receiving applications translates into 60% and above of the applications received entering the project pipeline and being ultimately funded by the AWF. This is a very high success rate compared to other financing facilities (e.g. the European Water Facility, where less than a third of the applications get accepted).

The 30 to 40% remaining requests are rejected at the screening phase mainly because of lack of consistency with national policies, country sector framework and specific AWF criteria related to the areas of intervention.

The screening process itself is detailed in XXX. The screening is an independent internal AWF process which normally does not involve the AfDB staff. The screening meetings are attended exclusively by the Facility staff. However, AfDB staff sometimes attend where other departments have been involved in identification, and provide more background or clarifica-tion on the proposal, but they do not participate in the decision making process.

9 Source: Internal Working Document “Streamlining the screening process for applications to the AWF”.

Project Proposal / Application

Concept note

a) Pipeline b) Further Dialogue

c) Rejection

Notification of Applicant

Notification of Applicant

Preparation / Appraisal

Clarification issues w/ appl icant

End of Screening /

close file

Incoming Request

Recommendation Memo

a. Transfer to pipeline b. Further dialogue before

final decision c. Rejection

Concept Notes:

1. Respond to applicant on eligibility issues OR re-view CN in Screening meeting

Applications / Proposals:

1. Schedule screening meeting

2. Issue call for meeting with link to the documents

3. Hold screening meeting

TM

ASC Chair

ASC Secretary

ASC

1. Elaborate and submit minutes and memo to Coordinator

2. Approval of minutes

ASC Secretary

Coordinator

TM prepares /

Coordinator approves

Assign TM for:

- review of CNs - Preparation of Screening

reports (proposals)

Coordinator

Screening Meeting

TM Review

Recommend / Eligibility

Issues

Notification of applicant

1. Transfer to pipeline 2. Further dialogue before

final decision 3. Rejection

TM prepares /

Coordinator approves

1. Open file 2. Register & Assign Ref.

no. 3. Categorization of propo-

sal 4. Acknowledge receipt

ASC Secretary

Actions Respons ible



After the screening, if the project is accepted (whether it needs to be improved or not), it en-ters into the pipeline. Some applications are in between but as they are far from being com-pleted, they are labelled “for further dialogue” (or “status uncertain”). The applications regis-ter was created in 2007 and keep records of all applications received by the AWF. This tool is a substantial improvement considering the increase in requests treated by the AWF.

Staff members are divided regarding the approach of supporting applicants to prepare their applications. Some question whether the AWF should make more efforts in project prepara-tion while monitoring and evaluation remains weak and would like a process similar to that of the EUWF which is rather quick to screen projects and disburse grants. Others see in this approach a unique feature representing a comparative advantage of the AWF that allows for both capacity strengthening of beneficiaries and higher quality of project preparation.

An effort has been made to develop fast-track procedures, and although it covers the all pro-ject cycle, specific AWF procedures have been developed only for the preparation phase. The rest of the cycle follows the AfDB procedures. Those specific preparation phase proce-dures make the AWF one of the fastest funding agencies in answering clients’ needs.

b) Negotiation, approval and signature

From the approval phase, once the project is approved, the AWF follows the AfDB general rules and the approval thresholds for AWF are the same as for AfDB operations (currently under revision, not officially agreed yet). The AWF has made a proposal to increase the ap-proval thresholds to fast track the approval process.

The grant is supposed to be signed within 3 months after the approval, and the first dis-bursement is supposed to happen within 3 months after the grant agreement is signed and the grant made effective. All in all, the project should commence within 6 months.

The actual average is close to 10 months between approval and first disbursement. This delay is due time needed on the side of the recipient to meet requirements and time taken on the AWF side to respond to recipients. The recipient agencies also take time in answer-ing. It is interesting to note that NGOs are usually more responsive than governmental or parastatal bodies.

The grant effectiveness occurs when the conditions for the first disbursement have been de-clared fulfilled. Prior to this, the signature of the grant agreement can be a bottleneck per se. General conditions to the first disbursement are: (i) opening a bank account in a bank and currency acceptable to AfDB’s authorized currency10 and providing a “comfort letter” from the bank, and (ii) demonstrating that a project coordinator has been appointed for the Project. There might be other conditions depending on the project.

AWF’s staff unanimously considers AfDB’s legal department (GECL), in charge of preparing the grant agreement is an important bottleneck in the process. AWF Task Managers often have to draft the grant agreement themselves to fasten the process. AWF normally pre-pares an initial version of the grant agreement focusing on the annexes which are taken from the PAR. AWF is not responsible for preparing the legal terminology, which remains the responsibility of GECL. Several solutions to these problems have been envisaged (specifi-cally: TA to the legal department, GECL staff seconded at AWF level) but none has been implemented so far. The appointment of a grant administration officer in AWF has already eased this situation. But delays due to other legal issues can be expected to continue, and permanent solutions are needed.

10 This condition led to substantial difficulties and delays in West Africa, since ECOWAS does not authorise gov-ernmental institutions to open Bank accounts in Euros – only CFA Franc is recognized.



c) Implementation and completion

Once the grant agreement is signed, the project is being executed by the recipient, through the executing agency. The beneficiary has then the responsibility of implementation, includ-ing goods, works and services procurement and project supervision and monitoring.

Notwithstanding AWF is following its original intent of mainly conduct desk supervision, there is consensus to accept these phases of the project cycle have been neglected by the AWF up to now. This lack of attention is due to a number of reasons (pressure to increase the number of projects, staff limitation...), but has translated into a number of problems affecting the AWF overall performance. Executing agencies suffer from lack of assistance on admin-istrative issues (procurement, invoicing, disbursement...) and this generates significant de-lays for most of the projects under implementation.

D.3.4. AWF portfolio management

The portfolio is presently composed of 62 projects representing a total amount of about 71 m€). 7 projects are officially completed by the end of 2009 and around 25 projects are near completion. The portfolio analysis is detailed in section D.1, but some points can be made from the projects procedures and management perspective.

The strategic pillars of the AWF are unequally reflected in the portfolio composition. In the same vein, the cross-cutting issues are also not always covered in the projects. A specific attention should be given to address this situation. It must also be recognised that many projects touch upon multiple areas of intervention. As such, classification according to main category does not show a complete picture. That is why AWF now shows a portfolio matrix in its progress reports.

During the screening process, projects are reviewed formally in light of the AWF strategy principle, following the Project Screening Sheet, but little with regard on the portfolio current composition. Aspects like portfolio balance and geographic spread are discussed during the screening process but not formally captured in the rating. Though the screening process can only review applications received by AWF, and the applications do not necessarily cover equally the strategic pillars and cross cutting themes, the Project Screening Sheet should systematically review and evaluate these aspects.

Until now, the screening approach covers the very specific features of the project with (i) ra-tionale, (ii) project objective, (iii) project description, (iv) eligibility of recipient (Role in the sector, Support at the country level, Managerial Capacity, Financial Capacity, Technical Ca-pacity, Credibility, experience in the domain and conclusion), and (v) eligibility of action (rele-vance / focal area of AWF, National / Local Priority, Recipient’s self help measures, Benefi-ciary Ownership and Commitment, Beneficiary Credibility and Institutional Sustainability, So-cial and Environmental Impact, Conclusion of eligibility).

A specific review and rating on the project positioning regarding the strategic pillars and the cross cutting areas should be added to evaluate and quantify the project positioning regard-ing the strategy of the African Water Facility. Additional aspects could also be added to cap-ture the project positioning in the portfolio, such as region, new country for AWF, type of country (fragile states)...

This review should also be conducted by several screening committee members to confront positions and stir the debate instead of having one person (the Task Manager) preparing the screening and presenting it to the committee. Presently, the project manager being alone to carry out the evaluation, he might be advocating for the project instead of rating objectively the areas covered.



Such an approach, reviewing the project content as well as his positioning regarding the strategic pillars and the cross cutting issues by several committee members would enrich the recommendations to the applicant to refine his project.

In addition, some specific targeted request for proposals should be tested to stimulate the applicants to focus on forgotten or underrepresented areas (as compared to the plans). This possible approach is developed under sections F.1.3 and 7.6.4.

D.3.5. AWF operating procedures

The procedures manual has been developed over the years in a quite comprehensive man-ner. A review of the operating manual is presented in section E.1.3.

AWF has developed a specific approach and procedures for project identification and prepa-ration. This is very much appreciated and makes the AWF a unique tool in the sector to help beneficiaries to develop their projects and turn them into bankable projects.

From project approval, AWF follows the general AfDB procedures for grant preparation and project implementation. This is insurance for donors on AWF fiduciary responsibility and proper funds management.

On the side of recipients, the grant agreement preparation and the subsequent fulfilment of conditions is perceived as a cumbersome process, cause of delays.

Regarding project implementation, executing agencies are often “lost” and do not know how to handle AWF procedures. They struggle to solve administrative problems related to pro-curement, no objection, fund disbursement, reporting...

There is need for more assistance from AWF to executing agencies on AWF procedures through training sessions, development of a user’s guide, closer supervision and distance assistance – it could be done through a user-friendly section of the website.

D.3.6. Cross-cutting issues In order to contribute as much as possible to the development of equitable and sustainable water resource management and sanitation in Africa, AWF places a high value on the incor-poration and mainstreaming of socio-economic considerations and cross-cutting issues in the funded projects. The cross cutting issues as spelled out in the AWF strategy cover:

• Capacity building at local, national and regional level;

• Gender mainstreaming and social equity;

• Poverty reduction;

• Environmental sustainability;

• Good governance.

An attempt was made to analyse the cross cutting issues coverage in the portfolio, but it was problematic to reach quantitative conclusions, since there is neither specific indicator nor ap-propriate monitoring in the project documents. From the qualitative analysis drawn from pro-ject managers interviews and documents review, it appears that the interest and added value of the cross cutting issues is understood and well captured in the strategy documents, but is not adequately reflected in the operations documents at the various stage of the project cy-cle, from screening to project monitoring and completion.

Practically, cross cutting issues are present in projects and receive attention, but in a pretty informal manner. Lack of tracing and monitoring tools consequence is that cross cutting is-



sues are not well identified and evaluated at the preparation stage, or not adequately re-flected in project monitoring, or even sometimes forgotten, at the implementation stage.

A recent internal review of the social equity and gender component in AWF projects11 pointed out this problem and suggested some recommendations that could potentially be ex-tended to the other cross cutting issues.

Some recommendations could be made to better identify, articulate and monitor cross cut-ting issues in the PAR and at the different stage of the project cycle.

Enhancing integration of cross cutting issues in AWF Project Appraisal Reports:

• Strengthen the articulation of cross cutting issues content of the project;

• Strengthen project targeting, i.e. specify as much as possible the direct beneficiaries;

• Strengthen the What and How: Specify the actions or measures the project will take, and how it will be undertaken;

• Strengthen the definition and use of performance indicators for cross cutting issues.

AWF project cycle management:

• Integrate relevant cross-cutting issues in AWF Application format, Quarterly Progress Reports, Project Completion Reports;

• Strengthen screening process criteria for cross cutting issues: Specific criteria for how to assess these in a rigorous and consistent way should therefore be formally adopted;

• Provide Task Managers with means for strengthening integration of cross-cutting is-sues in project preparation, implementation and supervision.

As the average value of AWF projects has increased, it has become more practical to incor-porate cross-cutting issues. This is particularly important for the preparation of larger pro-jects and for future larger scaled up projects that arise out of AWF projects.

D.3.7. Project reporting Project reporting is part of the Monitoring and Evaluation system of the AWF, and project executing agencies are requested to submit quarterly progress reports to the AWF.

However, AWF struggles with the M&E of its projects, since less than 50% of Quarterly Pro-gress Reports are timely submitted to the AWF management. In addition, the content of the reports tend to be synthetic and focus on activities in the last quarter and activities for the next quarter and lack visibility on the overall project implementation.

It seems reporting is perceived as an administrative duty and is made quite difficult by the lack of adequate resources at the executing agency level, but also at the AWF level. The ex-isting reporting guidelines and template based on the Bank’s template lack guidance on visi-bility and overall project perspective.

Nevertheless, substantial efforts have been made recently in this respect, and the situation seems to be improving quickly and substantially. This is an excellent development in a key area because this issue of M&E of projects will become increasingly important as the num-ber of projects under implementation is about to grow significantly.

11 Source: “Qualitative desk assessment of social equity and gender component in 61 AWF projects” by Badstue Lone (African Water Facility), draft version, 2010.



At AWF level, the SAP system is progressively being used to monitor projects implementa-tion, but the level of use is variable within the team. The Grant administration officer, who is fully SAP literate, is currently providing substantial assistance to the team.

To strengthen project reporting, action should be taken to encourage on the side of AWF the systematic use of the SAP system, and to structure better the content of project progress reports on the side of executing agencies.

Guidance and templates should be provided to executing agencies to make sure the pro-gress report content covers implemented and scheduled activities, but also overall progress made towards achieving project outputs, constraints and challenges on project implementa-tion and the solutions or potential solution to address them, as well as changes in the project scope, including logical framework update or revision.

D.3.8. Support to executing agencies at each stage of project cycle Generally, there is consensus among beneficiaries as well as among AWF staff that AWF is excellent at supporting executing agencies during the preparation phase, but less efficient in providing adequate support during the implementation phase.

The reason for this focus on project preparation is the pressure put on AWF in the early years to fund a significant number of projects and to develop the portfolio. Efforts made by the AWF are good in terms of portfolio growth, but are also detrimental to the resources al-located to project implementation support, and then have an impact on the quality of project execution, as clearly shown in the case of projects surveyed by the consultant.

On the other hand, this approach led to the development on an interesting and unique com-parative advantage which makes the AWF indispensable in the water sector: its rapidity of intervention and reactivity towards the requests received and its capacity to interact with the applicants during preparation. This support to project preparation and possibility to turn con-cepts notes into bankable projects and is extremely appreciated by beneficiaries.

The level of support to project and its balance between preparation phase and implementa-tion phase is an issue that is internally debated. The main debate is the question of ade-quate frequency for supervision missions, since as a result of the current under-staffing of the AWF, few supervision missions are organized.

But supervision missions, though very important for proper project implementation, are not the only way to provide support to executing agencies. The AWF could tap on the AfDB op-erations capacities, and particularly on AfDB country offices. As discussed in section D.2 up to now, AWF-funded projects receive uneven support from the AfDB country offices, mainly due to lack of proper mobilization through communication and tasks allocation.

In addition, executing agencies interviewed during the projects review suggested the devel-opment of an “AWF User’s Guide” that would guide them and help them to find solutions to the problems they encounter during project implementation. This tool, among others, could be part of the executing agencies training organised periodically by the AWF.

In this regard, it is also suggested that capacities of executing agencies should be better as-sessed during the appraisal phase, and adequate measures of training or TA support should be strengthened. In order to allow the AWF staff to focus on more strategic activities, part of the project supervision could be outsourced to specialized consultants.

Support to EA is a complex subject, and supervision missions by the AWF should not be viewed as a panacea. To go further in improving project supervision tasks and procedures, a specific analysis should be conducted, covering definition, mandate and level of involvement of AfDB field offices, development of users guiding tools, potentially web-based, adequacy



and frequency of executing agencies training sessions based on adequate initial capacity assessment, and the use of external specialized consultants. To complement this analysis, an estimate of the cost of each option for support provision should be calculated in relation to the value of the portfolio.

D.3.9. Organization of quality control In its present structure, there is no proper quality control mechanism in the AWF procedures and practices, neither at the project level, nor at the whole AWF level. Such a mechanism would include a set of performance indicators and a related monitoring process and could cover project quality control (i.e. Ratio of projects completed according to the initial time-frame) as well as AWF activity (i.e. Ratio of AWF staff under secondment from a develop-ment agency).

Once a project is completed, including the PCR process, there is as yet also no formal or systematic post-evaluation conducted by a team independent from the executing agency. It should be noted that no projects are ready yet for post evaluation at outcome level. AWF intends to do that 2 years after completion and plans are being made for individual project evaluations and thematic assessments of multiple similar projects.

Once the Monitoring and Evaluation mechanism is strengthened with better definition of Ob-jective Verifiable performance Indicators (OVI) and these indicators are used at the various stages of the project cycle, and once the collection of field data through the project supervi-sion and reporting process is done in a systematic manner, then it becomes possible to de-fine a set of quality control indicators (ratios) building on the data collected to get information on the processes efficiency and project quality.

This would answer the needs of Task Managers who are seeking tools and indicators for as-sessing and benchmarking completed projects, in order to increase the visibility of the AWF’s activities and their impacts.

In addition, it would be extremely interesting to conduct a number of post-evaluation studies on some of the completed projects.

D.3.10. Use of logical frameworks

The development of a logical framework for the project is one of the AWF procedures re-quirements at the appraisal stage. Therefore, all projects approved have their logical frame-work, and this provides a strong basis for the project overview and clarity, as well as to build the M&E structure of the project.

Nevertheless, the logical framework preparation often does not receive the attention it re-quires. Some project logframes present mistakes or gaps, or inadequate indicators. Some have outcome statements that are not really achievable as part of the project, and would be better placed in the goal box. The overall quality of logframes could easily be improved.

In addition, logframes are in many cases designed by the AWF Task Manager / consultant instead of the beneficiary, preventing the executing agency from the beneficial project analy-sis exercise required and reducing ownership.

During implementation, the logframe is not used as a supervision tool and is rarely referred to in project reports.

Actually, logframes should be used more as monitoring tools for implementation and should be active documents that should be changed in the light of experience on the projects.



Improvement in logframes design and use could be reached easily with training of AWF staff and beneficiaries on logical framework preparation and use.

Also, during project implementation, there is need for more regular updating of logframes that would reduce confusion about the changing scope of the projects. This could be done as part of updated work plan before 2nd disbursement.

D.3.11. Areas for improvement

Interviews and project reviews identified the areas for potential improvement in the project cycle. This includes the screening process, the administrative tasks between grant negotia-tion and effectiveness, and project supervision and monitoring.

Suggestions for improvement include:

• Develop specific rating sheets to review project positioning regarding the strategic pil-lars and the cross cutting issues;

• Project Screening scoring to be done by several committee members;

• Specific targeted request for proposals to be tested to stimulate applicants to focus on forgotten areas;

• Multiply training sessions on AWF procedures for executing agencies;

• Develop procedures “AWF User’s Guide” for implementing agencies;

• Ensure closer supervision and distance assistance to executing agencies;

• Enhance integration and the appropriate tools for integration of cross cutting issues in AWF PAR and other project cycle documents;

• Encourage systematic use of the SAP system;

• Improve existing templates and guidelines for project progress reports;

• Improve capacity gaps identification for executing agencies before project inception;

• Develop the use AfDB operations capacities, and particularly on AfDB field offices for project supervision;

• Define a set of quality control indicators (ratios) building on the data collected to get information on the processes efficiency and project quality;

• Conduct a number of post-evaluation studies on some of the completed projects;

• Develop training of AWF staff and beneficiaries on logframe preparation and use;

• Support the use of project logframes as monitoring tools for implementation.



E. Review of AWF institutional ar-rangements

E.1. Review of AWF key documents

E.1.1. Strategies The current Operational Strategy of the African Water Facility was prepared in 2007, and was approved by the Governing Council on October 31, 2007. It is based on the initial AWF Operational Programme 2005-2009, which was revised in 2007 in consultation with AMCOW TAC to obtain broad consensus and commitment, and to ensure that the AWF operational focus and areas of intervention accurately reflects the AMCOW water agenda.

Operational Strategy defines and describes the general policy directions, operational focus and areas of intervention, and provides an overview of the implementation plan and associ-ated resource requirements up to 2025.

The main ‘Areas of Intervention’ for the AWF were initially developed as part of the African Water Vision and remain valid as important general focus areas. Since that time the ‘Areas of Intervention’ have been developed further, including the latest refinement in 2009, but the AWF needs to consider now how it is able to respond to the key decisions in the Sharm El-Sheikh Declaration of the African Union in July 2008.

The latest version of the ‘Areas of Intervention’ should also make a clearer distinction be-tween the various sub-sectors. For example, the second pillar (Investing in Water Needs) should presumably include the word “hygiene and sanitation” to reflect the emphasis on sani-tation in recent regional declarations.

Development of partnerships should be strengthened, as well as better coordination and har-monization with regional organizations (REC and RBO) to build a common vision of the sec-tor development at continental, regional and national levels.

Nevertheless, AWF has limited funds and staffing, and needs therefore to focus on some key priority themes to provide more effective contributions to the development of the African water and sanitation sector. These priority themes could be drawn from Sharm-el-Cheikh commitments, but must await approval of the revised Strategy before this can be done.

E.1.2. Work plan

The 2010 Work Plan analyzes what were the strengths and weaknesses of the Facility in ful-filling its mandate in 2009, and comprises a program of operational and organizational activi-ties for the following year. The Plan had already been approved by the Governing Council and the AfDB’s Board of Directors when this report was submitted.

The document shows AWF’s sound self-assessment capacities. It demonstrates a strong will to steer the Facility towards even better results. Generally speaking, it identifies quite aptly the strategic issues to be addressed in order to reach this goal. It also states what ef-



forts and measures are to be undertaken, although the Facility is still searching for pragmatic solutions to improve some of its shortcomings.

As for operational activities, questions raised concern coverage of the 4 areas of interven-tion; portfolio development and optimal volume; funding needs; and the AWF’s role in knowl-edge production.

The fact that one of the pillars (Strengthening the financial base) is currently under-represented is accounted for by lack of projects specifically related to this area, while it is included in many projects as a cross-cutting theme. This suggests that the new Perform-ance Monitoring Framework which is to be designed should comprise indicators to assess projects’ impact on the financial base. The operational assessment (both on field and through data collected at AWF’s headquarters) showed that indeed, some projects do con-tribute to this area of intervention without being labelled as such – e.g. RWSS programme in Mozambique, or Lake Victoria Basin Commission Water and Sanitation Initiative. However, it also indicates that so far, it is very difficult to assess the leverage effect of projects funded (see our analysis above). This gives a strong case both for providing tools to monitor the “financial base” (good indicators and in-depth baseline studies) and to try and target those projects that directly aim at reinforcing the financing conditions of the water sector. The 2010 Work Plan includes two projects for this area. This is more than what had been com-mitted before, but even so, “Strengthening the financial base” remains the least budgeted “worst-bestowed” area of interventions with only 6% of the portfolio’s budget. Above all, it might be insufficient to meet the goal of “creating the conditions for increased water sector investments”, which is reasserted at the beginning of the Work Plan.

In spite of AWF’s will to prioritize certain types of projects, the Work Plan could probably show greater focus on the Sharm-el-Cheikh commitments.

Regarding portfolio development, the increase – from 59 projects to 70 to 75 projects – is reckoned to be in keeping with the AWF’s processing capacities, relying on the fact that the Facility is getting faster and faster, and that its team will also be increased. Considering that the professional staff will be increased by 1/3, the Facility should indeed be able to cope with on-going projects plus the 20 projects to be approved in 2010. This means that the workload should be equivalent or lesser than what the AWF dealt with in 2009.

Finally, the will to reinforce AWF’s contribution to the water sector knowledge production can only be welcomed, since there is growing recognition of the potential role of the Facility for knowledge dissemination. Activities to be undertaken to compile knowledge acquired and lessons learned on completed projects and then knowledge dissemination should be devel-oped and planned more precisely.

As for organizational activities, the Work Plan reviews a number of challenges and means to improve AWF’s performance. Themes to be worked on include targeting project proposals to reach a better balance; fast-tracking the project cycle, providing better support to Execut-ing Agencies, enhancing dissemination and communication to buttress the resource mobili-zation strategy. The Human Resources plan is also presented.

The necessity to put extra efforts on the implementation phase of the project cycle is very well identified. Concern is expressed about providing better support to Executing Agencies and speeding up the disbursement process.

Indeed AWF’s intervention during implementation can probably be improved. One interest-ing idea listed in the Work Plan is to replicate the project implementation workshops that were held in Tunis and Kenya to build Executing Agencies’ management capacities and un-derstanding of the AWF/AfDB’s procedures. Reports from projects assessment, in particular the Lake Victoria Commission Water and Sanitation Initiative, stated that these workshop are very helpful but unfortunately too few. For 2010, 2 more workshops should be held. While



the Work Plan provides for systematic regional identification missions, further stress could be put on the implementation phase by organizing workshops for each Executing Agency. This is normally part of launching missions. However AWF/Bank staffing capacity is a con-straining factor, especially in countries where there are no Field Offices to provide support.

Besides, the issue of efficiency in implementation – and particularly in disbursements – is two-fold. On the one hand, it rests on Executing Agencies’ good handling of AWF’s proce-dures. On the other hand, it is also linked to the Facility’s ability to deliver « no-objection » statements faster than it does now. Hence solutions should also be searched and devel-oped in that direction. This raises again the question to what extent does the Bank system and structures have the ability to resolve bottlenecks and allow, where needed, lighter/fast track procedures to fasten AWF projects preparation and implementation.

The Facility is also planning to improve its Monitoring & Evaluation performance. The pro-posed review of the Performance Monitoring Framework should be encouraged. As the re-cruitment of a consultant has been planned for that purpose, a valuable input of this profes-sional could be to train AWF’s staff on M&E, including the design of Logical Frameworks. This could be a sustainable way to improve results. The project implementation workshops should also put the stress on production of monitoring reports. This is critical as better dis-semination can only be achieved if reliable monitoring data is available.

Finally, the Work Plan could probably insist more on options in terms of leadership of the Facility, which is definitely a strategic issue for AWF’s future, as discussed below.

The review of the work plan concludes that AWF has done appropriate planning, but has dif-ficulty in properly implementing the plans.

E.1.3. Operational Procedures The African Water Facility Operational Procedures (AWFOP) were developed in 2004-2005 and the first version was adopted by the Governing Council in October 2005. The current version was adopted in December 2007 and includes experience and lessons learned over the two first years of AWF operation.

The purpose of the AWFOP is to develop rules and procedures that will guide the operations of the Facility and to identify and detail issues that require Board Approval. They are deroga-tions of processes that depart from the ADB processes and procedures provided.

The procedures mention “It provides the basis for assistance, support and communication with the Recipients of the Facility to help them accelerate the process of implementation of the proposed projects”.

The document is very well structured and gives a clear overview of the structure of the AWF and its governing rules.

In terms of which version of the document to use, it is interesting and important to note that various versions are presently available for the different users, both externally and internally, and this situation can be confusing. The valid version is the one of December 2007, for which printed copies are available, but both versions are presently available on the AWF web site. This can be misleading for beneficiaries trying to address a problem and looking for an-swers in the obsolete document they downloaded from the web site.

E.1.4. Operations Manual

AWF Operations Manual has been developed in accordance with the principles defined in the AWFOP. It was develop in April 2009 but has not yet been cleared by the Governing



Council. The OP is general and broad while the Operational Manual provides detailed infor-mation and guidance on every step of the AWF operations.

In terms of content, the manual is quite exhaustive and describe well all the procedures used by the AWF along the project cycle.

Some proposal could be made to improve the content in relation to the identified weak points of the project cycle.

The screening process procedures are described in Chapter 3. The screening procedure should be revised to include a specific review and rating on the project positioning regarding the strategic pillars and the cross cutting areas to evaluate and quantify the project position-ing regarding the AWF strategy. The review should be conducted by several screening committee members to confront positions and stir the debate, instead of having one person (the Task Manager) preparing the screening and presenting it to the committee. Such an approach, reviewing the project content as well as his positioning regarding the strategic pil-lars and the cross cutting issues by several committee members could lead to specific rec-ommendations to the applicant to refine his project, as already stated in the procedure.

The Grant Protocol Agreement preparation and the associated conditions of the Grant for the Recipient’s consideration are described in Chapter 6 of the manual. The Grant Protocol Agreement is prepared by GECL, and this is systematically a source of long delays. The grant agreement should be prepared by a legal specialist entirely dedicated to this task for the AWF. This specialist could either be from GECL or AWF, but should be a person work-ing full time on AWF legal documents preparation. The argument against a dedicated lawyer is that when this person is not available then there is nobody in the GECL to assist the AWF as the institutional knowledge is lodged in one person. This solution is therefore temporary but may be worth a trial on AWF legal documents preparation.

Project implementation and supervision are described in Chapter 7. The AWF could use the AfDB operations capacities, and particularly on AfDB country offices for closer project super-vision. Up to now, AWF-funded projects do not receive much support from the AfDB country offices, mainly due to lack of proper mobilization through communication and tasks alloca-tion. It would be also useful to develop an accompanying “AWF User’s Guidelines” that would help beneficiaries and executing agencies apply the operational procedures.

Project monitoring is also described in Chapter 7. To strengthen project reporting, the sys-tematic use of the SAP system by task managers should be encourage, and the content of project progress reports should be better structured. Guidance and templates should be provided to implementing agencies to make sure the progress report content covers imple-mented and scheduled activities, but also overall progress made towards achieving project outputs, constraints and challenges on project implementation and the solutions or potential solution to address them, as well as changes in the project scope that would justify updating or revising the logical framework of the project.

In addition, the Manual should include some provision to conduct a number of post-evaluation studies on some of the completed projects. Evaluation would assess outcomes against the original objectives, sustainability of results and institutional development impact.



E.2. Relationship between AWF and AMCOW

E.2.1. A strategic relationship for the AWF

AMCOW obviously has a strong relationship to the African Water Facility, as a founder and an active member of the Governing Council of the Facility. This gives the Facility a unique access to the political and ministerial level in all African countries as well as at regional and continental levels. The African Water Facility is widely and rightly seen as an instrument of AMCOW and the Facility therefore benefits from the growing recognition of AMCOW as a central body to guide the water sector in Africa, particularly on deploying efforts on how to fulfill the Sharm El-Sheik commitments.

Beyond the formal and official interaction with AMCOW through the Governing Council, the Facility also interacts more frequently with AMCOW TAC on more technical matters. The experts of the Facility are regularly invited to the TAC meetings and to the meetings of the Executive Council. The Facility’s expertise is used by AMCOW in a very consistent manner for the preparation of all (sub) regional and international events on water, including the two African Water Weeks (2008 and 2009) or the World Water Forums – the Facility, together with AfDB was in charge of preparing the regional papers for the forums in Mexico (2006) and in Istanbul (2009), in which several AWF staff also participated. This cooperation bene-fits both organizations but needs to be more structured and developed in the future...

Even if from a formal and institutional perspective there is a good relationship between the two institutions, in practice, this relationship is constrained but the limited capacity of AMCOW and its limited implication in the governance of the Facility.

E.2.2. AWF is a key instrument for AMCOW

The role and specific mission of the African Water Facility has been reaffirmed and to some extent clarified in one of the last strategic documents prepared by AMCOW (with the support of the AfDB and the AWF) – the Roadmap for the implementing and Reporting Actions to the African Union, which was endorsed by the Johannesburg Ministerial Statement in November 2009. This Roadmap aims at carrying forward the Sharm El-Sheikh commitments (as well as other commitments such as the eThekwini, Sirte and Tunis declarations) and at seeking coherence between the several instruments and programmes promoted by AMCOW.

In the Roadmap the AWF is presented as a major instrument in implementing the strategy of AMCOW, together with the RWSSI, Water for African Cities, the CAADP and the Infrastruc-ture Consortium for Africa (see section 3.2.). The AWF is also expecting to play a key role in improving the sector financing (Executive Summary, section E.2) and in helping African countries prepare well-packaged investment plans (section 3.3.1). But the number of initia-tives and programmes piloted by AMCOW is somehow increasing, and the Facility also needs to demonstrate its specific added value vis-à-vis AMCOW.

E.2.3. Collaboration on resources mobilization could improve

There is one area (among others) where coordination between AMCOW and the AWF could improve – resources mobilization. It was initially envisaged that AMCOW would play an ac-tive role in mobilizing funds for the African Water Facility. This is especially critical in the coming months as the replenishment of the Facility is not guaranteed so far and as the Facil-ity could face a major under-funding that would significantly affect its operations.



It is important that the work of AWF and AMCOW on resource mobilisation is mutually sup-portive and well coordinated, in order to make a good case for future funding. Firstly the Fa-cility needs to show to historical and potential financiers that key issues are being adequately addressed, such as the issues that are raised in this report regarding leadership, govern-ance and sound implementation of projects. Secondly, AWF needs to collate, synthesize and disseminate good evidence of the beneficial outcomes and outputs from more of its many individual projects, including findings based on broad themes such as river basin or-ganizations, M&E, etc. AMCOW can then support the dissemination and recognition of the findings on AWF’s performance, amongst key stakeholders.

AMCOW could also assist in hosting and chairing key events and meetings, while supporting discussions as they evolve. For example, AMCOW could notably play a key role in organiz-ing the donor round table scheduled in 2010 and in making sure that this roundtable will have long-term and measurable results. The AWF has a key role to play in collating and presenting the evidence for future funding. Central to this case is the comparative advantage of AWF in supporting the development and implementation of well designed projects that have good potential for scaling up to effective larger programmes.

E.3. Hosting of the Facility by the AfDB

E.3.1. An hosting arrangement beneficial to the Facility

The AfDB was instrumental in helping AMCOW turn the initial concept of an African Water Facility into an operational instrument. And the hosting arrangements of the Facility by the African Development Bank has provided the Facility with procedures and an administrative and financial framework that allowed the Facility to commence its operations within a few months after the Instrument itself was established. The rigor of the African Development Bank in managing funds has been confirmed in a recent evaluation commissioned by the European Commission (Water and Energy Facility).

The Bank also provides visibility to the African Water Facility. This is a double edge sword: whilst AWF benefits from the Bank’s visibility and credibility which opens many doors, it also gives the impression to some donors that it is an ADB initiative to be funded by ADB, and adversely affects some fund raising potentials.

E.3.2. Collaboration with OWAS and other Bank departments

Two years after inception, the AWF management was reorganized and the AWF became closer to AfDB operations in the sector. AWF joined the water and sanitation department (OWAS), under the responsibility of the same (shared) director. This decision also triggered the creation of a new position – Coordinator of the AWF – to make up for the fact that the AWF would not benefit from a full-time Director anymore (although it was foreseen in the In-strument establishing the Facility). Advantages claimed for this decision was to give more visibility to AWF on the sector,, better harmonize OWAS and AWF strategies and seek com-plementarities between the various (and very different in nature) initiatives placed under the umbrella of OWAS – the RWSSI, the AWF and the oldest one, the Multi–Donor Water Part-nership Program12 (MDWPP, financed by the Netherlands, Canada and Danida).

12 Water Partnership Program until 2006 – from 2002 until 2006 the WPP was only financed by the Netherlands.



Close collaboration between OWAS and AWF obviously has mutual advantages. OWAS staff is involved in AWF-funded projects at several stages of the project cycle (OWAS is in-volved in the first review meeting of appraisal reports i.e. Internal Working Group meeting). OWAS rightly uses the African Water Facility as a “think tank”, drawing on AWF’s excellent knowledge of the water sector in Africa, its proximity to many projects and institutions and its familiarity with key sector issues and innovative themes.

As part of the African Development Bank, the Facility also has access to other Bank depart-ments (such as OSAN) which is a key asset for the Facility in developing its approach of wa-ter in the broader sense. AWF could actually have a better access to other Bank depart-ments if it was not seen exclusively as being part of OWAS. However, as the AWF grows during the coming years it will need to strengthen its full time senior management, which could lead to new reporting arrangements. But continuing the close collaboration between AWF and OWAS, OSAN and Energy would be mutually beneficial.

E.3.3. Collaboration with Bank Field Offices

The Facility is also trying to benefit from the AfDB as a network and rely more on the Field Offices for project preparation and implementation. Current involvement of the FOs in the AWF projects is rather limited. A recent survey conducted by the Facility indicates that sup-port from Bank Field Offices have been significant over the last months during the appraisal phase of a few projects, especially in Egypt, Rwanda and Mali. Support to expediting the signature of approved projects or to supporting the grant effectiveness seems limited and it is only mentioned in the case of five projects. At last, some Field Offices provide limited support to AWF’s supervision missions (five countries are mentioned in the survey). All in all the overall support from the Field Offices is for the moment limited and constitutes an area for improvement, especially in view of a greater level of decentralization of the Bank.

E.3.4. Interaction between AfDB procedures and AWF operations

Some AfDB procedures represent a constraint for the smooth operation of the Facility, espe-cially regarding small projects and more complex operations such as targeted calls for pro-posals. The Bank’s procedures are not exactly designed to manage small grants and pro-jects requiring a close supervision as well as a close cooperation with the implementing agencies. As assessed above in the report, the obligation of getting clearance from the legal department of the Bank at various stages of the project preparation is definitely a constraint for the Facility with a strong impact on the disbursement rate. New Bank procurement rules (especially regarding ceilings) should help the Facility operate faster.

AWF mandate is broad and all projects financed are within the AWF strategy. But the AfDB is questioning the relevance of a number of projects financed by the AWF, and would like to see more of the AWF playing a role of a project preparation fund for its own operations. This role is within the mandate of AWF, but it is not the only one, and when it plays this role, it should be in favour of the donor community as a whole. This is still the case at the mo-ment, but there is a significant risk of donors disinterest if the AWF was perceived as a pro-ject preparation fund to the sole benefit of AfDB.



F. Review of AWF organisation and management

F.1. Organisational assessment findings This chapter summarizes the main findings based on the operational assessment, the review of institutional relationships and a review of AWF as an organization, building on the findings in previous chapters. This section also examines existing management of human resources and systems and provides proposals for the future organizational development of the AWF.

F.1.1. Review of the Areas of Intervention in relation to the Sharm El Sheikh commitments

The main ‘Areas of Intervention’ for the AWF were initially developed as part of the African Water Vision 2025 and remain valid as important general focus areas. Since that time the ‘Areas of Intervention’ have been developed further, including the latest refinement in 2009. The latest version of the ‘Areas of Intervention’ should also make more clear distinction be-tween the various sub-sectors. For example, the second pillar (Investing in Water Needs) should presumably include the word sanitation to reflect the emphasis on sanitation in recent regional declarations (notably the eThekwini ministerial statement).

Within the broader areas for intervention, consideration should be given to having priority themes for particular years, to highlight which themes project applications would be particu-larly welcome. This could form the basis of targeted calls for proposals as well as the usual open demand responsive approach.

The AWF needs to consider how it is able to respond to the key decisions in the Sharm El-Sheikh Declaration of the African Union in July 2008. The AWF has limited funds and staff-ing, so it needs to focus on some key priority themes within the declaration. By focusing on particular themes it can provide more effective contributions to the development of the Afri-can water and sanitation sector and be in line with the spirit of the Roadmap on Delivering on Africa’s Water Security Commitments as endorsed in June 2009 in Johannesburg.

Proposals for which commitments in the Sharm El-Sheikh Declaration should be AWF pri-mary areas for intervention and which commitments should be AWF secondary objectives are set out in Table 18. AWF would actively welcome funding proposals that are primary AWF areas for intervention or objectives (as shown in the first column of the table below), assuming they are well designed. Whereas for the proposed secondary objectives AWF would be willing to consider these as components of its projects, but not usually the primary focuses of the projects. Other development organizations need to take the lead on the commitments or objectives in the second column of the table below.



Table 18: Review of AWF priorities based on the Sha rm El-Sheikh Declaration

Proposed primary AWF areas for intervention or objectives

Proposed secondary AWF areas for intervention or objectives

1. Promote integrated management and devel-opment, of national and shared water re-sources in Africa

2. Develop and/or update national water man-agement policies, regulatory frameworks and programmes

3. Addressing the sanitation gap on a sustain-able basis

4. Enhance information and knowledge man-agement as well as strengthen monitoring and evaluation

5. Improve the resilience of our countries to the increasing threat of climate change and vari-ability to our water resources

6. Increase domestic financial resources allo-cated for implementing national and regional water and sanitation development activities

7. Mobilize increased donor and other financing for the WSS initiatives

8. Request the Regional Economic Communi-ties and the Rivers and Lake Basin Organiza-tions to initiate regional dialogues on climate change and its impacts

9. Strengthen AMCOW’s initiative on sustain-able management of water resources, to im-plement its roadmap for the African Ground-water Commission

10. Prepare national strategies and action plans for achieving the MDG targets for WSS

11. Agricultural water use for food security

12. Create a conducive environment to enhance the effective engagement of local authorities and the private sector

13. Build institutional and human resources ca-pacity at all levels including the decentralized local government level

14. Develop local financial instruments and mar-kets for investments in the water and sanita-tion sectors

15. Promote effective engagement of African civil society and public participation

16. Promote programming that addresses the role and interests of youth and women

17. Strengthen partnership at all levels in our countries and between Regional Economic Communities as well as with the international development agencies and PPPs.

The proposed primary or priority objectives emerging from the Sharm El-Sheikh Declaration in the left hand column of Table 18 have been selected on the basis that these correspond to AWFs main areas of intervention or pillars and to its broad areas of expertise. Indeed all of the Facilities four main pillars: Strengthening water governance, Investments to meet water (and sanitation) needs, Strengthening the financial base and Improving water knowledge, are broadly covered by the priority objectives in column 1.

The Sharm El-Sheikh Declaration does not seem to explicitly address investment in drinking water supply. Although AWF has a continuing track record of having a significant proportion of rural and urban water supply pilot investment projects. AWF could consider dropping this type of project from its future priorities. However, there are number of reasons why these types of pilot investment projects should continue to be supported:

• AfDB OWAS and other donors would continue to benefit from having a ‘testing ground’ for water and sanitation programmes. There is a continuing need to develop better de-signed water and sanitation projects in Africa more generally and well designed pilot projects are a good means of achieving this aim.

• Water and sanitation interventions are often best done as part of the same projects, because good sanitation and hygiene is dependent on good water supplies.



• Pilot water and sanitation projects can be a rich source of real lessons and evidence for future scaled up projects, as opposed to project preparation projects which often are based on consultant’s ideas and do not generally test project concepts.

• There are good potential linkages and synergies between water supply projects and strengthening water governance, as well as strengthening the financial base (AWF pil-lars); because cost recovery and governance are important for this sub-sector.

• If AWF were to drop drinking water supply as an area for intervention, but retain sani-tation, the name: African Water Facility would be confusing to some stakeholders.

A counter argument to this is that AWF must reduce the scope of its area of intervention in order to focus its resources. While this is true, it is proposed that AWF retains its broad ar-eas of intervention in order to build on its track record and continue to be adaptable to changing demands for different types of projects. A more focused approach can be achieved by having priority themes for particular periods, to highlight which themes would be particularly welcome in applications as priority project objectives over say a 2 year period. Targeted project calls and specialist advisory groups could be mobilized to respond to the agreed priority themes. The extent to which AWF needs to focus on selected themes will be dependent on the scale of its future expected funding commitments.

AWF could potentially identify priority themes for specific periods as follows:

• AWF could form a working group to determine for AWF priority themes for the forth-coming two to three year period.

• Consultations to take place with selected country governments and key stakeholders on AWF priority themes in that country or region, bearing in mind AWF’s particular pro-ject approaches.

• Consultations take place with other project funding agencies, concerning their forth-coming funding priorities and emerging gaps in sector support

• The working group consults widely amongst AWF staff and other relevant stakeholders to build a consensus on priority AWF themes.

This process could be done as part of AWF’s broader medium term strategy development.

F.1.2. Systems for project and fund management

An assessment of AWF/AfDB’s capacity to manage the funds that it receives was carried out by an independent auditor appointed by the European Community (EC). Their report dated September 2009, was very favorable on the AWF/AFDB control environment; of the 96 con-trols assessed, 90% were rated the top mark of “effective”, 8% rated “satisfactory”, and 2% were not applicable. In particular, controls relating to Accounting standards, External Audit and Internal Audit were fully “effective” with no recommendations for improvement. None of the controls at the Bank were rated “needs improvement” or “ineffective.”

The AWF generally follows AfDB procedures for project appraisal and review, with some re-finements. In terms of the management of its project portfolio and pipeline of new projects to be appraised, the AWF makes considerable efforts in tracking progress and reducing de-lays leading up to project appraisal. This is important because AWF projects are considera-bly smaller than the projects that the AfDB generally deal with.

The reasons for the delays in the disbursement of funds are examined in chapter D.

A continuing constraint is the delays in project appraisal and approval that results from the period of time the Legal Department often takes to resolve legal issues referred to it by



AWF. A possible solution could be that the Legal Department recruit an additional member of staff who is devoted to working on issues raised by AfDB Facilities, such as the Congo Basin Forest Fund or the Fragile States Facility, not only AWF.

There are many spreadsheets and formats for tracking progress that have been developed over the years by AWF. Such formats could be rationalized and reduced in number so that there are just a few agreed formats.

There is a draft AWF Operations Manual that has been developed to optimize processes fur-ther and take account of recent changes in Bank processes. The AfDB are naturally con-cerned about fiduciary risks on projects and want there to be evidence of a clear track record of effective AWF projects, when they consider further refinements to the project screening and appraisal processes.

Proposals for improving the support to executing agencies during project implementation, knowledge management and performance monitoring are outlined below.

F.1.3. Performance monitoring

This is an aspect that has already been raised by the Governing Council and the donors as a matter that needs to be addressed. The suggested main areas for improvement are:

Demonstrating AWF project outcomes and outputs – This is key to the continuing success of AWF and has been done to some extent on some projects. There is a need to capture both the individual project achievements and collective achievements related to common themes, in a systematic way. This can be done by utilizing the findings of more thorough monitoring and evaluation, and then ensuring good dissemination of those findings. Good practice in knowledge management within AWF and knowledge transfer to the wider sector can also enable this to happen.

LFA format – The current logical framework format both for AWF and its projects is rather complex with 6 columns that can be difficult for some project partners to understand. When the logframes are completed, there is some confusion between outcomes, objectives, ex-pected results, outputs and activities. A clearer more concise and logical format is required. The new logical framework used by DFID is suitable for large programmes; it has an indica-tor column that distinguishes between indicators, targets and baseline figures. But baseline data may not always be available for the smaller AWF programmes. It would be preferable for AWF logframes to have a concise and clear format. It could use the standard format with four columns, one clear column for the hierarchy of objectives, one for indicators/targets, one for means of verification and one for assumptions and risks.

Reviewing and updating project logframes – Some project logframes have outcome state-ments that are not really achievable as part of the project, these would be better placed in the goal box. Logframes should be active documents that should be changed in the light of experience on the projects. More regular updating of logframes during project implementa-tion would reduce confusion about the changing scope of the projects.

Project reports – the quarterly progress reports produced by project executing agencies tend to be rather brief and focus on activities in the last quarter and activities for the next quarter. It would be beneficial if 6 monthly project reports addressed issues such as cumulative pro-gress towards achieving project outputs, constraints and how they are being overcome and any changes to the project design/logframe. Quarterly project progress updates could be requested where required.

To achieve improvements such as those outlined above, it is proposed that AWF develop an AWF performance monitoring and reporting guide or manual.



F.1.4. Performance monitoring of AWF as an organization

The latest ‘AWF operational performance indicators for 2010’ which cover all AWF’s main activities is shown in its Annual Work Plan for 2010. This framework with objectives around themes, indicators and targets is reasonably logical however there are a number of im-provements that could be made. This framework should be converted to a logical framework, in order to conform to donor standard formats and expectations, but also to show the ‘cause and effect’ logic of AWF’s objectives. AWF’s higher level objectives, such as purpose and goal, could therefore be introduced.

Many of the performance indicators under each of AWF’s main pillars (strengthening water governance, improving water knowledge) are mainly expressed in terms of number of pro-jects and value of projects. Indicators also need to capture quality issues and the outputs and outcomes of AWF’s projects. This could be done by introducing project outcome and outputs summary indicators, using the same system for project assessments that were used as part of this consultancy, which is the output to outcome review process. Examples of this approach being used are shown in the project assessment reports (separate annex).

Improvements can be made to AWF’s performance monitoring of AWF as an organization, particularly with more emphasis being placed on monitoring, evaluation and writing up of findings. However, it should be remembered that AWF is a responsive project funding and support facility, so objectives and targets should not be overly ambitious or too specific.

The proposed ‘summary effectiveness indicators’ that can be used under each of the AWF’s four main pillars in the indicator/target columns of the AWF Logframe are:

a) ‘Percentage of AWF project outcomes that are largely or completely achieved’ b) ‘Percentage of AWF project outputs that are largely or completely achieved’

Reporting against such indicators will emphasize AWF’s orientation towards achieving good project outcomes. A new indicator has been included in the latest ‘AWF operational perform-ance indicators for 2010’, which is ‘Percentage of projects rated as satisfactory or higher’. This will presumably come from the project evaluations and could continue to be included.

F.1.5. Knowledge transfer and management

AWF focuses on improving water knowledge for the African water sector, as it is one of the four main pillars in its area of intervention. It has also written up useful brief case studies of some of its projects. However, more needs to be done in this area, to demonstrate it has a valuable portfolio of projects. There needs to be more of a focus more on its own knowledge management within AWF, and particularly on its knowledge transfer to the outside world. For the AWF to be well known as a knowledge organization it should disseminate its knowl-edge products in major water forums and key sector publications. The key elements of a good approach to project knowledge transfer include:

• A good project planning, monitoring and evaluation system that generates relevant and accurate project information

• Collecting project evidence on foreseen and unforeseen outcomes

• Analyses for individual projects and synthesis across projects around themes

• Preparation of outputs, producing different versions for different audiences.

All these aspects need to be done well for effective knowledge transfer that can contribute to improving knowledge in the sector in the best way. The information will also be invaluable for AWF’s resource mobilization. It should be recognized that AWF has only 7 projects that



have been completed (most in past year), so AWF is only now at the stage where it can be-gin to assess completed activities. However, where there are promising concepts being tested on projects, dissemination about such projects during implementation can be a good way of raising interest in these projects, particularly if there are common themes amongst a number of projects.

Although there are systems for knowledge management within AWF, there are indications that improvements could be made in storing and retrieving documents produced by project agencies and partners. The key elements of an effective organizational knowledge man-agement system include the selection, collection, storage, analysis and retrieval of docu-ments that are relevant for achieving AWFs objectives and priorities. It is important to man-age and transfer knowledge in a form that facilitates its use and enhances learning of indi-viduals and organizations. It is important to ‘close the loop’ in terms using project findings and lessons to inform future policies and project priorities. Figure 5 outlines how this can be done and emphasizes how findings and lessons can be used to improve performance at each stage of the project cycle.

Figure 5: Closing the loop: Using AWF project findings and lessons to influence strategies

Project and theme findings in synthesis reports

AWF agree priorities for its

main themes and projects

Theme and pro-ject identification

with govern-ments and key stakeholders

Support appli-cants during the

project devel-opment phase

Project screen-ing, appraisal and approval

Project start up and

implementation

Project monitor-ing, review and

adaptation during implementation

Project comple-tion and evalua-

tion, with support to scaling up /

replication

Learning and disseminating findings and

lessons

Regional forums and declarations

Sector research and dissemination

institutions



Figure 5 demonstrates the importance of AWF being a ‘learning organization’ as well as one that funds and supports projects, in order to maximize the outcomes and impact of its pro-jects, to its own benefit and to the general benefit of the water sector.

F.1.6. AWF communications

An AWF Communications Strategy was developed in 2006. This needs to be updated taking into account i agreed approaches on knowledge transfer and knowledge management dis-cussed above,. It should be developed once AWF’s broader medium term strategy is much clearer, building on the ideas in this report. Issues covered will include the dissemination of its knowledge products, particularly about its projects, and the related follow up actions. The AWF website is an important dissemination pathway but it is currently out of date and needs to be improved as more information on its projects is obtained and versioned for the website.

The issue of who to communicate with will depend on the nature of outputs whether they be about particular AWF project themes or AWF initiatives. It would be good to target key sec-tor stakeholders in identified sub-sectors or interest groups for aspects such as integrated water resource management, urban and rural sanitation, sector financing, sector M&E etc. This could be done through targeted e-mail lists for these interest groups, but also feeding into strategic expert working groups or networks, such as RWSN (Rural Water Supply Net-work), WSSCC, etc. It would be beneficial to make effective use of international, regional and local conferences, such as AfricaSan, Africa Water Week, WEDC Conference, IWA De-velopment Solutions and Sanitation Conference for awareness raising and to present rele-vant findings. Consideration should also be given to partnering other organizations who have proven capability in the effective dissemination of knowledge products.

Another part of the AWF’s communications strategy will be in managing its outreach and partnership activities in an optimal way, as new strategies are implemented. AWF have ap-pointed a communications officer, which is already a big improvement, but the AWF needs to become a ‘communicating organization’ where all staff are thinking about and implementing the best ways to enhance AWF’s knowledge transfer and communications. Such changes need to be supported by AWF’s senior management.

F.2. AWF Resource mobilization It is important to recall that the Facility currently does not have assured resources (i.e. does not know when or how much funding will be received), even for the very immediate time ho-rizon, AWF does not know how much funding will be committed and received. Planning, and especially planning for growth is difficult under such circumstances. On a one year horizon, operational targets are limited by the Facility’s capacity to grow its headcount or fund the use of consultants. However beyond that, the Facility’s capacity to perform and grow is depend-ent on adequate funding being committed.

The rational for the Facility’s continued existence has been confirmed by this and other stud-ies. The foundations for its further development have been well established. AWF funders are naturally keen to examine evidence of AWF’s performance, particularly in terms of the outcomes and outputs of its projects, but also the effectiveness and efficiency of AWF’s processes and the value addition at the country and regional level. The project assessments that have been undertaken as part of this consultancy assignment demonstrate that those projects assessed are effective despite slow progress in many cases. But AWF will need to continue to assess and disseminate evidence on the performance on its projects, even if some project results are not as originally envisaged.



AWF has substantial funding shortfalls from 2011 onwards, although it is negotiation with many potential donors. Central to AWF’s case for receiving adequate funding is to demon-strate the effectiveness and outcomes of its projects and demonstrating improved disburse-ments on its projects. Given the many priorities of AMCOW, AWF should intensify its work that will enable increased future funding for its own operations and projects, with AMCOW and others supporting such initiatives. An urgent priority is to develop many well prepared write ups of its projects based on systematic project assessments that can enable effective knowledge transfer about the lessons from its projects, as part of a well thought out commu-nication strategy (see section F.1.6).

The proposed recruitment of an AWF resource mobilisation officer is a sensible proposal. The post holder may not work on this full time, but can also assist with functions such as AWF communications and relationships with strategic partners.

The initial ambition of the AWF (as expressed in the 2005-2009 operation programme and communication documents produced in the first years) was to mobilize €500 million over 5 years. Retrospectively, this aim was unrealistic, in terms of donor potential commitment as well as in terms of preparation & implementation capacity of the AWF. However, the targets reflected the aspirations that key sector stakeholders had for the Facility.

The first AWF project commenced in 2006 and since that time AWF has been able to raise adequate funds to cover project costs up to September 2009. The AWF has secured cash and in-kind commitments amounting to €121 million since inception up to 201113.

The funds required to implement the proposed three-year rolling 2009-2011 operational pro-gramme amounts to €139 million. Of the €121 raised to date, €52 million was absorbed dur-ing 2005-2008, leaving €69 million available for the 2009-2011 operational programme. This means 50% of the €139 million requirement has been secured, leaving a balance of €70 mil-lion still to be raised (ibid).

In order to meet immediate and mid-term resource requirements, extensive efforts are still required. The AWF plans on recruiting a full time professional dedicated to resource mobili-sation in order to enable the Facility to give the necessary priority to these critical tasks. In the interim, the AWF will recruit a long term consultant to provide assistance. Resource mo-bilisation activities planned for 2010 include (Source: AWF draft annual work plan and budg-et for 2010, approved in January by the Board of the Bank):

• Utilize the Water Sector Goodwill Ambassador where feasible (even if the Ambassador is not fully dedicated to mobilizing resources for the AWF)

• More proactive and sustained dialogue with current donors, potential new donors, and AMCOW (that is committed to mobilize funds for the Facility)

• Donors roundtable to be organized in 2010

• Emphasizing effectiveness as a financing instrument

• Increased focus on raising visibility of the African Water Facility through various out-reach and communication activities.

Further proposals, particularly with respect to engaging with donors, are included in a Re-source Mobilisation Report presented before the Governing Council meeting in November 2009. It is envisaged that there will be an updating of the AWF Resource Mobilization Strat-

13 Source: AWF progress report, up to September 2009)



egy in 2010 and a short-term consultant has been hired at the beginning of 2010. Such a strategy is also likely to benefit from a combination of the following:

• The most important activity is demonstrating the emerging positive results and lessons from AWF projects; effective dissemination to the wider sector will be key, through a wide range of publications, conferences, websites and associated links.

• Dissemination of the comparative advantage or “value added” of the AWF approach, which includes:

- The responsive nature of the project funding;

- African Ownership – the AWF is a genuinely African-led initiative, established at the behest of the African Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW);

- The rigor of the AWF/AfDB project appraisal and disbursement approaches combined with the flexibility of the AWF grants;

- The supportive dialogue with project applicants during project development;

- The growing AWF influence on Africa wide initiatives;

- The AWF piloting and project preparation work with other partners that can lev-erage additional funding.

• The relevance and innovation that are apparent in the newer AWF project designs, in most of its areas of intervention.

• A well thought out communication strategy to promote AWF and its projects amongst key sector stakeholders.

In summary, AWF needs to make a compelling case for why donors should collectively fund an expansion of AWF operations in the future. This may also involve demonstrating a good alignment between future AWF projects and national water and sanitation strategies (in a broad sense, including IWRM), regional strategies (from RECs or existing RBOs) and priori-ties of the governments in RMCs. The AWF Resource Mobilisation Report (version 4, dated November 2009) to the GC contains an action plan and the following recommendations:

• The establishment of a RM/partnership position within AWF;

• Firm commitment by GC members and other to more actively engage in fundraising and increasing the visibility of AWF, particularly with respect to reaching the highest decision making personalities within the donor community;

• Implementation of simple quarterly monitoring of RM activities and progress realized.

These are sensible measures. Consideration should also be given to more clearly defining the roles and responsibilities for AWF fund raising undertaken by AWF, AMCOW and other stakeholders. AMCOW definitely has the capacity to mobilize high-ranked representatives such as Ministers, Executive Secretary and TAC members to develop RM activities. There would be merit in AWF taking the lead on a number of aspects, as it has the best incentives and information to effectively engage with potential funders. Demonstrating the effective-ness of its projects and the leverage effect for new programmes will be key to the success of the resources mobilization strategy.



F.3. Management of AWF

F.3.1. Developing closer links with country partners

AWF has done well in recent years to develop a relatively large portfolio of relevant and in-novative projects. But it is now entering a new phase of its development that is more fo-cused on maximizing the outcomes and impacts of its projects.

AWF would benefit from continuing to be part of the AfDB in order to take advantage of both the synergies with AfDB and the credibility of AfDB systems and expertise in project devel-opment and fund management. AWF needs to address the issues outlined above in this chapter as well as the following management aspects:

• AWF has experienced understaffing and overstretch in developing a portfolio of pro-jects as well as supporting project implementation and follow on activities, across many countries in Africa.

• AWF currently has quite a centralized approach for an organization that works across Africa. All its staff are based in Tunis. Consideration should be given to a more de-centralized approach that enables better dialogue with project partners and relevant government ministries.

F.3.2. Leadership issues AWF has a complex leadership that takes root in its history, with strong links to AfDB and AMCOW. On a more detailed staffing level, AWF is structured like ADB operational divisions (with a Coordinator instead of a Division Manager, 2 Chief officers). However, as noted in this report, the scope of the activities that must be undertaken by the Facility are so much broader than those of most Operations divisions: in addition to project operations, AWF has to do resource mobilization, outreach and communications, generate knowledge products, and links with several Bank departments that deal with different uses of water. Current and previous Directors have managed AWF staff effectively, but the new challenges and priori-ties faced by the Facility require more proactive and strategic leadership and management in order to implement changes over the coming years – as well as a full time dedication. The AWF Directors only spend approximately one third of their time on managing the AWF and two thirds of their time managing OWAS within the AfDB. At the end of 2009, both the Di-rector and Coordinator posts were vacant. This situation has occurred before and demon-strates a problem of maintaining the continuity of AWF’s leadership. This also has conse-quences in terms of external “readability”, visibility and strategic dialogue with internal and external stakeholders. The leadership issue is central to the continuing development of AWF in the coming years. Consideration should therefore be given to strengthening the sen-ior management of AWF including having its own full-time Director. This issue is considered further in the recommendations section of the report.

F.3.3. AWF’s autonomy

AWF has limited autonomy or delegated authority within AfDB in terms of procedures and staffing to implement its own distinct objectives. AWF projects are often very different in type and scale compared to AfDB projects (smaller, but at the same time more complex). It therefore requires a more flexible approach. As AWF demonstrates the effectiveness and sound management of its projects, it will have a stronger case to convince AfDB senior management that some more flexibility can be agreed in the development and implementa-tion of AWF projects.



AfDB is going through a process of decentralization (a roadmap is about to be adopted on this issues) and AWF should benefit from having increased delegated powers on aspects such as staff recruitment and approval thresholds, as part of those reforms. AWF have re-cently developed a draft Operational Manual for consideration that includes some suggested changes in procedures. Further suggested changes will be needed as AWF develops its Medium Term Strategy for the coming years, having considered the proposals in this report.

F.3.4. AWF’s visibility

The African Water Facility could improve its rather limited visibility and is often thought of as being an integral part of the African Development Bank. AWF’s website needs updating with increased usage, but this is in part dependent on plenty of good quality information about its projects and themes being produced and versioned for the website.

Visibility is not only a question of communication through the website. It is also the responsi-bility of each AWF staff member to dialogue with government agencies, key sector stake-holders and donors. As AWF develops and implements strategies on knowledge manage-ment and transfer as well as communications, AWF’s visibility can be expected to increase significantly.

AWF is an important facility of AMCOW, which can contribute to increasing the visibility of AWF, particularly as AWF develops more key information about itself and its projects.

As AWF developing an effective medium term strategy that addresses key issues such as support to projects, knowledge management, resource mobilization, communications, visibil-ity etc, all of these issues need to be carefully linked. In fact, considerable synergies can be achieved. For example, resource mobilization can be enhanced considerably, if all the other aspects are done well.

Proposals for addressing the issues outlined above are presented later in this chapter in the section of ‘Organizational Development for the Future’; including consideration of what is the optimum size for the AWF in terms of staffing and funding.

F.4. Management of human resources AWF’s staff is key to its continuing success. It is important, therefore, that we examine how the AWF’s staff has been managed, as well as existing staffing plans for the future.

F.4.1. Recent trends in staffing Ensuring that the AWF’s staffing is adequate in terms of numbers and skills mix for its in-creasing portfolio of projects, remains a significant challenge. Table 19 compares planned and actual staff deployment from 2006 to 2009.



Table 19: Trends in planned vs. actual human resour ces

Categories Dec. 2006 Dec. 2007 Dec. 2008 Sept. 2009

Planned Staffing 19 20

Actual Staffing

Management 1 2 2 2

Professionals (including YP) 6 10 7 13

Support Staff (General Services) 1 0 2

Total full time staff 7 13 9 17

Short Term Support (STS) staff 3 3 1

Long term consultants 2 5 1

Total STS and Consultants 5 8 2

TOTAL Human Resources 7 18 17 19

Source: AWF progress report, up to September 2009

Note that following a large increase in total staff numbers in 2007, the total AWF staff in the last 3 years has remained steady, ranging from 17 to 19 professional staff. However, during the last year there has been a significant increase in numbers of professional staff from 9 to 17. This is in part due to the fact that 5 consultants were used on a temporary basis in 2008 to reinforce the team. Considerable efforts were made by made by AWF and Bank man-agement in the past year to resolve staffing shortfalls. However, the table does not show the effects of turnover: it takes longer for new persons getting up to speed, and several positions were empty for many months’ in-between replacements. Key posts have been created to address identified constraints, such as a communications officer who is needed to improve AWF’s outreach and dissemination of key information. A grants administration officer has also been recently appointed to assist with the administration of project approvals and pro-ject monitoring.

F.4.2. How staff spend their time

AWF professional staff who are based in Tunis were asked what is the average percentage of time they have spent on each of the main work areas during the last year. A summary is presented in Table 20 below.

Table 20: Time spent by AWF staff on each of their main work areas

Approximate % of time spent on their main work area s by AWF staff

AWF professional staff AWF poli-cy and

strategy

Projects or operations

Research / knowledge

manag.

Outreach & liaison

Admin and Finance

Support to AFDB

Professional staff 1 12 42 10 16 10 10


Professional staff 3 5 75 10 5 5

Professional staff 4 75 5 20


Professional staff 6 10 30 20 40

Professional staff 7 50 10 20 20 20

Professional staff 8 40 60



Approximate % of time spent on their main work area s by AWF staff

AWF professional staff AWF poli-cy and

strategy

Projects or operations

Research / knowledge

manag.

Outreach & liaison

Admin and Finance

Support to AFDB

Professional staff 9 To be completed

Professional staff 10 90


Professional staff 12 80 12 5 3

Professional staff 13 90 8


Total full time equivalent posts devoted to each work area

1.4 7.7 0.6 0.7 1.8 0.7

Average % of time spent on each work area by the AWF professional staff

11 60 5 5 13 5

Note: The data presented is the average % of time spent by AWF staff on each work area is approximate and is based on estimates by the respective staff in meetings with the consultant in Tunis in November 2009.

The table sets out how AWF professional staff spend their time on main work areas. It re-veals that staff generally focus on project development and supervision. This is understand-able given the importance of building a sizeable portfolio of well designed projects. But staff who were specifically recruited to be specialists for aspects such as policy development, M&E and resource mobilization have to focus on project tasks. These means that strategi-cally important AWF functions such as policy development, M&E and resource mobilization, are not being given sufficient priority. This would also suggest that there is currently insuffi-cient staff to adequately manage AWF’s commitments. Some improvements can be ex-pected once newly recruited staff reach their optimum performance levels.

F.4.3. Current AWF staffing plan for the future

The AWF draft annual work plan and budget for 2010, November 2009 sets out the pro-posed staffing for the period 2010 to 2012 refer to a summary of the staffing plan.

Table 21: AWF Staffing Plan for 2010-2012

Theme Job Title Funding 20091 2010 2011 2012

Director ADB 12 1 1 1 Management

Coordinator ADB 12 1 1 1

Sub-Total Management 2 2 2 2

Water Resources Operations Officer ADB 1 1 1 1

WRM Specialist ADB

AWF

TA

1

1

0

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

Water/Irrigation Engineer AWF 0 1 1 1

Water Resources Man-agement

Water Resources Economist AWF 0 0 1 1

Water Supply and Sani- Water Policy Officer ADB 1 1 1 1



Theme Job Title Funding 20091 2010 2011 2012

Water Supply & Sanitation Expert ADB

ADB

TA

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

tation

Water Utilities Expert AWF 0 0 1 1

Financial Management Expert TA 1 1 1 1 Finance & Resource Mobilisation Resource Mobilisation Officer AWF 0 1 1 1

Water Knowledge M&E Specialist TA3

AWF

1

0

1

0

1

1

1

1

Environmentalist TA3 0 1 1 1 Environment and Social Aspects Socio-Economist and Gender Specialist TA 1 1 1 1

Grant Administration Officer AWF 1 1 1 1

Procurement Officer AWF 0 1 1 1

Project Support Ser-vices

Communications Officer AWF 1 1 1 1

Sub-Total Professional Staff 12 17 20 20

Administration Operations/Administrative Assistant ADB 1 1 1 1

Secretarial Secretary ADB 1 1 1 1

Sub-Total Support Staff 2 2 2 2

GRAND TOTAL 16 21 24 24

1) Based on expected status at the end of 2009. 2) Recruitment or appointment of the recently departed AWF Coordinator and Director is as-

sumed to be completed by end of 2009. 3) AWF may fund these positions should donors not be located. The M&E TA position is up for

renewal in 2010.

Note that the above staffing plan envisages a stabilizing of AWF total staff numbers at around 24 in 2010/11. This is less than the 30 staff that were originally envisaged in previ-ous plans, although the actual staff numbers will of course depend on future funding.

It is encouraging to see that further recruitments of professional staff are planned for the next few years which can address some of the staffing problems outlined above, as well as to widen the skills base and address future commitments. New posts proposed in the staff-ing plan include: WRM specialist, water resources economist, water utilities expert, private sector expert, resource mobilization coordinator, M&E specialist, environmentalist and pro-curement officer. Given the increasing number of AWF sanitation projects, a case could be made for an expert in sanitation and hygiene promotion, particularly bearing in mind the in-creasing importance placed on sanitation by the African Union and other key stakeholders. The same applies to issue of knowledge management.

What is the optimum size in terms of staffing for AWF? Should AWF grow as envisaged in the above staffing plans up to 2011, or should it grow even more, particularly after 2011, so that it has a greater profile and an increased positive influence on the sector? This is con-sidered in the section below on organizational scenarios.

A key question is how to maintain some flexibility in staffing to make adjustments in order to respond to uncertainties related to both the type of future projects that will be requested and the future funding commitments. The increased use of consultants by outsourcing, particu-larly if they are based in the regions of Africa, could assist with managing those uncertainties and workload peaks.



F.4.4. Staff recruitment

Considerable delays in the recruitment of AWF and TA staff have been reported. The AfDB centre for human resource management (CHRM) claim that the length of time that AfDB take to recruit staff (from receiving the authorization to recruit until the offer letter is sent) is comparable and slightly less than for the World Bank. This is common problem for interna-tional development institutions, but it is important for the AWF and other AfDB departments that every effort is made to reduce delays in recruitment.

In response to these concerns, the CHRM is developing proposals and guidelines for a de-centralized recruitment process, where line management take the lead on recruitment with the support and guidance from CHRM. This is likely to increase demands on the time spent on recruitment by AWF senior staff. This needs to be borne in mind, during the development of detailed AWF staffing proposals in the future.

AWF has valued the contribution of its Technical Assistants (TAs) that are funded by donors. However, the process of identifying and recruiting TAs is often very long, leading to uncer-tainties and posts being vacant for considerable periods (e.g. the TA position funded by Norway has been vacant since September 2008). Consideration should be given to stream-lining these processes in collaboration with the respective donors and the AfDB.

As there have been significant issues with TA turnover, a question must be asked whether this is an appropriate form of staffing at a stage where the Facility is very much in need of retaining staff to be able to grow (and not lose staff that have got up to speed to be replaced by new staff that take additional time to get up to speed). The same skills and caliber of staff can be recruited as project staff directly by the Facility. TAs may be used when a donor would like to offer an in-kind contribution but should not be actively be solicited.

F.4.5. Staff development

Annual staff performance evaluations are intended to inform AWF’s overall training priorities and the training offered to staff. Apart from language, SAP and procurement training,this does not happen enough because of the priority given to the project work of the Facility. Consideration should be given to placing more emphasis on appropriate training for AWF staff to enable the organization to meet its objectives. The development of an annual AWF staff training plan and budget would be a useful first step in strengthening AWF’s staff ca-pacities, particularly in relation to new initiatives being developed at the AWF. The design and implementation of AWF strategies for knowledge management and knowledge transfer will also be supportive to the process of staff learning.

The Human Resources Department have brief lists of general competencies for each job family in the AfDB. It would be worth reviewing and expanding on these lists to develop per-son specifications for posts in the AWF that meet its future needs in terms of ASKE (atti-tudes, skills, knowledge and experience) of its staff. This is particularly relevant for new posts that are created or vacant posts, but it can also be used to inform training priorities...

F.5. AWF functional review In considering the proposed AWF effectiveness assessment recommendations, it is impor-tant to place these in the context of the main functions that AWF has been performing in re-cent times. Table 22 sets out the main existing and proposed AWF main staff functions, as well as an indication of where there should be more or less emphasis in the future.



Table 22: Existing and proposed AWF main staff func tions

Broad roles for AWF staff

Existing and proposed AWF main staff functions Future emphasis

Policy and strategy reviews

Drafting and agree strategies, annual plans, manuals and budgets

AWF policy and strategy development

Improving performance monitoring (linked to resource mobilisation and AWF knowledge transfer to external stakeholders)

Increase

Working with external partners to build consensus and capacities

Promoting AWF projects and resource mobilisation Increase

Outreach and part-nerships

Developing a strategic AWF role in performance monitoring and report-ing in the African water and sanitation sector

Decrease in short term

Project pipeline review and management

Review and agree priorities for future projects and portfolio (including review of evaluations, research and in-country discussions)

Increase

Targeted calls for proposals based on priority themes Increase

Project identification, preparation, support and appraisal (including cross-cutting issues)

Decrease number of new projects in short term

Project negotiation, signature and start up

Project implementation support, monitoring and review Increase

Project completion and evaluation Increase

Project development, implementation and follow up

Project follow up support for future scaling up (related activities should be included in all project budgets)

Increase

Project knowledge transfer including collecting project evidence, analy-ses, synthesis around themes and preparation of outputs

Increase

Communication strategy and implementation, including website and other modalities (e.g. publishing)

Increase

Communications, knowledge transfer and management

Knowledge management within AWF including collection, storage, analysis and retrieval of AWF, project and partner documents

Increase

Staff recruitment and management (increased workload with decentral-ized recruitment in AfDB and managing regional representatives)

Increase

Staff appraisals and capacity development Increase

AWF financial management

Staff management and administration

Working with and contracting external partners Increase

Working with AfDB on preparations for major events and outreach activi-ties

Working with to AfDB

Support to AfDB on project development and appraisals for their projects

The third column in Table 22 shows the suggested change in emphasis (increase or de-crease) on the existing and proposed main staff functions of AWF. If this is agreed, it is evi-dent that there is a substantial increase in workload across a whole range of functions. Even with the planned recruitment, it will be important to identify functions that will be given less emphasis over the coming few years. It is suggested in the third column that the following activities be given less time and resources:

• Developing a strategic AWF role in performance monitoring and reporting in the Afri-can water and sanitation sector, at least in the short to medium term.

• Project identification, preparation, support and appraisal by reducing the number of new projects each year, at least in the short to medium term.



The number of AWF functions where significant increases are proposed will take consider-able effort to manage. This highlights the need for the senior management and leadership of AWF to be strengthened to manage the proposed changes effectively, while also managing AWFs core work streams.

F.6. Organizational development for the future

F.6.1. Sustainable growth of AWF

To focus on getting the best value from its portfolio of projects including supporting future replication or scaling up of its projects, AWF should only have a limited expansion of its pro-gram in terms of numbers of new projects, in the shorter term. Quality in terms of supervi-sion and support to projects should be an important target, with less emphasis on the quan-tity of projects. AWF has started to develop larger more medium sized projects, compared to its earlier small projects. This seems to be a sensible development, in terms of econo-mies of scale, addressing cross-cutting issues and gaining greater interest from in-country governments and partners.

In the medium term, AWF should continue to expand the overall size and value of its portfo-lio of projects as a means of increasing its impact and influence, while providing adequate support to the development and implementation of its projects (especially supervision) and focus more on knowledge production.

The question of how many countries in Africa AWF should work in is dependent to a large extent on the size of its total funding. If funding is limited, it is important to avoid of over-stretch of AWF staff and resources by working in too many countries. Ideally AWF would in principle be willing to work in all countries in Africa with preference given to the lower income countries and more fragile states emerging from conflict. An important consideration is the absorptive capacity of project executing agencies and partners to implement projects suc-cessfully. This is subject that will need to be under periodic review based on experiences of working in the more fragile states.

F.6.2. AWF vision and mission

The current AWF strapline that emerged from the African Water Vision is to mobilize and apply resources to finance water development activities in Africa. The overall goal or vision that has been adopted by the African Water Facility is that of the AWV, which states: “An Af-rica where there is an equitable and sustainable use and management of water resources for poverty alleviation, socio-economic development, regional cooperation, and the environ-ment.” The objectives relate to the 4 pillars or areas of intervention of the AWV.

This remains an important if ambitious goal that AWF can support, but it is important to clearly articulate how AWF can contribute and what are the roles of other stakeholders. The above mandate/mission statement would be better referred to as the AWF vision statement or its mandate. Visions tend to be high level goals to capture the imagination of external stakeholders; whereas mission statements usually encapsulate the main focus and objective of an organization’s work.

What therefore, should be AWF’s mission or purpose statement? AWF mainly manages a fund for water and sanitation projects in Africa, with important characteristics such as sup-port in project development, creating a favourable environment, and leveraging funds for fu-ture larger scale programs. A possible AWF mission or purpose statement could be:



‘Enabling development of effective large scale programs for the African water and sanitation sector in collaboration with other sector organizations, to achieve agreed regional targets’

Or alternatively, ‘Strengthen the enabling environment, leverage funding and promote new approaches to advance water security in Africa’

Other alternative wording should also be considered. This is an issue that AWF staff and external supporters can consider over the coming months.

F.6.3. A decentralized approach AWF currently has quite a centralized approach for an organization that works across Africa. All its staff are based in Tunis. Whereas most development organizations including the AfDB have or are pursuing a more decentralized approach to their development activities in Africa. It is useful to consider some of the reasons for this trend:

• Increasingly as part of donor harmonization and the Paris Declaration, donors and oth-er development organizations are harmonizing their policies and practices, as well as consulting and coordinating together at the country level, to ensure their collective ef-fort is addressing local priorities

• Donors and other development organizations are also aligning their support with coun-try-owned strategies and plans, to avoid more donor ‘pet’ projects and to empower Af-rican governments

• Increasingly, donors are encouraging country governments to be ‘in the driving seat’ in coordinating sector developments, as a means of developing local capacity but also to have more effective coordination.

Given this changing aid agenda, donors are increasingly seeking to support projects and programmes that demonstrate good collaboration with in-country governments, and maxi-mise opportunities to add value at the project, country and regional level. AWF needs in-creased presence at the regional and country levels to work more closely with in-country governments and project partners, in order to support the above objectives. Some tasks can undoubtedly be done by AfDB field offices and AWF consultants, but dedicated full time AWF regional staff would be important to enable more effective dialogue with country gov-ernments and project organisations.

To maximize its impact at the country and project level, AWF needs to provide more support at the at country level in following stages of the project cycle:

• Review and agreement of priorities for future projects and portfolio (including review of evaluations, research on other programmes and in-country discussions with govern-ments and key agencies)

• Project implementation support, monitoring, review and adaptation

• Project completion and coordination of evaluations

• Project follow up support for future scaling up

It is important to recognise the limited opportunities of AWF Tunis based staff to undertake too many of the above tasks on their mission visits.

To demonstrate the relevance of AWF programs and raise its profile it would be worthwhile to seek a good alignment or consistency between future AWF projects and national water and sanitation strategies and priorities of the governments in RMCs. This would entail hav-ing some negotiations between AWF and RMC water ministries to agree potential theme ar-eas. This is done in part through GC meetings and strategy development where the Minis-



ters and African stakeholders discuss the strategic issues. But more in depth discussions would be beneficial in individual countries, as well as with regional organizations such as RBOs. AWF could then seek and support applications based on these agreed themes. Wa-ter ministries could also promote the AWF as a source of funding and more opportunities for co-financing could emerge.. To achieve the above aims, AWF should develop a more decen-tralized approach by having four regional representatives in all AMCOW regions: Western, Central, Eastern and Southern Africa. Such representatives will be a valuable AWF pres-ence closer to governments and projects. In considering where the regional representatives should be located, it would make sense to utilize AfDB regional offices and build on their de-centralization proposals. In locating the regional representatives consideration should also be given to linking with AMCOW structures or to major River Basin Organizations.. The AfDB have stated in a recent report that “Effective and efficient decentralization is central to the realization of the Medium Term Strategy, 2008-2012 (MTS) of the African Development Bank” (Source: AfDB, Draft report - ‘Decentralization: Consolidating and Strengthening’, March 2010). The AfDB MTS sets out a three-pronged framework for decentralization:

• Enhanced delivery of products and services through field office presence.

• Decentralization of business processes through delegation of authorities and opera-tional involvement of field office staff.

• Further deployment of sector staff to field offices to strengthen project monitoring and implementation.

This framework fits with the priorities for the future development of AWF as outlined in this report. If the AWF regional representatives have the right skills and experience, this would enable more effective dialogue with governments and provide better support to project de-velopment, implementation and follow up. This approach would not prevent AWF from con-tinuing to support projects in aspects where it has good comparative advantage such as IWRM and TWRM, monitoring and evaluation, information management and emerging themes such as climate change. More in-country tasks could be done by AfDB field offices, such as support to AWF project executing agencies on procurement and administrative pro-cedures. Where AfDB field offices have water sector specialists they can also provide sup-port on project identification and other stages of the project cycle. But it should be remem-bered that AfDB staff are primarily concerned with their own programmes, which are very different from AWF projects. If AWF have their own regional representatives they will be able to provide support in countries where there is not a local AfDB water sector or other relevant specialist available in the AfDB country office. AWF regional representatives can also focus on strategic dialogue with in-country governments on future AWF priorities as well as project follow on or scaling up initiatives. Some in-country work can also be done by consultants recruited by AWF. But AWF regional representatives would be well placed to supervise the work of those local consultants, in conjunction with AWF staff based in Tunis.

The extent of delegated powers for the regional representatives needs to be carefully exam-ined. It is envisaged that detailed ToRs for these new posts will allow for the proposed staff in conjunction with the ADB resident representative to take certain decisions on site. The AWF regional representatives should be able to make proposals or recommendations for approval to AWF HQ for say project variations, as a means of speeding up project imple-mentation. Close liaison between the AWF regional representatives and AWF headquarters will be important to facilitate more productive dialogue with local partners and avoid misun-derstandings developing. Decentralization of AWF should be staged and contingent on ex-pansion of the portfolio and resources availability.



F.6.4. Limited targeted calls for proposals

The broader AWF Areas for Intervention remain valid as a “permanent portal” to for entry to the Facility and submit project proposals. But consideration should be given to having prior-ity themes for particular years, to highlight which themes project applications would be par-ticularly welcome.

Emphasis on priority AWF themes could be strengthened by introducing limited targeted calls for proposals to AWF based on emerging priorities from lessons learnt through evalua-tions etc. Targeted calls could be one of the “portals” to enter the AWF, in parallel with the current portal that accepts all applications. By having such targeted calls in particular years AWF could use external specialists to provide support and assist with workload peaks.

However, calls for proposals means a certain amount of uncommitted funds have to be ear-marked for the call. To date AWF has not had sufficient funds to implement this idea. For a call to be made, increased AWF funding levels will be required.

Proposals received through targeted calls of concept papers could be assessed through a separate competitive ‘screening’’ phase, without direct support inputs from AWF staff other than clarifications. Provided assessment criteria are clearly stated the competitive element should enhance the quality of the concept papers. AWF could then support the development of those selected proposals from the targeted call, as they would with other applications. For this idea to be taken further, it will require negotiations on AfDB procurement rules.

F.6.5. Outsourcing to enhance AWF performance

Where AWF does not have the specific expertise required or does not have staff available to undertake priority functions, a greater use of outsourcing should be encouraged. This is al-ready done extensively by other Facilities and Funds within the AfDB, such as the The Congo Basin Forest Fund (CBFF).

AWF could outsource to a greater extent to undertake some functions that are usually car-ried out by AWF staff, where staff are not available or if they do not have the relevant spe-cialist skills. For example, on support to project preparation, project procurement, project monitoring, support in implementation, and learning lessons for larger emerging projects.

Another means of strengthening AWF capacity on priority themes where AWF currently has limited capacity would be to have advisory groups of selected experts on key topics. These advisory groups could be a small group of external experts who could provide specific advice and inputs as and when requested on aspects such as: AWF, project concepts, project as-sessments, learning lessons for future projects etc. Such an ongoing arrangement would al-low those external advisers to develop a good understanding of how AWF works, as part of what would hopefully be a beneficial relationship.

An alternative arrangement would be for AWF to have strategic partnerships with external institutions (African ones, as much as possible) who have the required skills and experience support AWF in addressing priority themes. The objectives of such strategic partnerships would need to be carefully examined and negotiated.

Deciding what functions to outsource needs to be done as part of AWF’s strategic and op-erational planning, to identify who is best placed to carry out each function. Outsourcing could be done to individuals, other units in ADB, consultancy firms, fiduciary agents etc.

As more outsourcing is introduced, good practices need to be maintained in terms of manag-ing the external consultants, with concise terms of references, bidding where necessary, ef-fective monitoring and support for the consultants, leading to relevant outputs.



F.6.6. Strengthening of AWF leadership and autonomy

The AWF Director currently only spends approximately one third of their time on managing the AWF and two thirds of their time in managing OWAS within the AfDB. It is proposed that AWF has its own full time Director for the following reasons:

• The starting point is that AWF had a dedicated director when it commenced it opera-tion in 2005. The Instrument establishing the AWF included the provision of a full time Director. The dual directorship was the result of the consolidation of all water activities in the Bank that result in the creation of the Water and Sanitation Department. But the demands for an expanded and re-orientated AWF in the future mean that AWF leader-ship requirements need to be reappraised.

• AWF has not been able to provide sufficient emphasis on aspects such as: supporting project implementation, M&E, follow on scaling up of projects, knowledge manage-ment, communications and resource mobilization. A full time Director will enable such proposed changes to be implemented more effectively in the future. Resource mobili-zation linked to demonstrating the achievements on AWF projects will be a priority.

• There is a strong case for AWF to grow in terms of funding, staffing levels and skills mix, in order to achieve its optimum effectiveness. Increased senior management ca-pacity and more emphasis on strategic leadership will be required to manage a larger organization and implement the proposed changes outlined in this report.

• In comparison with AfDB departments, AWF has many other tasks to perform. In addi-tion to project operations, AWF has to do resource mobilization, outreach and commu-nications, generate knowledge products, and links with several Bank departments that deal with different uses of water. Generally a full time AWF Director will provide the strategic leadership and increased visibility needed. At present this support is naturally limited in view of the director’s other responsibilities in OWAS.

• AWF has a broader remit in terms of type of projects than OWAS its host Bank de-partment. AWF also deals with water for agriculture and energy, broader rural devel-opment and enhancing sector financial strategies.

• There is a growing need for strategic and policy dialogue between AWF and key sector organizations, including international donors and in-country governments. The AWF Director would be best placed to either lead such dialogue or delegate to others in AWF. This can enhance AWF’s profile in the wider sector.

• There is a strong case for AWF to become more decentralized and increase its pres-ence in the regions of Africa, in order to improve in-country dialogue and support. This is consistent with ongoing decentralization reforms in the AfDB more generally. The coordination of the proposed AWF regional representatives will require more senior management inputs.

• An increased management role on issues such as recruitment and procurement, are envisaged for AWF and other Facilities, as part of AfDB ongoing decentralization and reform proposals. This will increase the load on senior AWF management, as will the proposals for more emphasis on staff appraisals and training plans.

• When senior donor staff learn that the Director of AWF spends most of their time managing OWAS, they may perceive that AWF is part of OWAS. This lack of clarity is not helpful to resource mobilisation efforts.



The new challenges and priorities for AWF require proactive leadership with good continuity in order to implement the necessary changes over the coming years. A full-time AWF direc-tor should enable this process to happen more quickly.

The advantages of synergy and complimentarity inherent in the current leadership arraign-ments can be maintained when there is a separate leadership for the AWF from OWAS. This can be done by OWAS and AWF collaborating on developing new more effective pro-grammes for water and sanitation, together with other partners.

In terms of the distribution of leadership roles, a new AWF Director could focus more on strategy, and building strategic initiatives and resource mobilization, while the Coordinator focuses on operations. Given the considerable expansion in workload envisaged for AWF, including more in-country work, the Coordinator will be very busy in managing and support-ing the changes and ongoing operational work. The Director will also be fully occupied in leading, supporting and sustaining changes at AWF, including enabling it to have much greater profile, as well as participating in strategic dialogue and influencing policies at the regional and national level.

Another way that AWF can work towards enhancing its leadership capacity is for it to have its own Medium Term Strategy for the coming years, building on proposals in this report.

F.6.7. Guiding principles for organizational development

We need to consider how the proposed changes described above will be implemented over the next 3 to 5 years, bearing in mind the following guiding principles:

1. Being cost effective in the dispersement of project funds on well designed projects based on priority themes such as those agreed in international declarations.

2. Enabling AWF to effectively support project development and implementation.

3. Enabling AWF to continue to develop project expertise in key themes such as IWRM, River Basin Organizations, community-based sanitation, in accordance with key inter-national declarations.

4. Enabling AWF to effectively analyze, write up and disseminate the lessons emerging from its projects, main themes and related programs.

5. Effectively catalyzing improvements at the country level through lessons that emerge from projects and follow on activities to enhance the leverage effect. Demonstrating effectiveness in comparison with alternative aid delivery mechanisms.

6. Avoiding overstretch of AWF’s staff working on too many projects in too many coun-tries with insufficient staff.

7. Potential for AWF to effectively influence water and sanitation sector policies and prac-tice across Africa, in close collaboration with AMCOW.

8. Providing opportunities for more flexible management and retaining staff with key ex-pertise and good knowledge of the AWF’s projects and history.

9. Enabling AWF’s senior management to effectively manage AWF’s staff and resources in order to meet the agreed AWF obligations and objectives.

10. Striking a balance between being responsive to project funding requests; being cost effective in the dispersement of project funds and providing quality support to the pro-ject development, implementation and follow on activities.



F.6.8. Organizational development scenarios

We need to consider what are the optimum funding and staffing levels for the sustainable growth of the African Water Facility. If staffing levels continue at current or reduced levels there is a likelihood of overstretch, with AWF’s working on too many projects and proposals in too many countries with insufficient staff. AWF’s staffing and funding need to increase in the coming years to enable AWF to be a cost effective African-wide project funding and sup-port facility, that is able to learn and disseminate findings on important themes to key stake-holders throughout Africa.

In terms of planning for the future staffing and funding levels, we need to consider what ar-rangements will achieve AWF objectives and address the guiding principles outlined above. Building on the AWF organizational findings outlined in this chapter, three broad AWF organ-izational development scenarios are presented below that deal with three main aspects: AWF funding, staffing levels and location of staff.

Scenario 1: Centralized approach with medium fundin g level and 22 to 25 staff (Average annual spending of approximately €40 milli on)

This is the option proposed in the draft annual work plan and budget for 2010, dated November 2009. Refer to Table in the section the management of human resources above on for the proposed staffing levels up to 2012. The projected increased staff-ing /funding levels would enable AWF to have increased influence and impact com-pared to the current situation. The proposed leadership arrangement would be for AWF to have its own Director spending all their time on AWF work plus an AWF Co-ordinator. There is still some risk of overstretch of AWF’s staff working on too many projects in too many countries with insufficient staff based in Tunis.

Scenario 2: Decentralized approach with medium fund ing level and 25 staff (Average annual spending of approximately €40 milli on)

This Scenario 2 is similar to Scenario 1 accept that as part of a more decentralized approach it would have 4 regional representatives in Western, Central, Eastern and Southern Africa. This would enable AWF to have more effective dialogue with gov-ernments, and provide better support to project development, implementation and fol-low on activities. The proposed leadership arrangement would be for AWF to have its own Director spending all their time on AWF work, plus an AWF Coordinator. There is still some risk of overstretch of AWF’s staff working on too many projects in too many countries with insufficient staff, depending on the number of countries AWF is working in. But the decentralized approach will enable better communications with in-country governments and project partners.

Scenario 3: Decentralized approach with higher leve l funding Scenario with 30 to 35 staff (Average annual spending of approximate ly €50 million)

With higher funding and staffing levels there are better prospects for AWF achieving substantial influence and impact in the African water and sanitation sector. As part of a decentralized approach it could have say 6 to 8 regional representatives in West-ern, Central, Eastern and Southern Africa, in order to add value at the country and regional level. Again the proposed leadership arrangement would be for AWF to have its own Director spending all their time on AWF work, plus an AWF Coordinator. The larger staffing levels will also provide more opportunities for more flexible manage-ment and retaining staff with key expertise.

All three scenarios should include more strategic outsourcing to address AWF priorities and workload peaks. But AWF needs to primarily use its own staff in order to maintain a strategic perspective across a whole range of projects.



Scenario 3 would be the preferred scenario in terms of maximizing the impact and effective-ness of AWF, while having sufficient resources to undertake its many functions. However, Scenario 2 with a decentralized approach but with less staffing and funding, could be suc-cessful, provided AWF lowered expectations about the number of projects and number of countries in which it can work effectively.

We need to consider what is achievable in terms of the growth of AWF given current AWF funding commitments in the coming years. On this basis it is proposed that scenario 2 be achieved in 3 years from now (2013) and scenario 3 be achieved in 5 years time (2015).

F.6.9. Proposed AWF staffing projections

The table below is based on the proposal that scenario 2 (a decentralized approach with 25 staff) is achieved in 3 years from now (2013) and scenario 3 (34 staff) will be achieved in 5 years time (2015). The table also highlights the proposed staffing mix. Such projections are of course dependent on AWF having adequate funding commitments.

The proposed staffing mix of specialists in the above table of the proposed medium term staffing plan, includes some new suggested posts, based on the organizational priorities out-lined in this report. For example, by having a Sanitation and Hygiene Specialist, relevant ex-pertise can be applied to a proposed increase in innovative and relevant sanitation projects, in line with regional declarations.

The introduction of a Knowledge Management Specialist will enable AWF to focus on the important aspects of knowledge management within AWF. This post-holder can also focus on effective knowledge transfer of its project findings to the wider sector, as well as demon-strating the outcomes and outputs from AWFs project portfolio. Similarly, to strengthen water and sanitation governance on AWF projects an Institutional /Governance Specialist will be needed, who can also enable improved policy dialogue with governments. This is particularly relevant as AWF projects are becoming larger than in previous years. The same applies to the proposed Economist, who could provide valuable inputs on the economic and financial aspects of AWF’s growing portfolio of projects, as well as proposals for replication and scal-ing up of successful projects.

Table 23: Proposed AWF Medium Term Staffing Plan

Theme Job Title 2010 2011 2013 2015

Director 1/3 1 1 1 Management

Coordinator 1 1 1 1

Sub-total management staff 1 1/3 2 2 2

Water Resources Operations Officer 1 1 1 1

WRM Specialist 2 2 2 3

Water Resources Management

Water/irrigation engineer 0 1 1 1

Water Policy Officer 1 1 1 1

Water Supply & Sanitation Expert 3 2 2 2

Sanitation and Hygiene Expert 0 1 1 2

Water Supply and Sanitation

Water Utilities Expert 0 1 1 1

Finance Expert 1 1 1 1

Private Sector/Business Development Expert 0 0 0 1

Finance & Re-source Mobilisation

Resource mobilisation / aid coordination 0 1 1 1

Water knowledge M&E Specialist 1 1 1 2



Theme Job Title 2010 2011 2013 2015

Environmentalist 0 0 0 1

Socio-Economist / Gender Specialist 1 1 1 1

Knowledge Management Specialist 1 1 1 1

Economist 1 1

Cross-cutting themes

Institutional /Governance Specialist 0 0 0 1

Regional Representatives

AWF Representatives Based in Field Offices (also WRM or WS&S experts)

0 2 4 6

Grant Administration Officer 1 1 1 1

Procurement Officer 0 1 1 1

Project Support Services

Communications Officer 1 1 1 1

Sub-total professional staff 13 20 23 30

Administration Operations/Administrative Assistant 1 1 1 2

Secretarial Secretary 1 1 1 1

Grand Total 15 1/3 22 25 35

Note that the 2010 figures are for the first half of 2010.

F.6.10. Organizational structure proposals The draft organizational framework in the recommendations section is based on the pro-posed staffing for 2013, which is scenario 2 - decentralized approach with medium funding level and 25 staff (Average annual spending of approximately €40 million). This is not in-tended to be a rigid structure but rather it should allow for the flexible working required for a medium sized development organization such as the AWF, which works throughout Africa. The definition and agreement of the main roles of each member of staff with clear communi-cations is more important than an organizational chart.

The increase in staffing is consistent with the proposed staffing levels for 2013 as is set in the table above of the Proposed AWF Medium Term Staffing Plan. The main proposed change compared to the existing organizational framework is the introduction of regional rep-resentatives. It is suggested that these representatives would report to the AWF Coordina-tor, although they would work with staff throughout AWF.

The proposed groups in the organizational framework are configured in a way to enable staff with a similar focus to work closely together to optimize their collective work effort, in order to address AWF objectives and priorities. Each professional group (cross cutting issues, water and sanitation and IWRM etc.) should have a lead coordinator to assist senior managers with the overall management of the Facility. The Group Coordinators, plus the Director and AWF Coordinator, can form the AWF management team.

An alternative organizational option would be to have two or three managers (equivalent to the division managers in the AfDB) with responsibility for key themes or functions and report-ing to the Director. This would mean creating another tier of management between the direc-tor/coordinator and the lead coordinators for each group professional group (cross cutting issues, water and sanitation and IWRM etc). This could be considered for an expanded AWF in 2015, but this is not required for 2013. Where possible it would be preferable to maintain a relatively flat structure with a ‘larger span of control’, in line with modern man-agement thinking. This enhances the delegation of responsibilities to capable professional staff who have to work on a wide variety of projects.

A key organizational issue is how best to enable AWF to address priority issues that are re-levant for achieving AWF’s more general objectives such as:



• Supporting project implementation

• M&E and scaling up projects

• Knowledge transfer and management

• Resource mobilization

• Enabling more focus on cross-cutting issues such as: social, governance and poverty reduction aspects, working with AWF project teams

As AWF grows, the case for increasing the use of working groups to focus on such key is-sues increases. This can be an efficient way of saving time in the main AWF management meetings. Working groups can enable staff to analyze problems in detail and develop im-provement plans outside general meetings. They are known to enhance team building within organizations, provided they have a clear remit and objectives. Working groups can be ei-ther permanent or temporary, as the situation demands. Other similar organizations such as the EUWF use working groups as a strategic part of their functioning.

Where AWF does not have the specific expertise required or does not have staff available to undertake priority functions, a greater use of outsourcing should be encouraged. But it is important for AWF to develop and retain wide ranging in-house expertise as a means of re-taining effective ongoing strategic support to its wide portfolio of projects.



G. Recommendations

This chapter provides an overview of the suggested recommendations to improve the per-formance of the African Water Facility and address the main issues identified in terms of ef-fectiveness. As such, this chapter is a logical continuation and conclusion of the assess-ment developed in the previous chapters, but it can also be read as a stand-alone piece.

G.1. Concluding remarks Over the last 5 years, the African Water Facility has developed into a successful institution, with many valuable assets. The most important assets are indubitably:

• Diverse portfolio . Close to 60 projects have been approved so far, with a diversity of innovative projects in many countries across Africa, with a particular strength in Trans-boundary Water Resource Management. Other areas of innovation include water sec-tor M&E and urban water and sanitation services.

• Innovation and quality . The 8 project assessments that were part of this assignment reveal these AWF projects to be generally effective and are delivering stated out-comes, even if progress has been slow in some cases. AWF-funded projects are commonly seen by other partners as innovative and focused on emergent issues.

• Sound management . To manage its projects, the Facility uses an effective operating system with strong financial controls anchored to an efficient institution (AfDB). This has been recognized in a recent evaluation commissioned by the European Union.

• Scaling up capacity . Some projects have already led to good proposals for larger scaled up projects, demonstrating an interesting leverage effect. This scaling up ca-pacity is an illustration of the very purpose for which the Facility was established - mo-bilising more financial resources for the water sector in Africa.

• Support to applicants . AWF provides valuable support to applicants during the pro-ject development process. This is recognised by the sector as a flexible, innovative, participative and unique way of appraising projects.

• People . Skilled and highly motivated staff contributed to AWF’s success. A good sign of this is that except for top management, turnover is rather limited. This staff is a very valuable asset to build on and keep on developing the Facility.

• Roots . AWF is an African-based organization with strong links with AMCOW and therefore the ministerial level of the water sector in all African countries. This role of the Facility in the water sector indubitably contributed to its success.

• Knowledge . The Facility has accumulated and produced substantial and valuable knowledge on the water sector and the potential for scaling up more promising ap-proaches. However this potential is yet to be fully realized.

The key issue is how to build on these assets to maximize AWF’s contribution to the devel-opment of the African water and sanitation sector. During the initial years of AWF's history it has naturally focused on developing a substantial portfolio of innovative projects, as part of its consolidation phase. But the Facility has experienced ‘overstretch’ with a limited number



of staff, who have not been able to devote sufficient time and resources to activities such as support to projects being implemented, M&E and potential scaling up activities.

The African Water Facility now needs to expand to fulfil its many functions and be a high performing Africa-wide project funding and support instrument. A number of areas for im-provement and organisational changes have been identified, and they are encapsulated in the recommendations set out in this chapter.

G.2. Overview of recommendations The recommendations on the way forward for the Facility are set out in the remainder of this chapter under three main headings: strategic issues, operational activities and institutional issues. The table below summarises the recommendations (using the same numbering as in the text to facilitate cross reference) and indicates which are to be given priority in 2010.

The precise sequencing of the implementation of these recommendations will need to be de-termined as part of AWF’s ongoing strategic planning. In scheduling the implementation of the recommendations we need to be mindful of what is practical, but also it is important that the momentum is not lost on other key recommendations. For the recommendations for im-plementation in 2011 it is proposed that preparatory work commences in 2010, in terms of deciding how best the recommendations are implemented, as part of AWF’s medium term strategy, and gaining approvals, but actual implementation will take place in 2011, with fur-ther development in subsequent years.

Table 24 – Overview and Prioritisation of recommend ations

How to read this table: The priority recommendations that need to be implemented in 2010 by AWF and key partners are shown in bold italics . The recommendations for implementa-tion in 2011 and later years are shown in normal font. Numbering of recommendations in the table refers to the numbering used in the next section of this chapter.

Recommendation Brief justification

G3. Strategic Issues

G3.1 Strategic Planning

1) Further development of AWF’s vision and mission statement

2) Enhance AWF strategic planning by revis-ing its Strategy and other key documents

3) Align AWF’s strategic priorities with AMCOW’s commitments

4) Limited expansion of AWF program, in terms of numbers of new projects, in the shorter term (2-3 years)

5) Sustainable growth of the AWF over the medium term (3-7 years)

6) Performance planning and monitoring of AWF as an organisation

1) Important to establish clarity on AWF’s main focus and future direction

2) Needed to enhance AWF’s autonomy and strategic planning

3) AWF needs to focus on priority themes to maximise outcomes and sector stakeholders need to be clear about AWF priority areas

4) In the shorter term (2-3 years), the priorities should be to avoid overstretch and focus on project support

5) In the medium term (3-7 years) AWF ex-pansion will enable increased impact and op-timum effectiveness

6) To demonstrate the effectiveness of AWF and its projects more clearly




G3.2 Involvement of AMCOW

7) AWF should have a liaison officer working with the AMCOW Secretariat

7) To facilitate the relationship between the two institutions and develop more synergies

G3.3 Resource Mobilisation

8) Recruit an experienced resource mobilisa-tion officer

9) Intensify AWF resource mobilisation ef-forts linked to other recommendations in this report

10) AMCOW should be more involved in mo-bilising resources for AWF

8) To provide more staffing resources to ad-dress challenges on outreach and funding

9) Future funding is a priority issue for AWF

10) Both institutions will benefit from a larger AWF with increasing impact

G3.4 Knowledge Transfer and Management

11) Enhance AWF’s approach to knowledge transfer and management

11) To maximise the shared learning from AWF projects

G3.5 Communications, Visibility and Outreach

12) Optimize communications for good knowledge dissemination and to promote AWF’s own work.

13) Further improvement of AWF’s visibility

14) Continue to strengthen outreach and the niche the AWF occupies in the sector

12) to 14) To increase AWF’s profile, while maximising its positive influence on the sector

G4. Operational Activities

G4.1 Project Identification

15) More efforts to review outputs from project evaluations and research to determine future promising project concepts with good scaling up prospects

16) Develop the capacity to regularly interact with governments in a structured way in order to inform future project priorities

17) Test targeted calls for proposals on priority themes

18) Initiate an AWF funded pilot programme to develop national water sector financing strate-gies in selected countries to strengthen the fi-nancial base

19) Increase focus on the more fragile states

15) to 17) To promote and select strategic projects to maximise project outcomes and the leverage effect and enhance the value ad-dition of projects in the local context. 18) To demonstrate the importance of such finance strategies and raise demands for simi-lar future projects in more countries

19) To support countries and communities in the greatest need

G4.2 Preparation and Appraisal

20) More emphasis on project cross-cutting is-sues (gender, socio-economic aspects)

21) Increase focus on methodologies for AWF community based projects

22) Assessment of the capacity of executing agencies before projects start

23) Incorporate a standard item in all future pro-jects to encourage both AWF and executing agencies to work on opportunities for scaling up

20) to 24) Enhancing development outcomes and the leverage effect



Recommendation Brief justification and the leverage effect

24) Develop methodologies for assessing the potential for leveraging funds or scaling up

G4.3 Project Implementation

25) More support to project executing agencies during implementation through outsourcing sup-port services, working with regional training insti-tutions, creative development of the website and advisory services

26) Systematic contact with implementing agen-cies to respond promptly to proposed variations in the project design and budget allocations

27) Develop and implement an action plan for increasing project disbursements, that is regularly reviewed

25) and 26) To improve the performance of project executing agencies in terms of working on AWF projects

27) Improved project disbursements can en-hance efficiencies and enable project benefits to be experienced earlier.

G4.4 Project Performance Monitoring

28) Demonstrate AWF project outputs and out-comes

29) Develop a simplified LFA format

30) Greater use of logical frameworks at all stages of the project cycle

31) Emphasise need for project progress reports that address overcoming constraints and pro-gress towards achieving outputs and outcomes

32) Develop an AWF performance monitoring and reporting guide

28) to 32) Proactive project performance monitoring during implementation to enable necessary changes to the project design and plans, in order to optimise project effective-ness and disbursements, as well as achieving sustainable outcomes. Improved M&E will also generate good knowledge products about AWF projects.

G5. Institutional Issues

G5.1 Human Resources Management

33) Strengthen AWF Leadership through a full-time Director to work exclusively for the African Water Facility

34) Ensure adequate staffing levels and skills mix within the AWF staff

35) Streamline recruitment of Technical Assis-tants that are funded by donors

36) More emphasis on AWF staff training linked to better knowledge management

37) Outsourcing to enhance AWF performance

33) Strengthen AWF’s leadership to enable growth and the proposed changes

34) To enable AWF to have appropriate staff-ing levels and skills mix to manage an ex-panding portfolio

35) To minimise the periods that posts remain vacant in some key positions and get the best out of staff.

36) To enable the organization to meet its or-ganizational objectives

37) To optimise the efficiency and effective-ness of AWF operations




G5.2 Institutional Framework

38) Develop a more decentralised approach with four AWF regional representatives, while opti-mising the use of AfDB field offices

39) Optimise task sharing within the Facility, in-cluding appropriate distribution of staff functions around key themes and strategic issues

40) Put in place an organisational framework based on a more flexible and flat structure

38) To increase AWF project relevance and impact within recipient countries

39) To optimise the efficiency and effective-ness of AWF staff

40) A relatively flat flexible structure to opti-mise delegation of duties in order to manage a large and diverse project portfolio

G.3. Strategic issue recommendations

G.3.1. Strategic planning

Further development of AWF’s vision and mission sta tements

Recommendation 1: The current AWF strap line that emerged from the African Water Vi-sion is ‘To mobilize and apply resources to finance water development activities in Africa’. The overall goal or vision that has been adopted by the AWF is that of the AWV, which states: “An Africa where there is an equitable and sustainable use and management of water resources for poverty alleviation, socio-economic development, regional cooperation, and the environment.” The objectives relate to the 4 areas of intervention of the AWF.

This remains an important and ambitious goal that AWF can support, but it is important to clearly articulate how AWF can contribute and what are the roles of other stakeholders. The above mandate/mission statement would be better referred to as the AWF vision statement or its mandate. Visions tend to be high level goals to capture the imagination of external stakeholders; whereas mission statements usually encapsulate the main focus and objective of an organization’s work.

What therefore, should be AWF’s mission or purpose statement? AWF mainly manages a responsive fund for water and sanitation projects in Africa, with important characteristics such as support in project development, creating a favourable environment, and leveraging funds for future larger scale programs. An AWF mission statement should be developed on this basis. For example, ‘Enabling the development of viable water and sanitation projects across Africa that responds to regional and country level priorities.’

Enhance AWF’s strategic planning through revision t o the AWF Strategy and other key documents

AWF has limited autonomy within AfDB in terms of procedures and staffing to implement its own distinct objectives. AWF projects are very different in type and scale compared to AfDB projects. It therefore requires a more flexible approach. As AWF demonstrates the effec-tiveness and sound management of its projects, it will have a stronger case to convince AfDB senior management that some more flexibility can be agreed in the development and implementation of AWF projects.

Recommendation 2: It is proposed that AWF can work towards enhancing its autonomy and its performance management if it develops its own 5 year Medium Term Strategy (MTS) for the coming years, building on proposals in this report.



Following the review and agreement of this report together with the AWF, AfDB and the Governing Council, it is proposed that AWF develops its own Medium Term Strategy (MTS) for the coming 5 years, that can be reviewed and updated when required, building on pro-posals in this report. The MTS should cover the following elements:

• Broad priority themes for new projects in the coming years

• Strategies for maximizing the effectiveness and efficiency of AWF projects

• An indication of the anticipated number and value of new projects over the next 5 years

• Projected annual funding requirements over the next 5 years

• The key elements of an updated resource mobilization strategy

• Proposed staffing levels and post titles (skills mix) for 2013 and 2015

• An AWF organisational development plan addressing HR, systems, organisational structure, governance, policies, proposed guidelines and change management issues

• The proposed plan for appointment for the creation of key posts, including a proposed new full-time Director of the African Water Facility.

For AWF to develop its own viable own Medium Term Strategy (MTS) that has the confi-dence of key stakeholders, they will require assurances about the level of funding from do-nors in the medium term. As AWF develops an effective medium term strategy that ad-dresses key issues such as support to projects, knowledge management, resource mobilisa-tion, communications, visibility etc., all of these issues need to be carefully linked. In fact, considerable synergies can be achieved. For example, resource mobilisation and a raised AWF profile can be enhanced considerably, if all the other aspects are done well.

All AWF operational strategies, plans and procedures need to be reviewed and updated in the light of the new MTS.

Align AWF’s strategic priorities with AMCOW’s commi tments

A review of AWF priorities based on the Sharm El-Sheikh Declaration is contained in section F.1.2. The proposed primary or priority objectives emerging from the Sharm El-Sheikh Dec-laration in column 1 of this table correspond to all of the 4 main pillars in AWF’s areas of in-tervention. However, the Sharm El-Sheikh Declaration does not seem to explicitly address all of AWF’s sub-sectors such as investment in drinking water supply. Although AWF has a continuing track record of having a significant proportion of rural and urban water supply pilot investment projects. There are a number of good reasons why AWF should maintain the fo-cus on this sub-sector, which are outlined in section F.1.2. The Sharm El-Sheikh Declaration implies that water resources management and sanitation are its main priority sub-sector themes. But sanitation has much greater synergies with drinking water services than it does with water resources management.

Recommendation 3: It has been argued that AWF must reduce the scope of its areas of intervention in order to focus its resources. While this is true, it is proposed that AWF re-tains its broader areas of intervention in order to build on its track record and continues to be adaptable to changing demands for different types of projects. A more focused approach can be achieved by having priority themes for particular periods, to highlight which themes would be particularly welcome in applications as priority project objectives over say a 2 to 3 year period. Targeted project calls and specialist advisory groups could be mobilised to re-spond to the agreed priority themes. The extent to which AWF needs to focus on selected themes will be dependent on the scale of its future expected funding commitments.

Determining AWF priority themes for specific periods could be done as follows:



• AWF forms a working group to determine AWF priority themes within its broader areas of intervention for the forthcoming two to three year period.

• Consultations to take place with selected country governments and key stakeholders on AWF priority themes in that country or region, bearing in mind AWF’s particular pro-ject approaches.

• Consultations take place with other project funding agencies, concerning their forth-coming funding priorities and emerging gaps in sector support.

This process could be done as part of AWF’s broader medium term strategy development. Some possible priority themes that offer good prospects for achieving effective project out-comes that are strategically important and have good scaling up or leverage effect opportu-nities include the following:

• Water security plans that take account of the vulnerabilities of different water user groups to diminishing water resources, including the predicted effects of climate change. This will enable increased resilience to changing patterns of water availability.

• Support to River Basin Organisations in addressing the emerging key challenges that they face in achieving their objectives.

• Support to governments in preparing larger viable projects for multiple uses of water, that have good prospects of being implemented and achieving value for money and broader economic and health outcomes.

• Support in developing effective integrated sanitation, water and hygiene promotion pro-jects, where those governments need support in piloting proven approaches, with a view to future scaling up.

• Sanitation promotion based on tested methodologies, collaborating with key stake-holders such as local government, civil society and the local private sector, working on all aspects of sanitation service chains.

• Development of national water and sanitation sector financing strategies using good methodologies, to enable governments to develop viable sector investment plans that meet the needs of all consumer groups and provide rationale cases to attract future sector funding.

• Support to improving the financial viability and investment planning of water utilities in countries with the greatest need, working creatively with national and regional bodies.

This is not an exhaustive list, but the above themes focus on strategic interventions and in-tegrated approaches that have clear synergies for maximizing the value addition of future projects. Key criteria for the selection of projects for funding should include the prospects for a leverage effect, including government commitments.

In summary, AWF should completely update its strategy and definition of priority areas for intervention to better match recent commitments of AMCOW as summarized in the 2009 Roadmap. It should be reflected in all of the Facility’s communications tools. AWF should define priority themes and targets in the Medium Term Strategy.

Sustainable growth of AWF

Recommendation 4: To focus on getting the best value from its portfolio of projects includ-ing supporting future replication or scaling up of its projects, AWF should only have a limited expansion of its program in terms of numbers of new projects, in the shorter term (2-3 years). Quality in terms of supervision and support to projects should be an important prior-ity, with less emphasis on the quantity of projects.



Recommendation 5: In the medium term (3-7 years), AWF should continue to expand the overall size and value of its portfolio of projects as a means of increasing its impact and in-fluence, while providing adequate support to the development and implementation of its pro-jects (especially supervision) and focus more on knowledge production.

Performance planning and monitoring of AWF as an or ganisation

Recommendation 6: The latest ‘AWF operational performance indicators for 2010’ which cover all AWF’s main activities is shown in its Annual Work Plan for 2010. This framework with objectives around themes, indicators and targets is reasonably logical, however, there are a number of improvements that could be made. This framework should be converted to a logical framework and additional indicators included to capture the achievements and out-comes of AWF projects.

The proposed ‘summary effectiveness indicators’ that can be used under each of the AWF’s four main pillars in the indicator/target columns of the AWF Logframe are:

a) ‘Percentage of AWF project outcomes that are largely or completely achieved’

b) ‘Percentage of AWF project outputs that are largely or completely achieved’

Reporting against such indicators will emphasize AWF’s orientation towards achieving good project outcomes. A new indicator has been included in the latest ‘AWF operational per-formance indicators for 2010’, which is ‘Percentage of projects rated as satisfactory or higher’. This will presumably come from the project evaluations and could continue to be in-cluded.

Other key AWF documents such as its operational strategy, three year rolling programme and its operating manual, need to be revised in the light of the findings from this report and AWF’s new medium term strategy, and updated on a regular basis.

G.3.2. Involvement of AMCOW

Section E2 analyses the relationship between AMCOW and the AWF, and concluded that this relationship is formally well founded but requires strengthening on a practical level, with some areas for improvement of AMCOW’s leadership and involvement in AWF activities. In addition to the recommendation on working together for better resource mobilisation in the next section, one specific action is proposed to strengthen the link between these two or-ganizations.

Recommendation 7: AWF should have a liaison officer working with the AMCOW secre-tariat, in order to facilitate the relationship and explore future synergies between the two in-stitutions, and raise the profile of AMCOW’s communications in relation with the activities and outcomes of the Facility.

G.3.3. Resource mobilisation

AWF has substantial funding shortfalls from 2011 onwards, although negotiation is on-going with many potential donors. Central to AWF’s case for receiving adequate funding is to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of its projects and operations. The project as-sessments that have been undertaken as part of this consultancy assignment demonstrate that those projects assessed are effective despite slow progress and limited supervision in many cases. AWF also has a portfolio of innovative projects in its pipeline.



Recommendation 8: AWF should recruit using its own funds an experienced resource mo-bilisation officer. The post holder may not work on this full time, but can also assist with functions such as AWF communications and relationships with strategic partners.

Recommendation 9: Given the many priorities of AMCOW, AWF should intensify its work that will enable increased future funding for its own operations and projects, with AMCOW and others supporting such initiatives. The resource mobilisation actions by AWF should build on the many related suggested improvements outlined in this report. But assurances on future funding will be needed to enable effective AWF planning in the medium term.

Recommendation 10: AMCOW should be more involved in mobilising and securing re-sources for AWF in the near future and should take the lead in organising the donor round table for the replenishment of the Facility.

G.3.4. Knowledge transfer and management

This is key to demonstrating AWF’s added value and to improving resource mobilisation. There is an urgent need of drawing lessons from existing projects and closing the loop with future project priorities as well as building the know-how of AWF in a more structured way (e.g. regarding RBOs). See F.1.6 for more detailed arguments.

Recommendation 11: There needs to be more focus on knowledge management within AWF, and particularly on its knowledge transfer to the outside world. The key elements of a good approach to project knowledge transfer include:

• A good project planning, M&E system that generates relevant and accurate information

• Collecting project evidence on foreseen and unforeseen outcomes

• Analyses for individual projects and syntheses across projects around themes

• Preparation of outputs, producing different versions for different audiences.

All these aspects need to be done well for effective knowledge transfer that can contribute to improving knowledge in the sector in the best way. A knowledge management guide can be developed to enable better performance in this important area. It is also important for AWF to demonstrate the particular added value of AWF’s supportive approach in the way it pre-pares projects, compared to other approaches. This should enable AWF to anticipate and lead the sector on issues where it has good expertise. For the AWF to be well known as a knowledge organisation, it should also disseminate its knowledge products in major water forums and key sector publications.

G.3.5. Communications, visibility and outreach

Recommendation 12: Once AWF manages its knowledge better it needs to optimise its communications for good dissemination and to promote its own work. AWF has appointed a communication officer, but there also needs to change the organisation so it develops a ‘communication culture’, where all staff are thinking about and implementing the best ways to enhance AWF’s knowledge transfer and communication. Such changes need to be sup-ported by senior management. AWF’s communication strategy should be updated once AWF’s broader medium term strategy is much clearer, building on the ideas in this report.

Recommendation 13: The AWF could improve its rather limited visibility and is often thought of as being an integral part of the African Development Bank. AWF’s website needs updating with increased usage, but this is in part dependent on plenty of good quality infor-mation about its projects and themes being produced and versioned for the website. As



AWF develops an effective medium term strategy that addresses key issues such as support to projects, knowledge management, resource mobilisation, communications, visibility etc., all of these issues need to be carefully linked to achieve the necessary synergies.

AWF is an important instrument of AMCOW, which can contribute to increasing the visibility of AWF, particularly as AWF develops more key information about itself and its projects.

Recommendation 14: AWF needs to continue to strengthen its outreach and the niche it occupies in the sector, working with others to co-finance as well as collaborating with those organisations focusing on policy and knowledge aspects (e.g. GF4A/GWP, EUWI, WSP).

G.4. Operational activities

G.4.1. Project identification

Structuring the portfolio according to strategic pr iorities and project findings

Being demand driven has been analysed as being an asset for the Facility – to a certain ex-tent. In order to develop more projects based on priority themes and less one off projects, it is important for the Facility to further develop its capacity to structure its portfolio and to re-fine the criteria of eligibility for project screening. This needs to be done taking into account the priorities of key stakeholders and learning lessons from previous projects. To this end, the following recommendations are proposed.

Recommendation 15: More efforts to review research outputs from a variety of projects and project evaluations to determine promising AWF pilot programme concepts that have good potential for scaling up and/or leveraging funds. This could be partially outsourced.

Recommendation 16: Develop the capacity of interacting with national governments in a structured way, and target projects responding to priorities set through constructive dialogue. For instance the CSO/GLAAS approach, that is largely endorsed by AMCOW in the 2009 Roadmap as the main tool for discussion and include national priorities in regional initiatives. Having more structured discussions with African country governments/ministries about les-sons from previous projects and future priorities for AWF can increase the value addition and relevance of the projects to the local context.

Recommendation 17: To test limited targeted calls for proposals to AWF based on AMCOW/NEPAD priorities as well as AWF priority themes as defined in the MT Strategy; a competitive element could be introduced in the process of reviewing the concept papers from the targeted call, at the screening phase. Targeted calls could be one of the new “por-tals” to enter the AWF, together (or in parallel) with the current portal that accepts all applica-tions and should be maintained as such. Implementing this recommendation will have impli-cations in terms of procedures. Review of applications might be partially outsourced to avoid over burdening AWF staff.

Strengthening the financial base

Recommendation 18: Strengthening the financial base is one of the key sector priorities expressed by AMCOW and one of the AWF's main areas of intervention. Whilst it is central to AWF's mandate, AWF generally do not receive applications on this topic. The need for improvements in strengthening the financial base for the water and sanitation sector across Africa justifies some up-front investments to develop viable new projects in this area:

• A pilot programme be initiated and funded by AWF (possibly in partnership with other donors), in 2 to 3 selected countries who are willing to participate, with the objective to



develop national financing strategies (and investment plans where needed) for the wa-ter sector. Follow-on projects would be generated from such a programme, for country governments to implement the recommendations for viable investments and effective and sustainable financing. The programme could be funded from the AWF Adminis-trative budget as supporting an AMCOW priority (similar to M&E).

• AWF can utilize the pilot programme outputs to influence key stakeholders such as Ministries of Finance and Water, in order to generate more demand for such finance projects. The Facility may also prepare briefing notes on the type of support it provides under Strengthening the Financial base.

• The Facility should continue to incorporate Strengthening the Financial Base activities as a component in other projects (such as the CAR Institutional Support), as this ad-dresses the issue of the country having to “choose” between financial and other sub-ject for AWF support.

Increased focus on more fragile states

Recommendation 19: While AWF already supports a number of projects in fragile states or states recovering from conflict in Africa; there should be increased prioritization of projects in such countries, where this is feasible. Implementing this recommendation would mean a few innovations in the way the projects are currently appraised – for instance AWF should have the possibility of sending preparation missions in targeted countries. The GLAAS report could be the basis for identifying targets of the AWF in terms of fragile states, as well as a close collaboration with the Fragile State Facility managed by the African Development Bank.

G.4.2. Project preparation and appraisal

Enhancing development outcomes and the leverage eff ect

Recommendation 20: More emphasis needs to be placed on project cross-cutting issues, with specific guidance and checklists developed or refined for reviewing the project design and implementation, in order to ensure AWF cross cutting issues such as governance, pov-erty reduction and equity issues are adequately addressed. Cross-cutting issues are, how-ever, less relevant for some very focused technical projects. It is also acknowledged that this has an impact on the time it takes to appraise the project.

Recommendation 21: Developing and reviewing methodologies for AWF community-based implementation projects, for working with communities has received limited attention to date at AWF. Such methods and approaches should be described, be based on good practice and reviewed at each stage of the project cycle, with a view to future scaling up of the pro-ject methodology or approach.

Recommendation 22: It is important to assess the capacity of the implementing agencies up front, before the project starts, so that appropriate capacity building and project designs emerge.

Recommendation 23: A specific standard item in future project budgets could encourage both implementing agencies and AWF to take forward the leveraging/replication dimension. This is central to AWF’s mandate of mobilising resources for the African water sector. Al-though AWF has some notable successes in supporting scaling up or replication opportuni-ties emerging from some of its projects, the provision of more efforts and resources is nec-essary for this to be done on as many projects as possible.



Recommendation 24: The AWF should develop a specific set of indicators to measure the leveraging effect of the projects that it finances. Methodologies should be developed for as-sessing the potential for leveraging funds or scaling up at screening and appraisal stages.

G.4.3. Project implementation

Building capacities and supporting implementing age ncies

Recommendation 25: The Facility should contract specialised institutions or rely on relevant regional bodies to develop training and capacity building of implementing agencies. A hot-line should be opened for the recipients to get prompt answers on the difficulties faced. A specific section of AWF’s website should be designed in a very user-friendly manner to pro-vide the recipients with standard tools and answers on recurrent problems / situations.

Recommendation 26: More emphasis on supporting project executing agencies in imple-menting their projects should include being able to respond promptly to proposed variations in the project design and budget allocations between project outputs. Supervision missions and contact with the implementing agencies should also be done on a systematic and regu-lar basis.

Project disbursements

The causes of slow project disbursements have been analysed in section D2 of this report. This is a priority concern for the AWF and they have already taken steps to improve the situation including: closely monitoring of overall project disbursements, appointed a grants officer and they have commenced the recruitment of a procurement officer.

Recommendation 27: Building on AWF actions to date, project disbursement rates need to be improved substantially, with the new procurement officer taking in the lead in coordinating the development and implementation of a Disbursement Improvement Plan that is regularly reviewed by AWF senior management.

At the AfDB legal department level (GECL) negotiations can be initiated on streamlining their processes in achieving grant effectiveness, based on a risk analysis approach. The risks inherent in AWF project preparation and pilot projects are much less than the larger AfDB projects, that GECL normally deals with. At the recipient level, the procurement officer can work together with AWF task managers and AfDB field offices so that effective support is provided to executing agencies to minimise disbursement delays. For each individual project, AWF senior management will also need to enable AWF staff to support executing agencies and ensure project approvals are done efficiently.

G.4.4. Project performance monitoring

This is an aspect that has already been raised by the Governing Council and the donors as a matter that needs to be addressed. The suggested main areas for improvement are sum-marised below.

Recommendation 28: Demonstrating AWF project outcomes and outputs are key to the continuing success of AWF and has been done to some extent on some projects. There is a need to capture both the individual project achievements and collective achievements related to common themes, in a systematic way. Effective monitoring and evaluation need to be a priority in order to maximise the learning and project outcomes. It is recommended that there be provision of more efforts and resources to review, monitor and evaluate AWF pro-jects, linked with the decentralisation of staff.



Recommendation 29: LFA format – The current logical framework format both for AWF and its projects is rather complex with 6 columns that have been difficult for some project part-ners to understand. When the logframes are completed, there is some confusion between outcomes, objectives, expected results, outputs and activities. A clearer more concise and logical format is required with four columns including having only one column for the hierar-chy of objectives. This issue needs to be explored with AfDB who currently use the same current format as AWF. Because AWF implements smaller projects, a format that is clear and easier to understand is important for effective project planning and monitoring.

Recommendation 30: Logframes should be active documents that should be changed in the light of projects experience. More regular reviewing and updating of logframes during project implementation would reduce confusion about the changing scope of the projects.

Recommendation 31: Project reports – the quarterly progress reports produced by project executing agencies tend to be rather brief and focus on activities in the last quarter and ac-tivities for the next quarter. It would be beneficial if 6 monthly or annual project reports ad-dressed issues such as: cumulative progress towards achieving project outputs/outcomes, constraints and how they are being overcome and any changes to the project design.

Recommendation 32: To achieve improvements such as those outlined above, it is pro-posed that AWF develop a performance monitoring and reporting guide or manual.

G.5. Institutional issues

G.5.1. Human resources management

Strengthening AWF’s leadership

Recommendation 33: The best way of achieving the necessary strong leadership and suffi-cient autonomy is for the African Water Facility to have its own Director, full time dedicated to the management and development of the Facility. In terms of the distribution of leadership roles, a new full-time AWF Director could focus more on strategy, and building strategic ini-tiatives and resource mobilisation, while the Coordinator focuses on operations. Given the considerable expansion in workload envisaged for AWF, including more in-country work, the Coordinator will be busy in managing and supporting the changes and ongoing operational work. The Director will also be fully occupied in leading, supporting and sustaining changes at AWF, including enabling it to have much greater profile, as well as participating in strate-gic dialogue and influencing policies at the regional and national level.

AWF needs increased AWF senior management capacity and have a full-time AWF Director for the following reasons:

• The starting point is that AWF had a dedicated director when it commenced its opera-tion in 2005. The Instrument establishing the AWF included the provision of a full time Director. The dual directorship was the result of the consolidation of all water activities in the Bank that resulted in the creation of the Water and Sanitation Department. But the demands for an expanded and re-orientated AWF in the future mean that AWF leadership requirements need to be reappraised.

• AWF has focused on developing a portfolio of projects and needs to provide consid-erably more emphasis on other aspects such as: supporting project implementation, monitoring and evaluation, follow on scaling up of projects, knowledge management, communications and resource mobilisation.



• There is a strong case for AWF to grow in terms of funding, staffing levels and skills mix, in order to achieve its optimum effectiveness. Increased senior management ca-pacity and more emphasis on strategic leadership will be required to manage a larger organisation and implement the proposed changes outlined in this report.

• In comparison with AfDB departments, AWF has many other tasks to perform. In addi-tion to project operations, AWF has to do: resource mobilisation, outreach and com-munications, generate knowledge products, and links with several Bank departments that deal with different uses of water. Generally, a full time AWF Director will provide the strategic leadership and increased visibility needed. At present this support is naturally limited in view of the director’s other responsibilities in OWAS.

• AWF has a broader remit in terms of type of projects than OWAS, its host Bank de-partment. AWF also deals with water for agriculture and energy and broader rural de-velopment and enhancing sector financial strategies.

• There is a growing need for strategic and policy dialogue between AWF and key sector organisations, including international donors. The AWF Director would be best placed to lead such dialogue, building directly on the accumulated knowledge.

• AWF needs to become more decentralised and increase its presence in the regions of Africa. The coordination of the proposed AWF regional representatives will require more senior management inputs.

• An increased management role on issues such as recruitment and procurement, are envisaged for AWF and other Facilities, as part of AfDB ongoing decentralisation and reform proposals. There also needs to be more emphasis in AWF on staff appraisals and training plans, to maintain the highest possible level of expertise.

• When donors realise that the Director of AWF spends most of his time managing OWAS, they may perceive that AWF is an integral part of OWAS rather than a Facility administrated by AfDB. This lack of clarity is not helpful to resource mobilisation ef-forts. This can be avoided if AWF has its own Director.

The new challenges and priorities for AWF require proactive leadership with good continuity in order to implement the necessary changes over the coming years.

Staffing of the AWF

Recommendation 34: Recruit staff according to the projections contained in table 23 in chapter F, which proposes AWF staffing for the coming years, based under the assumption that recommendation 26 (decentralised approach with regional representatives) will be im-plemented. Staff would rise up to 25 achieved in 3 years from now (2013), building to 35 staff in 5 years time (2015). The table also highlights the proposed staffing mix.

The proposed staffing levels in 2015 are the suggested optimum staffing levels to maximis-ing the impact and effectiveness of AWF. Although the proposed staffing for 2013 with a decentralised approach could be successful, provided AWF manages expectations about the number of projects and number of countries in which it can work effectively.

Staff recruitment

AWF can benefit from AfDB decentralisation proposals for facilities and project departments to take the lead in the recruitment of AWF staff in the future and reduce the time taken for new appointments and solve the problem of vacant posts to some extent. This is likely to increase demands on the time spent on recruitment by AWF senior staff. This needs to be borne in mind, during the development of detailed AWF staffing proposals in the future.



AWF has valued the contribution of its Technical Assistants (TAs) that are funded by donors. However, the process of identifying and recruiting TAs is often very long, leading to uncer-tainties and posts being vacant for considerable periods. Consideration should be given to streamlining these processes in collaboration with the respective donors and the AfDB.

Recommendation 35: An exception in the Bank rules should be made to allow Technical Assistants to stay more than 4 years with the Facility – or if no exception is possible, the AWF should recruit ATs by following its own rules. Consideration should be given to stream-lining TA recruitment processes in collaboration with the respective donors and the AfDB.

Staff development

Annual staff performance evaluations are intended to inform AWF’s overall training priorities and the training offered to staff. Apart from language, SAP and procurement training, this does not happen enough because of the priority given to the project work of the Facility.

Recommendation 36: It would be beneficial to place more emphasis on appropriate training for AWF staff to enable the organisation to meet its objectives. The development of an an-nual AWF staff training plan and budget would be a useful first step forward. The design and implementation of AWF strategies for knowledge management and knowledge transfer will also be supportive to the process of staff learning.

The Human Resources Department has brief lists of general competencies for each job fam-ily in the AfDB. It would be worth reviewing and expanding on these lists to develop person specifications for posts in the AWF that meet its future needs in terms of ASKE (attitudes, skills, knowledge and experience) of its staff. This is particularly relevant for new posts that are created, but it can also be used to inform training priorities.

Outsourcing to enhance AWF performance

Recommendation 37: Where AWF does not have the specific expertise required or does not have staff available to undertake priority functions, a greater use of outsourcing should be encouraged. This is already done extensively by other Facilities within the AfDB. In terms of deciding what functions to outsource, this needs to be done as part of AWF’s strategic and operational planning, to identify who is best placed to carry out each function. Outsourc-ing could be done using individuals, other units in AfDB, consultancy firms, etc.

G.5.2. Institutional framework

Developing a more decentralised approach

AWF currently has quite a centralised approach for an organisation that works across Africa. All its staff is based in Tunis. Whereas most development organisations including the AfDB have or are pursuing a more decentralised approach to their development activities in Africa. It is useful to consider some of the reasons for this trend:

• Increasingly as part of donor harmonisation and the Paris Declaration, donors and other development organisations are harmonizing their policies and practices, as well as consulting and coordinating together at the country level, to ensure their collective effort is addressing local priorities.

• Donors and other development organisations are also aligning their support with coun-try-owned strategies and plans, to avoid more donor ‘pet’ projects and to empower Af-rican governments.

• Increasingly, donors are encouraging country governments to be ‘in the driving seat’ in coordinating sector developments, as a means of developing local capacity but also to have more effective coordination.



Given this changing aid agenda, donors are increasingly seeking to support projects and programmes that demonstrate good collaboration with in-country governments, and maxi-mise opportunities to add value at the project, country and regional levels. AWF needs in-creased presence at the regional and country levels to work more closely with in-country governments and project partners, in order to support the above objectives. Some tasks can undoubtedly be done by AfDB field offices and AWF consultants, but dedicated full time AWF regional representatives would be important to enable more effective dialogue with country governments and project organisations.

To maximise its impact at the country and project levels, AWF needs to provide more sup-port at the country level in the following stages of the project cycle:

• Review and agreement of priorities for future projects and portfolio (including review of evaluations, research on other programmes and in-country discussions with govern-ments and key agencies)

• Project implementation support, monitoring, review and adaptation

• Project completion and coordination of evaluations

• Project follow up support for future scaling up.

It is important to recognize the limited opportunities of AWF Tunis based staff to undertake too many of the above tasks on their mission visits.

To demonstrate the relevance of AWF programmes and raise its profile it would be worth-while to seek a good alignment or consistency between future AWF projects and national water and sanitation strategies and priorities of the governments in RMCs. This would entail having some negotiations between AWF and RMC water ministries to agree on potential theme areas. This is done in part through GC meetings and strategy development where the Ministers and African stakeholders discuss the strategic issues. But more in depth discus-sions would be beneficial in individual countries, as well as with regional organisations such as RBOs. AWF could then seek and support applications based on these agreed themes. Water ministries could also promote the AWF as a source of funding and more opportunities for co-financing could emerge.

The AfDB is in the process of its own decentralisation programme, through delegation of au-thorities to its field office staff. A limited decentralisation of AWF operations would be consis-tent with and complement AfDB’s decentralisation programme.

If AWF regional representatives have the right skills and experience, this would enable more effective dialogue with governments and provide better support to project development, im-plementation and follow up. This approach would not prevent AWF from continuing to sup-port projects in aspects where it has good comparative advantage such as IWRM and TWRM, monitoring and evaluation, information management and emerging themes such as climate change.

More in-country tasks could be done by AfDB field offices, such as support to AWF project executing agencies on procurement and administrative procedures. Where AfDB field of-fices have water sector specialists they can also provide support on project identification and other stages of the project cycle. But it should be remembered that AfDB staff are primarily concerned with their own programmes, which are very different from AWF projects. If AWF have their own regional representatives they will be able to provide support in countries where there is not a local AfDB water sector or other relevant specialist available in the AfDB country office. AWF regional representatives can also focus on strategic dialogue with in-country governments on future AWF priorities as well as project follow on or scaling up initia-tives. Some in-country work can also be done by consultants recruited by AWF. But AWF



regional representatives would be well placed to supervise the work of those local consult-ants, in conjunction with AWF staff based in Tunis.

The extent of delegated powers for the regional representatives needs to be carefully exam-ined. It is envisaged that detailed ToRs for these new posts will allow for the proposed staff in conjunction with the ADB resident representative to take certain decisions on site. The AWF regional representatives should be able to make proposals or recommendations for approval to AWF HQ for say project variations, as a means of speeding up project imple-mentation. Close liaison between the AWF regional representatives and AWF headquarters will be important to facilitate more productive dialogue with local partners and avoid misun-derstandings developing. Decentralisation of AWF should be staged and contingent on ex-pansion of the portfolio and resources availability.

Recommendation 38: To achieve the above aims, AWF should develop a more decentral-ised approach by having four regional representatives in all AMCOW regions: Western, Cen-tral, Eastern and Southern Africa. Such representatives will be a valuable AWF presence closer to governments and projects. In considering where the regional representatives should be located, it would make sense to utilise AfDB regional offices and build on their de-centralisation proposals. In locating the regional representatives, consideration should also be given to linking with AMCOW structures or to major River Basin Organizations.

Task sharing within the Facility

Recommendation 39: To ensure higher efficiency and quicker delivery, task sharing within the Facility should be clarified; functions should be better organised around strategic issues (e.g. management of the portfolio, knowledge management, etc.). A new organisational chart must be drafted, focusing on functions and not on AWF’s themes or pillars. Consult-ants have drafted a new organisational chart to be reviewed by the Facility and the Bank.

Organisational structure proposals

The proposed organisational framework at the end of this chapter is based on the proposed staffing for 2013, which is scenario 2 - decentralised approach with medium funding level and 25 staff. This is not intended to be a rigid structure but rather it should allow for the flexible working required for a medium sized development organization such as the AWF, which works throughout Africa. Considering the time spent on administration, the recruitment of a professional administrator to support the coordinator should be considered. This person could deal with recruitments of staff (in liaison with CHRM), consultants, financial manage-ment / budget follow up, answer ad hoc information requests, support the preparation of work plan and progress reports.

Recommendation 40: Implement the new organisational framework presented in the next page. The proposed structure seeks to maintain a relatively flat structure with a ‘larger span of control’, in line with modern management thinking. This enhances the delegation of re-sponsibilities to capable professional staff who have to work on a wide variety of projects.



Draft AWF Organizational Fr amework for 2013 – Option 1 The proposed organisational framework for AWF below could be enhanced by having working groups on key themes such as, 1) Resource Mobilisation and 2) M&E and scaling up projects, 3) Knowledge transfer and management 4) Enabling more focus on cross-cutting issues

African Development Bank – Vice President

Regional Representatives (Also can be WRM or water and sanitation experts)

AWF Director

Governing Council of the African Water Facility, chaired by AMCOW

Cross Cutting Group M&E expert Socio-economist Knowledge expert Environmentalist

AWF Co-ordinator

Administrative Support Grants officer Secretary Admin Assistant

Water Resource Management Group WRM experts

Water and Sanitation Group Water & sanitation experts Sanitation and hygiene expert

Outreach and Partnership Group Outreach/Resource mobilisation officer Communications officer

Finance and Governance Group Finance expert Economist Governance expert



H. Annexes

H.1. Persons met or interviewed

Name Institution E-mail address or contact

Peter Akari AWF [email protected]

Teferah Woudeneh AWF [email protected]

Jean-Michel Ossete AWF [email protected]

Jalel El Faleh AWF [email protected]

Sering B.O. Jallow OWAS 2 [email protected]

Yvan Kedaj AWF [email protected]

Amadou Ba AWF [email protected]

Francis Daniel Bougairé AWF [email protected]

Shehu Yahaya AfDB Board [email protected]

Ursule Antoinette Tape AfDB, ATR [email protected]

Kordje Bedoumra AfDB (VP) [email protected]

Abdirahman D. Beileh AfDB, ORSA [email protected]

Philibert Afrika AfDB, NEPAD [email protected]

Malinne Blomberg AWF [email protected]

Raymond Besong AWF [email protected]

Wayne Coffin AWF [email protected]

Mulken Abate Negussie AWF [email protected]

Hela Sassi AWF [email protected]

Germaine Diah AWF [email protected]

Robert Burtscher Austrian Develop. Agency [email protected]

Gerald Eder Hydrophil [email protected]

Stéphane Duval CIDA [email protected]

Brian Baxendale DFID [email protected]

Stathios Dalamangas EuropeAid [email protected]

Sabrina Lucatelli EuropeAid [email protected]

Emilio López Viñuela Spain, MEF [email protected]

Oddwin Skaiaa NORAD [email protected]

Alain Rotbardt AFD [email protected]

Véronique Verdeil France, Foreign Affairs [email protected]

André Liebaert EuropeAid [email protected]

Martin Walshe DFID [email protected]

Ndina Nashipili MAWF Project Coordinator [email protected]

Abibou Ciss 2iE Project Coordinator [email protected]



Name Institution E-mail address or contact

N’Guessan Michel Bi Tozan AMCOW TAC (RCI) [email protected]

Cox Sempebwa ANEW (Uganda) [email protected]

Jamillah Mwanjisi ANEW (Kenya) [email protected]

Daniel Adom UN Water Africa (Ghana) [email protected]

Teshome Yeshaneh UN Water Africa (Ethiopia) [email protected]

Valdemiro Matavela AMCOW TAC (Mozambique) [email protected]

Felizmina Antia AMCOW TAC (Mozambique) [email protected]

Lutfi Ali Madi AMCOW TAC (Libya) [email protected]

Reginald Tekateka AMCOW TAC (current Chair) [email protected]

Usman C. Conteh AMCOW TAC (Sierra Leone) [email protected]

Freddie Kwesiga ResRep AfDB Zambia [email protected]

Bruno Itoua Former AMCOW chair [email protected]

Charles Ngangoué Former AMCOW TAC chair [email protected]

Note: Most persons met during project visits are listed in project assessment reports which are included in a separate document.

H.2. Documents consulted • Instrument for the Establishment of the African Water Facility Special Fund, 2005

• Operational procedures, November 2005

• Operational programme 2005-2009

• Operational programme 2008-2010

• Communications strategy, 2006

• Resource Mobilization strategy, October 2006

• Resource Mobilization toolkit, October 2008

• Report on Resource Mobilization, November 2009

• Operational strategy, 2007

• Operational Manual (and annexes), August 2009

• AWF Organizational structure, October 2008

• Staff list as of October 2nd, 2009

• Indicative financing programme and budget for 2006, November 2005

• Indicative financing programme and administrative expenses budget for 2007

• AWF 2009 work plan and budget, December 2008

• AWF provisional 2010 work plan and budget, November 2009

• 2006 Annual Report, July 2008

• 2007 Annual Report, July 2008



• 2009 Annual Report, June 2009

• 2008 Annual Report, September 2009

• Progress Report, June 2006

• Quarterly progress Report n°2, January to March 20 07, April 2007

• Draft progress Report, January to September 2009

• Achievements and funding requirements, 2008-2010

• Projects support component disbursement as at September 30, 2009

• Minutes of the 5th Governing Council meeting




• Minutes of the Oversight Committee meeting, December 2008

• Minutes of the Oversight Committee meeting, July 2009

• Minutes of AMCOW TAC Meeting to review the operational programme, May 2007

• Main outcomes and recommendations of the stakeholders workshop for reviewing AWF operational focus and areas of intervention, September 18th to 20th, 2007

• Internal assessment of the African Water Facility, August 2009

• Review of assistance to Water Initiatives in the African Development Bank, a study commissioned by NORAD, Danida and Sida, March 2007

• Assessment concerning joint management with the African Development Bank, Final Report, July 2009

• Bridging research, technology and development: sustainable water resource manage-ment in Eastern Africa, December 4th to 8th, 2006, Mombasa

• African Regional Document for the 4th World Water Forum, Mexico, March 2006

• African Regional Document for the 5th World Water Forum, Istanbul, March 2009

• AIDCO C5 et C7 – Water and Energy Facility – Assessment concerning joint man-agement with the African Development Bank – Final report, 2009

• Getting Africa on tracks to meet the MDGs on Water and Sanitation: a status overview of 16 African countries, WSP-Africa for AMCOW/EUWI, December 2006

• Delivering on Africa’s water security commitments. A Roadmap for Implementing and Reporting Actions to the African Union, October 2009

• ToRs for consultancy services for a project to prepare investment plans for 15 secon-dary urban centres under the Lake Victoria Basin Water and Sanitation Initiative in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi & Rwanda, August 2008

• EAC AWF Funding Proposal - Lake Victoria Project latest, October 2007

• LVWATSAN Appraisal Report, November 2007



H.3. Terms of reference TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR THE OPERATIONAL REVIEW AND INSTITUTIONAL ASSESSMENT OF THE AFRICAN WATER FACIL ITY

TUNIS, 15 JUNE 2009

H.3.1. Background 1.1. The establishment of the African Water Facility (AWF) was a response to the regional and international consensus to address the need for increased investments for the develop-ment and management of water resources in Africa. The AWF is an initiative led by the Afri-can Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW), which considers it an important instrument for achieving the objectives of the African Water Vision and Millennium Development Goals on water and sanitation. AMCOW requested the African Development Bank (AfDB) to host, administer and manage the resources of the Facility. The Bank welcomed this request and the Board of Governors approved its establishment as a Special Fund of the AfDB in May 2004. In pursuing its Trustee function, the AfDB created the AWF within its organizational structure in April 2005, and appointed a Director and key staff. Following the initial period of consolidation in 2005, the AWF started its core operational activities in January 2006 after receiving and processing requests for funding based on five year operational programme spanning to 2009.

1.2. In 2007 a review of the operation programme was under taken which resulted in the de-velopment of long term Operational Strategy closely linked to the goals of the Africa Water Vision and Framework for Action, and a three year rolling operational programme based on a realistic availability of resources. The Operational Strategy of the AWF sets the strategic objectives and corresponding outcomes of the AWF, as follows:

Strengthening water governance, resulting in African countries and regional organizations having increased capacity to govern their water resources effectively based on Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) principles and transboundary cooperative arrange-ments that will foster regional cooperation and integration.

Investments to meet water needs, resulting in advances made in meeting water needs through direct project investments and adoption of innovative technologies and approaches as well as preparing high impact investment projects.

Strengthening the financial base, resulting in African countries and regional organizations benefiting from increased financial resources due to an improved environment for sustain-able financing and better availability and access to funds.

Improving water knowledge, resulting in increased capacity for informed decision making at all levels to guide water sector development planning and implementation for results.

1.3. The AWF has a Governing Council (GC) of 13 members which consists of five (5) members appointed by AMCOW, one (1) member appointed by the AfDB, one (1) member appointed by the African Union (represented by the NEPAD Secretariat), one (1) member appointed by UN-Water/Africa, and five (5) members appointed by Donors. The Governing Council is responsible for guiding the operational activities of the AWF and in this respect approves the operational focus and areas of interventions while the Board of Directors of the AfDB approves financing provided from the resources of the Facility.

1.4 The AfDB maintains a Special Fund for financing project operations and administrative expenses of the AWF. Pledges and payments to the AWF Special Fund have been received from the Governments of Canada, France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Austria, Spain, UK,



Algeria and the European Commission. As of the end of March 2009, the amount of funds pledged by the various donors to the AWF amounted to Euro 110 million.

1.5 Operational Activities: The total number of projects that have been approved since inception stands at 44 (amounting to €44.5 million). Of this number two have been com-pleted, thirty-four (34) are on-going of which eight (8) are nearing completion; and the remaining eight (8) are undergoing project start up activities.

1.6 Organisational Activities: The special nature of the AWF has necessitated under-taking a wide range of organisational activities which are essential to the effective opera-tion of the Facility. This includes: establishing effective linkages with AMCOW; involve-ment in numerous activities to strengthen partnerships and create awareness about the AWF; preparation of operational instruments and strategies; ensuring effective opera-tional support to project executing agencies; mobilisation of resources for implementing the AWF Operational Programme; and knowledge management. The Facility has de-voted much time and internal resources on these non lending activities to ensure that its operations flow smoothly.

H.3.2. Context

2.1 The revised Operational Procedures approved by the AfDB Board of Directors in De-cember 2007 stipulates in Section 9.5 that “At the end of 2009, an effectiveness assess-ment of the Facility will be conducted; the targeted objective is to assess the actual im-pact of the Facility and the effectiveness of operations financed. It would draw lessons and provide guidance for the future operations”. In implementing this provision, the Gov-erning Council at its 8th meeting directed that this exercise be conducted during mid 2009 given the importance of the assessment.

2.2 This provision was made based on the expectation that the AWF would have com-pleted a substantial number of projects by the end of 2009 (as planned in the AWF Op-erational Programme 2005-2009), such that a full impact assessment of its projects could be carried out. Given that the Facility has taken longer than initially expected to be-gin operations, and that the initial group of projects are only now nearing completion, a full review of project impacts could not be achieved. The assignment would therefore fo-cus on conducting an assessment of the status of AWF operations financed so far as well as the institutional issues related to its establishment and consolidation. An assess-ment of the impact to the extent possible is also proposed at this stage to determine the effectiveness of AWF operations and the eventual outcomes on the ground.

2.3 The objective of this assignment is to undertake a review of the operational activities and the institutional set-up to determine the effectiveness of the AWF and identify areas of improvement needed to achieve its objectives and mandates.

2.4 The expected outputs of the Effectiveness Assessment are:

• A comparative assessment of actual/expected versus planned operational results at project and overall Facility levels.

• A review and assessment of AWF institutional set-up and effectiveness in undertaking its operations.

• An assessment as to whether the AWF is achieving its objectives and the improve-ments needed for effective implementation of its operational mandate.



• An assessment as to whether the AWF operational strategy and areas of interventions respond to the priorities of the Africa water agenda as reflected in the recent political commitments and recommendations on the alignment required.

• An assessment of the relevance/effectiveness of AWF activities including operations, support to African initiatives and participation in international events to make the African water sector more attractive;

• An assessment of the value addition prospect of the AWF and its niche in the sector.

• An assessment of synergies with traditional donors in the sector;

• Lessons learned including strengths and deficiencies with appropriate recommenda-tions for the future development of the Facility.

• Recommendations on how to improve operational and institutional effectiveness.

H.3.3. Reasons behind this operational review and institutional as-sessment

3.1 The AWF was established in 2004 and began operations in 2006 with the expectation that it would positively impact the water sector and thereby contribute to socio-economic progress of the continent. In establishing the Facility and developing the structure and programme, a number of expectations and assumptions were made to enable the Facility reach its objectives and achieve its mandate. After five years in existence it is necessary to review its performance in order to make a reality check on the initial assumptions and attendant expectations as well as chart the way forward. The outcomes of the review are important for the AfDB which is hosting the Facility, the donors who need to account to their constituencies on the use of public funds provided to the Facility, and to the Facility itself which needs the feedback to better strategize and programme.

H.3.4. Audience of the operational review / institutional assessment

4.1 The intended audience for the assessment is varied and includes the AWF Govern-ing Council, the AfDB and its Board of Directors, the various donors and potential donors to the Facility, all the African Regional Member Countries that the AWF is mandated to support, and various other stakeholders. Participation of the key stakeholders has been ensured through the formation of an Effectiveness Assessment Committee based on the composition of the AWF Governing Council, which consists of AMCOW, donor, AfDB, African Union/NEPAD and UN Water/Africa representatives. The Committee is responsi-ble for providing overall guidance and reviewing the various reports to be produced by the Consultant.

H.3.5. Scope and focus

5.1 The scope of service will essentially involve a critical analysis of the operational and organisational activities undertaken, and a review of AWF institutional set-up, in order to determine the effectiveness of the institution in carrying out its mandate. The review will focus on, but not exclusively be limited to, three key issues, notably:

i. Operational Activities;

ii. Organizational or Non-lending Activities and

iii. AWF Institutional Issues.



5.2 The results of the operational review and institutional effectiveness will be used to in-form programming of operations based on objective assessment of AWF strengths and weaknesses. The results will be consolidated to address the following factors:

• External context: administrative & legal, economic, stakeholder, resources mobiliza-tion, communications

• Performance: effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, financial viability;

• Motivation: mission, organizational learning, incentives, priorities

• Capacity: strategic leadership, structure, human resource management, financial man-agement, programme/process management technological capacities, inter–institutional linkages

• Social Responsibly: gender equality, environmental sustainability.

5.3 Operational Activities

i. Review and assess the adequacy of the basic working documents including Opera-tional Strategy (2008), the Operational Programmes (2005-2009; 2008-2010; 2009-2011), and the Annual Work Plans in addressing the objectives and mandate of the Fa-cility (as described in the Instrument Establishing the AWF);

ii. Review the project activities and achievements of the AWF for each of the main areas of intervention: (i) Strengthening water governance; (ii) Investments to meet water needs; (iii) Strengthening the financial base; and (iv) Improving water knowledge. Assess wheth-er the range of projects approved and in the pipeline adequately respond to the hierarchy of objectives for each area of intervention (as outlined in the Operational Strategy). As-sess results achieved (positive as well as negative) to date of the projects underway for each area of interventions. The consultant will ensure that the results achieved are identi-fied and represented adequately. Compile project achievements and assess the consis-tency with the overall results for the Facility (as shown by the performance indicators and targets in the Operational Strategy, Programmes and Annual Work Plans).

iii. Review and assess the incorporation of cross-cutting issues in AWF projects, such as capacity building at local, national and regional level; gender mainstreaming including policies and methodologies to mainstream practices that promote equality between men and women; poverty reduction, environmental sustainability, good governance and the AWF contribution to beneficiaries being better positioned and equipped to meaningfully engage in key water governance issues;

iv. Determine to the extent possible the impact of the AWF operations carried out thus far;

v. Assess whether the AWF Operational Strategy and areas of intervention respond to the priorities set in the evolving water sector political direction and strategic issues such as the various water sector commitments made in recent times including (i) eThekwini Declaration and AfricaSan Action Plan; (ii) the African Water Week Ministerial Declara-tion on Accelerating Water Security for Africa’s Socio-Economic Development; (iii) the Sharm El-sheikh Commitments for Accelerating the Achievement of Water and Sanita-tion Goals in Africa and (iv) the Sirte Declaration on Water for Agriculture and Energy in Africa). Asses the harmonization and alignment of AWF projects with national sector frameworks and programmes.



vi. Draw experiences and lessons from operations conducted thus far by the AWF. De-termine the main operational challenges of the AWF in carrying out its mandate and make appropriate recommendations for operational improvements.

5.4 Organizational or Non-lending Activities

5.4.1 Outreach and Partnerships :

i. Review AWF cooperation and coordination with other partner organizations and water initiatives focused on Africa by determining the degree to which external linkages are es-tablished or pursued to support well-targeted programming initiatives and performance.

ii. Review linkages and collaboration with various departments of the AfDB;

iii. Make recommendations as to how the AWF can improve its outreach and cooperation with other partner institutions.

5.4.2 Support to AMCOW:

i. Determine the extent and level of cooperation and linkages between AMCOW and AWF;

ii. Review and assess the support provided by the AWF to the AMCOW Strategic Initia-tives, including the 5th World Water Forum and pan-African M&E initiative, etc.

iii. Identify specific areas and modalities of AWF support to operationalise AMCOW’s strategic objectives and commitments in the water sector.

iv. Provide guidance as to the future directions for this type of support, and associated resource requirements.

5.4.3 Operational Support:

Review and assess the effectiveness and efficiency of AWF in undertaking its opera-tional activities, including:

i. The efficiency of project processing by the AWF, from identification and preparation to appraisal and approval stages;

ii. The quality of AWF planning as evidenced in the various AWF Operational Pro-grammes and Annual Work Plans and Budgets and linkages to organizational mission, adequacy of timelines and budget.

iii. The effectiveness of AWF portfolio management activities;

iv. The adequacy of AWF supervision and monitoring of projects, and how the AWF can better supervise its large portfolio of ongoing projects.

v. The project implementation challenges being faced and AWF’s response (such as the support to Recipient Executing Agencies for project management, procurement and fi-nancial activities)

vi. The adequacy of the AWF Operational Procedures and Manual to comprehensively address all operational issues; and the need for revisions to the Procedures to improve fast-tracking and better respond to client needs.

5.4.4 Resource Mobilization:

i. Review and assess effectiveness of Resource Mobilization efforts taking into account the AWF Resource Mobilization Strategy and the respective mandates of the AWF, AMCOW and the Bank in resource mobilization; ii. Provide recommendations on options



to improve resource mobilization efforts, as well as the future AWF role in resource mobi-lisation and associated staff time.

5.4.5 Knowledge Management:

i. Review and assess plans for and implementation of AWF knowledge management ac-tivities, given its importance to the Facility and the early stages of this activity, and make appropriate recommendations as to how this can be strengthened in the future.

5.4.6 Performance Assessment and Monitoring

i. Review the AWF Results Based Management approach, including the Logical Frame-work Analysis, results measurement and monitoring methodology. Assess the extent of organizational monitoring of programme and services; use of results-based management to manage and report on programme design and delivery and linkage of monitoring and evaluation to improved performance. Determine if clearly defined targets were set and are verifiable through relevant indicators. Make recommendations on the appropriate-ness of the indicators and possible improvements, and modalities for undertaking a revi-sion of the overall process.

5.5 AWF Institutional Issues

i. Evaluate the organisational and human resources capacity of AWF to carry out its op-erations; assess the benefits, strengths and the weaknesses related to the different cat-egories of staff (AfDB Staff, AWF funded Staff, Technical Assistants, long-term Consult-ants and STS); provide recommendations for organisational and human resource im-provements including number and skill mix of staff in each of the above categories for the next three to five years.

ii. Review the types and levels of support provided by the AfDB to the operations of the AWF and assess the adequacy of this support and options for improvements.

iii. Review the AWF systems and controls needed to ensure sound, cost–effective man-agement of its programming and appropriates of the financial systems to support per-formance.

iv. Review and assess the approach of AWF towards promoting good governance and sharing of best practices/lessons learned in the field of water governance. This includes the AWF capacity, structure, resources and management to promote the institutionaliza-tion of water governance and the alignment with regional and international commitments to strengthening water governance.

v. Review the role of the AWF in the African water sector development architecture and assess the value addition and niche areas of the Facility.

vi. Undertake a risk assessment of the Facilities operations such as funding not used for its intended purpose; targeted programming not being implemented as planned and achievements attained not being sustained.

vii. Review the institutional framework and alternatives and assess the need for im-provements including the appropriateness of the organizational structure to facilitate mis-sion and goals.

H.3.6. Methodology

6.1 The operational review and institutional assessment will be carried out in conformity with best practice. The use of internationally accepted practice and standards is essen-



tial, such as those set out in the OECD - DAC Evaluation Guide and the associated DAC Quality Standards.

6.2 Overall Approach

6.2.1 The assessment will be based on desk analyses and field visits to the projects in the RMCs and with multinational entities. It will consist of consultations with AWF/AfDB staff and national as well as international partners operating at country and regional lev-els where on-going support is being provided by the AWF. The main activities shall be as highlighted hereunder:

• Desk Study: involving a critical review of relevant documentation of the AWF and re-lated literature (including country-based project documents) to enable a complete as-sessment of the operations of the Facility. A suggested list of documents is provided in the Annex A. The review at the desk level will cover all 44 approved projects. In this re-gard the two completed projects and the eight that are nearing completion will receive critical attention to assess the impact and lessons learnt.

• Interviews at the AWF Level: involving in-depth consultations with staff of the Facility.

• Field Missions to Projects : consisting of field visits to selected country focused and multinational project activities. Particular attention will be focused on twenty-one projects for which the disbursement levels have exceeded 50%, inclusive of the eight mentioned in paragraph 1.5 here-above. A total of five (5) of these projects in the RMCs and three (3) multinational projects shall be selected to be visited, but the consultant shall have the option of selecting the specific projects to be visited. In that regard, the Consultant shall use appropriate sampling methodology to ensure adequate geographic coverage as well as adequate coverage across the AWF’s areas of intervention.

• Meetings with AMCOW Secretariat and AWF Donors : One mission shall be con-ducted to the AMCOW Secretariat. In addition three missions shall also be conducted to a selection of donors. Again the Consultant shall use appropriate sampling methodology to ensure adequate coverage of the AWF’s donors.

• Report Preparation: the Consultant shall prepare Inception, Draft and Final Reports as indicated in Section 8.

6.3 Assessment Framework

6.3.1 The Consultant will review status of progress in projects, and assess whether the anticipated project results have been achieved for completed projects or are likely to be achieved for ongoing projects. The status review should be conducted through interviews with project related personnel, review of documentation including progress reports, site visits, and dialogue with beneficiaries.

6.3.2 The assessment of AWF organizational and institutional issues forms an important part of this assignment. This will mainly be conducted through interviews with AWF, AfDB and key stakeholders, as well as review of available literature. The assessment should be structured to respond to the needs identified in the Scope of Work section above, with the issues refined during the assessment process.

6.4 Work Programme

6.4.1 The overall duration of this assignment is estimated as 14 weeks. However, con-sultants are free to propose alternative durations after studying the TOR.



6.4.2 The work programme of the Consultant shall involve a preliminary visit of three weeks, at the beginning of the assignment, to AWF Offices at the African Development Bank in Tunis for review and discussions as well as the preparation and acceptance of the Inception Report.

6.4.3 This will be followed by the field visits to at least five selected countries and three regional organizations supported or to be supported by the AWF. Countries will be se-lected based on status of completion of projects, the need to select a representative cross section of projects by area of intervention, and the location of the selected regional organisations. Final list of countries will be determined in consultation with the Consult-ant. For the purposes of this Request for Proposals (RFP), countries to be visited are as-sumed as Uganda, Congo, Nigeria, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Kenya, and Mozam-bique. Field visits should be conducted between weeks four and ten.

H.3.7. Accountabilities and responsibilities

7.1 African Water Facility

7.1.1 The consultants shall work under the direct supervision of the AWF Coordinator who shall be responsible for the following:

• Providing all necessary documents, reports, guidelines, etc. available at the AWF.

• Assisting in arranging all formal and informal meetings at the AWF/ADB and with external stakeholders;

• Arranging office space and logistical support during missions to the ADB premises in Tunis;

• Organizing forums for internal and external review;

• Facilitating the input and guidance required from the Effectiveness Assessment Committee

7.1.2 The work outputs and reports of the Consultant shall be reviewed by an Effective-ness Assessment Committee constituted for the purpose.

7.2 Consultant

7.2.1 The Consultant shall be required to exercise diligence in the execution of the as-signment, field competent personnel, and provide adequate resources to enable its per-sonnel to deliver on the assignment. The reporting requirements and schedule shall be respected.

7.2.2 The Consultant shall report to the AWF Coordinator, who shall oversee the as-signment and liaise with the Effectiveness Assessment Committee to ensure their full in-volvement.

H.3.8. Deliverables and time frame

8.1 The Consultant will prepare the following documents:

i. Inception Report comprising preliminary work plan and matrix;

ii. Revised work plan to be used for the detailed field mission based on the AWF com-ments;

iii. Debriefing notes;



iv. Draft Report; and

v. Final Report.

8.2 The Final Report, which will include the management response, will be:

i. Prepared in English or French;

ii. Submitted to AWF electronically via e-mail and CD in Microsoft Word; and

iii. Submitted in hard copy format (10 copies).

8.3 Inception Report

8.3.1 The Inception Report which shall set out a detailed methodology for the execution of the assignment as described in these Terms of Reference shall be prepared within two weeks of signing the Contract. The Inception Report shall include a preliminary Work Plan and Matrix. This report should refine and elaborate on the original Terms of Refer-ence and address the following:

• Overview of the assignment

• Expectations of the assessment

• Roles and responsibilities of the parties

• Detailed methodology, including strategy and tools for information collection and analysis

• Assessment framework, including key assessment issues and questions

• Reporting

• Work scheduling

8.3.2 Within one week after completion of the Inception Report a Final Work Plan includ-ing revised Matrix will be submitted. The Matrix will outline the review questions and plans for collecting information. Two copies in hard copy format shall be submitted along with the electronic version in MS Word.

8.4 Draft and Final Report

8.4.1 The Consultant will submit a Draft Report for review by AWF within three weeks of returning from the field mission. Two copies in hard copy format shall be submitted. Within two weeks of receiving AWF's comments on the Draft Report, the Consultant shall submit a Final Report, including an abstract/executive summary.

8.4.2 The executive summary shall be a stand-alone piece of the report and certainly the most read, at senior management level. As such, its content must capture the following:

i. The AWF start and end dates, goals, purpose and rationale;

ii. The AWF investment profile;

iii. The reasons for undertaking this Review;

iv. The main clients of this Review;

v. The methodology used;

vi. The limitations as well as strategies applied to mitigate them;

vii. The major findings, recommendations and conclusions;



viii. Lessons learned segregated between all the stakeholders involved in the AWF initia-tive, in terms of management and effectiveness capacity.

H.3.9. Consultant qualification

9.1 The Consulting Firm

9.1.1 The Consulting Firm shall have been in existence for at least five years as a firm with considerable experience in management consulting covering institutional develop-ment, programme planning and management. Regional experience and an understand-ing of the water sector in Africa, as well as previous experience in conducting develop-ment programme reviews, are considered essential.

9.1.2 The Consultant’s team shall have a blend of language skills, especially French and English, such that the team, either individually or collectively must be able to function adequately in both English and French.

9.1.3 The Consultant’s team shall have sound computer literacy in using standard appli-cations, including statistical packages and the Internet. The Consultant is expected to use his/her own computers for the assignment with software compatible with that of the Bank (Windows XP Professional and Microsoft Office 2003).

9.2 Qualifications of the Experts

9.2.1 The Consulting Firm will field three qualified experts on the assignment to cover the fields of: i) Water and Sanitation, ii) Institutional and iii) Socio-economic and Gender. One of these shall be the Team Leader.

• For the Water Sector Expert , the candidate shall have advanced degree in water re-sources management/development or related field of study, at least 10 years experience in water resources planning and management, including demonstrable experience in the links between water, sanitation, environment and economic development. S/he shall have experience working on the management of development programmes in water and sanitation.

• For the Socio-Economist , the candidate shall have advanced degree in social sci-ence, including at least 10 years experience in the conception, design and management of development programmes targeted at poverty reduction in general; and specifically related to the water sector. The candidate shall demonstrate familiarity with economic, social and gender mainstreaming in water activities, social impact analysis, NGO/CSO collaboration, stakeholder participation.

• For the Institutional Expert , the candidate shall have at least a master’s degree, pref-erably in business/public administration, management, social sciences, development studies, or engineering. A minimum of 10 years of professional experience in Manage-ment Consulting covering institutional development, programme planning and manage-ment, governance programming, and monitoring and evaluation, at the national and in-ternational levels. Knowledge of results-based approaches shall be an asset. Specific experience in the water sector is essential.

9.3 Level of Effort

9.3.1 It is expected that the overall level of effort will involve the Team Leader for 14 weeks and each of the other two specialists for 12 weeks, for a total of 38 person weeks.



H.3.10. Annex A

AWF Background Documents

1. Instrument Establishing the AWF

2. AWF Operational Procedures

3. Operational Programme 2005 to 2009

4. Operational Programme 2008-2010, and update for 2009-2011

5. Operational Strategy

6. Resource Mobilization Strategy

7. Communication Strategy

8. Annual Reports 2006, 2007, 2008

9. Appraisal Reports of projects approved

The AWF will also provide assistance in sourcing background documents on the AfDB, such as the Bank’s various policy and procedural documentation, and those related to Africa’s water agenda.

H.4. Methodological aspects

H.4.1. Work plan

a) Phase 1: Desk Study within AWF

The consultant has visited the AWF Offices at the AfDB in Tunis for review and discussions as well as preparation of the present Preliminary Report.

Inception Meeting

The consultant proposes to organise an inception meeting in Tunis to launch the activities: key stakeholders and key informants for the assignment will be invited to this meeting. It is also intended that such an event would facilitate access to all Bank executives, enable the team to present the main activities and detail the expectations of all the participants.

Note: Due to time constraints linked to the second African Water Week in South Africa, in-ception meeting was organized at the level of OWAS on the first day of the consultant’s stay in Tunis. Information gaps have been completed later on during the visit through direct inter-views of key informants and stakeholders within the AfDB (see list in Annexes).

Desk Review of Available Documentation

The desk review includes a review of the existing literature: sector documents together with Bank indicators and internal documents that are made available (Instrument Establishing the AWF, Operational Procedures, Strategy and Programmes, Annual Reports, AfDB policy and procedural documentation, Minutes of Governing Councils, Supporting Documents related to the screening, evaluation, preparation and implementation phases).

The review at the desk level intends to cover all 51 approved projects, with the four com-pleted projects and the dozen that are nearing completion receiving critical attention to as-sess the impact and lessons learnt. The review encompasses:



• Operational aspects: data about existing projects to enable the consultant to build a good knowledge of AWF’s portfolio and propose a selection;

• Internal aspects: financial data, human resources analysis – at this stage the main part of the organizational assessment will be carried out.

Note: To carry out this desk review, the consultant has benefited from the improvement in the way the AWF is now following up screening, evaluation and implementation of projects. A project matrix has been proposed for the AWF task managers to help filling up the missing information that is considered as necessary for the review of the portfolio. The matrix is al-most completed and exchanges will continue after the submission of this report. The com-prehensive review of the portfolio will appear in the draft report.

Interviews with AWF staff and key AfDB representati ves (done)

During the consultant’s stay in Tunis, more than 20 meetings have been held with AWF and AfDB staff, in the form of semi-structured interviews. Thanks to efforts deployed by the AWF management, the consultant managed to meet all the key players in the history of the Facil-ity (former directors and coordinators) – that was a very important point to better understand the historical background and the earlier years of the Facility.

Preparation and Presentation of Revised Work Plan a nd Detailed Methodology

Meetings have been held with AWF management in Tunis to present the methodology pro-posed by the consultants for Phase 2. In particular feedback has been obtained on:

• Selection of projects to visit;

• Selection of AWF donors to visit;

• Final work plan: the List of Indicators to be used, the Guidelines developed for inter-views, Methodology of field assessments and so forth.

Products: Preliminary Report and Revised Work Plan

According to the negotiation meeting in October, the inception report has been turned into a Preliminary Report, focusing not only on work plan and methodology, but also presenting ini-tial findings and preliminary conclusions. This was decided and agreed between the con-sultant and the AWF in order to present a more advanced piece of work at the Governing Council that will be held in Nouakchott at the end of November.

b) Phase 2A: Field Assessment

Preparation of Field Visits

This preparation phase is essential considering the number of Field Visits proposed: 12 field visits in total: 8 visits to Projects (5 selected country and 3 multi country/regional organisa-tions supported or to be supported by the AWF) and 3 visits to donors.

Visit to AMCOW’s secretariat has been considered as optional considering that the visit can-not be coupled with a project visit in Nigeria and that it might be easier to try to meet AMCOW’s executive secretary somewhere else than in Abuja, for instance during the Gov-erning Council in Nouakchott (this option still needs to be confirmed).

Preparation will involve:

• Drafting interview guidelines (the guidelines will constitute a stand-alone product to be submitted a few weeks before the country visits actually start);

• Setting up of time schedule, logistics and interviews (with clerical assistance from the AWF secretariat and in some cases AfDB country office).



Key informants will include: AWF Governing Council members, the various donors and po-tential donors to the Facility, African Regional Member Countries that the AWF is mandated to support, AMCOW, African Union/NEPAD and UN Water/Africa representatives.

Implementation of Field Visits

Note: For the selection of projects to be visited: see below the consultant’s proposal. The list presented in this report has been discussed with AWF management and country visits are starting to be planned according to this list and the schedule below.

The consultant proposes to spread the duration of the visits are planning on the basis of 11 weeks in order to ensure that all the key informants are available for interview and to allow proper preparation of the visits in close cooperation with AWF and AfDB.

All visits will be done by one expert (since all the experts proposed to undertake this assign-ment have a similar experience in project evaluation). Missions will be optimized by coupling 2 project visits within the same trip, as far as possible.

Products: Debriefing Notes

Within 1 week of returning from each field visit, the consultant will draft a quick debriefing note outlining the agenda of the mission and the main preliminary results. This is intended to give AWF an overview of the works carried out before the final report. Outline and format of these notes will be discussed with the AWF in order to ease the discussion between the consultant and the AWF staff after each country visit.

c) Phase 2B: Consensus Building

In addition to what was initially planned, the consultant proposes to organize a workshop (or better, a retreat) in Tunis, when most country visits are completed and before starting phase 3 as such. The objective of this additional workshop is to build consensus not only on the main conclusions that will arise from the project visits and the on-going analysis or AWF pro-jects and procedures, but also on the recommendations. Suggested duration for the work-shop is one day and a half, including a whole day with only the AWF team and the consult-ant, in a retreat-formatted workshop (if possible organized outside of AWF premises).

d) Phase 3: Final Report

Preparation of the Draft Version of the Report

3 weeks of desk work will be provided for the analysis and compilation of all the results of the field visits and interviews. The content of the final report will be based on the results of the assessment and a suggestion of improvements/recommendations. The use of analytical tools will permit comparisons across the projects.

Presentation and Delivering of Draft Report

It is proposed that a draft version of the report be delivered at a meeting in Tunis. All key stakeholders will be invited for an oral presentation of the report (power point). This will en-able AWF staff to ask questions and will enable the consultant to collect the initial feedback.

Depending on the Effectiveness Assessment Committee’s wish, this meeting can be formal-ized under the format of a Workshop, open to more participants. This modality will be de-termined by the AWF, which will be responsible for its organization if chosen.

Preparation of the Final Version of the Report

After receiving comments on the draft report from AWF, 2 weeks of desk work will be allo-cated to insert the comments and otherwise adapt the report and produce the final version of



the report that will then be sent to AWF. Executive summary will also be written to ensure maximum dissemination to the outcomes and conclusions of the assessment.

The deliverables will be produced in French and in English, but the Consultant plans to pro-duce a final version of the report in both languages in order to guarantee good diffusion of the results and to maximize the impact of the assessment.

H.4.2. Selection of projects to be surveyed

a) Criteria taken into account

As per the ToRs, key criteria to be taken into account to select projects were:

• The project size (amount of the grant disbursed by the Facility)

• The geographical coverage (country alone or multi country project)

• Level of completion (only completed or nearly completed projects)

• The geographical diversity in terms of AMCOW regions

• The diversity in terms of types of projects (TWRM, NRWM, WSS, etc.)

The objective was to select 8 projects while keeping a reasonable balance between the 5 criteria listed above. Based on an initial analysis of the AWF portfolio, the consultant pre-pared a tentative list that was presented and discussed during the GC meeting in Nouak-chott in December 2009. Adjustments were suggested and taken into account after being approved by the AWF management. The final list of projects surveyed by the consultant is therefore quite different from the list that was included in the ToRs (see table below).



b) Final list of surveyed projects

Table 23: Final list of surveyed projects

Country Project nameGrant

amountCategory

AMCOW Sub Region

Status Type of project

Burkina Faso Support to the creation of the Volta Basin Authority 165 000 Multinational West CompletedIWRM Capacity building River

basin Authority

Congo BrazzavilleSupport to a water supply and sanitation policy and priority

investments preparation in Brazzaville and Pointe Noire1 418 235 Single country Central

Under Implementation

WSS urban areas project preparation

EthiopiaSupport to the Development of Water Information and

Knowledge Management Systems in Ethiopia500 000 Single country East


IWRM Knowledge management

KenyaLake Victoria Basin commission

Water & Sanitation Initiative 994 000 Multinational East


WSS urban areas project preparation

MozambiquePreparation of the National Rural Water Supply and Sanitation

Programme486 233 Single country South Completed

WSS rural areas project preparation

NigerSupport to the Niger-HYCOS Project (information system for the

monitoring of water resources in the Niger basin)1 200 000 Multinational West


TWRM Knowledge management

TunisGeo-Aquifer: North-Western Sahara Aquifer System water

resources management improvement using satellite imagery487 800 Multinational North


TWRM Knowledge management

UgandaImplementation of an Integrated Project of Water Supply and

Sanitation Services for the Urban Poor - Kampala800 000 Single country East


WSS urban areas pilot project

Source: AWF portfolio and data collected by the consultant. If it is a multinational project, the AMCOW sub region is determined as the sub region

to which belongs the country where the headquarters of the project implementing agency are located.



H.5. Report of the Pretoria workshop The African Water Facility organized a stakeholder consultation workshop in Pretoria on April 26 and 27. The consultant (HYDROCONSEIL/WEDC) drafted a discussion paper and presented the preliminary findings and recommendations. This annex contains the report of the workshop in its entirety, as drafted by the consultant and reviewed by the Facility.

H.5.1. Introduction The African Water Facility organized a workshop in Pretoria, South Africa from 26 to 27 April 2010 to discuss the Operations Review and Institutional Assessment of the Facility. The aim of the workshop was to enable key stakeholders and partners of the AWF to contribute to the ongoing effectiveness assessment of the Facility.

The workshop was attended by 19 participants including members of the Technical Advisory Committee of the African Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW TAC), African Network of Civil Society Organizations ANEW, UN-Water Africa, beneficiaries of AWF grants, donors representative, AfDB and AWF. It was co-chaired by Mr. Sering Jallow, Officer in Charge, AWF and Mr. Reginald Tekateka, Chair of AMCOW-TAC and facilitated by Mr. Peter Akari, AWF. The consultative workshop has been judged to be very successful and productive. The list of participants is attached as Annex I.

Presentations were made by Mr. Tefera Woudeneh on the AWF, by Mr. Peter Akari on the background and objectives of the Effectiveness Assessment review, and by Mr. Alain Morel on the findings and results of the review.

The presentations were followed by discussions and group sessions (Group 1 on operational issues and Group 2 on institutional issues). The main points discussed and the proposals made during the group sessions are respectively presented in sections 2 and 3 below.

H.5.2. Main points discussed

a) Portfolio

Currently that Facility has 44 national project in 34 Africa countries and 18 regional and con-tinental projects for multinational benefits. In West Africa, 9 of the 16 countries have AWF projects. It appeared that more countries in West African countries should benefit from the AWF. This is also the case in other regions, but the AWF is a demand driven facility, with the added responsibility of trying to keep a balance on geographical spread, and does not want to raise too much expectation by undertaking excessive promotion in view of the limited resources available to it. It is observed the geographical spread of projects is improving and is better than two years ago. By covering all Africa, it is also important to pay particular at-tention to the needs of fragile states. Ensuring regional as well as thematic balance requires adequate, predicable and sustained resources availability.

b) Civil Society Organizations

The African Water Facility should be careful to finance only projects that are in line with the national objectives and strategy on the sector. In some cases, there are CSO organizations endorsing the national sector approach, but developing other approaches on their own. The need for the African Water Facility to finance CSO organizations is not questioned as CSOs have an important role to play in the sector. However they should contribute better in sector coordination, knowledge development and M&E issues. They also need to improve and



make sure the NGOs receiving AWF funding are financing projects that are in line with na-tional or regional policies and strategies.

c) Leverage effect

The projects should include from their preparation stage a mechanism to identify potential financing leverage effect, and prepare and support their development.

d) Operational strategy

In terms of projects screening, size and range of projects might need to be reviewed and ad-justed to make sure the lessons learned can be used to influence and guide sector strategy development. For project preparation, lots of efforts are being made by the AWF to assist beneficiaries in their project preparation and this is a major asset that should be continued and strengthened. To increase the number of projects in the portfolio on specific topics (fi-nance, M&E, I&K, hygiene and sanitation…), the idea of targeted calls for proposal is good, but the funds availability needs to be guaranteed.

Regarding project financing, the reduction of the AWF program from a fixed 5 years to a 3 years rolling program would not translate into reduction of the project duration. In terms of strategy rethinking, it is appropriate for the AWF to consider adapting its strategy to match better the Sharm El Sheik commitments. Specific recommendations where AWF has com-parative advantage should be selected, since there are many commitments in the declara-tion. A matrix of areas AWF focus should be considered to assist in this process.

e) Knowledge management and communication

It is fundamental for the AWF to develop its knowledge management capacities. Knowledge management is not only about writing papers; it is also about having internal mechanisms and capacities to draw interesting lessons from projects, shape and package the information and disseminate it in various ways. It also means participating actively with strong contribu-tions to the international debate on the water and sanitation sector development. The AWF needs also to showcase what is its added-value (project preparation, appraisal, implementa-tion results, themes covered…) and explain better what it offers to beneficiaries.

f) Resource mobilization

Resource mobilization is a difficult task that requires specific efforts and dedicated human resource. In this regard, a resource mobilization officer position has already been created. There is also need for the AWF to look at resource mobilization in a different manner. The resource mobilization strategy should consider all sources of funding, including traditional donors (OECD zone), USA, but also other donors (Arab and Asian development partners), African resources (AMCOW’s members), as well as private foundations (Gates, Coca-Cola…). It is important also in the resource mobilization strategy to utilize AMCOW’s high profile to attract funds. A round table of donors will be organized in 2010, and “nontradi-tional” donors will be considered.

On the side of traditional donors, EU, Spain, Austria and Norway have indicated at the 9th Governing Council Meeting held in Nouakchott, Mauritania on 30 Nov to 1 Dec, their willing-ness to consider support beyond current commitments. There is a need to sensitize donors that developing WSS and WRM sectors is not a short term objective, and it needs continuity and sustainability in action. It needs therefore visibility, perspectives and sustainability in funding. Donors should consider this aspect and work on longer term financing.

g) Staffing

Four new positions have already been approved and recruitment is already ongoing: re-source mobilization officer, communication officer, procurement officer and knowledge man-



agement officer. A fifth position is considered as AWF liaison officer to be assigned to the AMCOW secretariat. It might be possible to consider merging the two positions of liaison officer and resource mobilization officer, but this would suppose working at both the AWF and in Abuja (AMCOW secretariat), which needs proper balance in input and time allocation.

Regarding field staffing, it is difficult to develop that in the short term, but as a first step, AWF should draw more on extra resources from the AfDB operations departments and field offices. In Tunis, the high turnover of Technical Assistants (TA) is a big constraint to AWF operations, and if there is no possibility to make exceptions for TA to stay for longer periods (presently maximum 4 years), an increase in staff directly recruited by the AWF needs to be considered. Regarding management, the proposal by the consultant to have a Director posi-tion dedicated to the AWF should be based on facts and evidence that it would bring benefits as well as growth of the Facility. It should also be viewed in line with the arrangements for other similar Initiatives / Trust Funds hosted by the Bank. Nevertheless the Bank should quickly fill the current vacancies of both the AWF Director and Coordinator.

h) AWF presence in the field

As a first step, AWF could make better use of synergies and additional resources from the AfDB (Field Country Offices and Operations Departments) for project implementation and supervision. This development should be kept within the AfDB, and aligned with AMCOW regional committees. The presence of AWF in the field will increase its availability of support to address difficulties met by local partners and implementing agencies regarding adminis-trative procedures, procurement and disbursement, AfDB requirements.

i) Ministerial representation of AMCOW in AWF Governing Council

AMCOW’s efficiency and therefore partnership with AWF is affected by the frequent changes of ministers in charge of water. This is an issue, and a way to address the problem is to push the role of technical advisors to assist and work with ministers. It is also ques-tioned if the AMCOW representatives at the Governing Council should be ministers or tech-nical persons who are experts in the sector. The ministers’ presence gives profile to the meeting and forces other members to send high level representatives. In general the re-quirement of GC of procedures that ‘members of the Governing Council shall at all times be senior officials with the authority to take decisions on any matter before the Governing Council and that each member shall have an alternate who shall participate in meetings in the absence of the substantive member’ should be adhered to. The question of adequate preparation of ministers as well as donors participating could be solved by organizing back-to-back preparations meeting before the GC meeting. Regarding ministers’ participation in AWF meetings, it is also felt that ministers should consider covering their cost for participa-tion, to demonstrate better commitment and ownership.

H.5.3. Proposals for priority actions from the working groups

a) Group 1: Proposals on how to improve AWF operations

Question 1: Identify the need for refocusing of the Operational strategy and list main themes to bring it in line with the regional commit ments including knowledge man-agement

Taking into account the limited financial and human resources capacity of AWF, focus should be put on:

1. Continued support under the four operational pillars, working within the framework of national and regional needs, policies and strategies and avoid activities where national governments are better placed and resourced to implement;



2. The Sharm El Sheikh and later commitments and use the high level political commit-ments to leverage for support to galvanise political support in dealing with core national and regional challenges;

3. Review what others are doing to avoid duplications.

Regarding priority themes, the overall goal and the four pillars of the AWF are still valid in particular:

1. Water Resources Management, including transboundary, surface and ground water and climate change vulnerability

2. Strengthening partnerships and capacity building of key actors

3. Knowledge management (generation information, packaging and dissemination)

4. Strengthening the financial base

5. Supporting the monitoring and reporting of the achievement of MDG targets for water including WSS and responding to the areas with the biggest gap, including fragile states

6. Promoting innovations and scaling up

7. Issues of sustainability equity and gender issues are cross cutting and each project will be tested on these issues

Question 2: What are the priority actions to make p rojects preparation and implemen-tation more effective?

Priority actions are:

1. Enhance the role of AMCOW TAC in creating awareness on AWF support for national project identification and implementation

2. Provide training beneficiaries in application process and Continue to assist countries to prepare projects

3. Enhance and strengthen the use of expertise from the Bank Departments and Field Offices to support AWF operations particularly project supervision and monitoring

4. Create/forge stronger Partnerships with key player in the sector: Building synergies; sharing resources/expertise; Capacity building etc.

5. Potential for leveraging effects should be included in the selection criteria for new pro-jects and follow-up actions

Question 3: What the AWF should do to better answer the needs of beneficiaries?

1. AWF to be more proactive and generate demand in some key strategic areas

2. Doing more in fragile states in a more systematic and structured way

3. Using the Bank structures more effectively. Strengthen relationships

4. Flexibility and turn around time for the facility should be maintained

5. Support and capacity building of application process should be maintained

6. Partnerships with AMCOW partners. Develop a directory of service providers/partners.

Question 4: What are the priority actions to improv e supervision and monitoring of projects implementation?

1. Effective usage of AfDB sector departments and field offices to provide support



2. Managing knowledge and building the capacity, system and mechanism to capture relevant information and sharing

3. Outsourcing-using local capacities including Civil Society Organisations, private sector

4. Strengthening the result based M+E framework at project and programme level

5. Review the human resource development plan in line with the current level of opera-tions and potential future growth scenarios (to include all aspects)

Result based Monitoring and Evaluation system strengthening to include the following:

• Developing a manual – with clear roles for different actors

• Stronger involvement of private sector/CSO to monitor project outputs

• Finalize the M+E framework developed by the AWF and support implementation that links with national reporting mechanisms

• Develop EA capacity to monitor projects and preparation of reports

• Developing a more structured relationship with key actors (ANEW/ANBO/GWP)

b) Group 2: Proposals on how to improve AWF institutional arrangement

Question 1: What are the priority actions to improv e cooperation with AMCOW and partner organizations?

1. Raise awareness in the 5 AMCOW regions on AWF activities

2. Develop a clear terms of reference of the 10 TAC members appointed by AMCOW to work on AWF issues

3. Secondment of a qualified liaison officer from the AWF to be in the AMCOW Secre-tariat to focus on AWF issues and give technical support to AMCOW

Question 2: What are the priority actions to improv e resource mobilization?

1. AMCOW Secretariat, supported by the AWF liaison officer / resource mobilization offi-cer, to follow up on AMCOW contributions from its members to AWF

2. Implement the decision by the G.C to recruit a resource mobilization expert (to be based in AWF) to support AMCOW in the implementation of the existing Resource Mobilization Strategy

3. AWF/AMCOW to organize a donors round table meeting on resource mobilization

4. AWF/AMCOW to use the Goodwill Ambassador, the Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, for resource mobilization.

Question 3: What are the priority actions for AWF t o get closer to beneficiaries?

1. The AWF to build on existing synergies with the other operational departments of the Bank (AfDB) in improving project implementation

2. Build stronger linkages with other partners such as RECs and Ministers responsible for water/hygiene/sanitation

3. Implement AWF strategy, including establishing a quarterly/monthly Newsletter which shall be disseminated in hard copies as well as in its website to different categories of beneficiaries

Question 4: What are the key components of an effec tive knowledge management AWF action plan?



1. Bring on board expert/s in knowledge management to the AWF

2. Extract knowledge from ongoing projects, build components for knowledge generation for new projects and document good practices for dissemination and replication in oth-er future projects

3. Knowledge management expert to work closely with the communication expert to de-velop and implement knowledge dissemination strategy.

Question 5: Should AMCOW be represented by Minister s in the G.C of the AWF?

Yes, because:

• They are policy making authorities in the sectors backed by the technocrats,

• They send the right message to donors on the high level commitments in the sector,

• Removing them from the G.C might send a signal of less commitment to donors

H.5.4. Conclusion The workshop discussions were very rich, with contributions from all participants, which demonstrate the keen interest of all parties in AWF’s future. The meeting concluded that the recommendations made during the workshop should be incorporated in the consultant report on the assessment, to be presented to the AfDB and the AWF Governing Council.

H.5.5. List of Participants

Names Country Institution E-mail address

1) Mr. Reginald Tekateka South Africa AMCOW TAC (current Chair)

[email protected]

2) Mr. Lutfi Ali Madi Libya AMCOW TAC [email protected]

3) Mrs. Felizmina Antia Mozambique AMCOW TAC [email protected]

4) Mr. Valdemiro Matavela Mozambique AMCOW TAC [email protected]

5) Mr. Teshome Yeshaneh Ethiopia UN Water Africa [email protected]

6) Mr. Daniel Adom Ghana UN Water Africa [email protected]

7) Ms. Jamillah Mwanjisi Kenya ANEW [email protected]

8) Mr. Gerald Eder Austria Austrian Aid [email protected] [email protected]

9) Dr. Cox Sempebwa Uganda ANEW [email protected] [email protected]

10) Mr. N’Guessan Michel Bi Tozan

Côte d’Ivoire AMCOW TAC [email protected] [email protected]

11) Mr. Abibou Ciss Burkina Faso 2iE – AWF Project Coordinator

[email protected]



Names Country Institution E-mail address

12) Mrs. Ndina Nashipili Namibia MAWF – AWF Project Coord.

[email protected] [email protected]

13) Mr. Usman C. Conteh Sierra Leone AMCOW TAC [email protected]

14) Mr. Alain Morel France Consultant [email protected]

15) Mr. Freddie Kwesiga Zambia ResRep AfDB [email protected]

16) Mr. Sering Jallow Tunisia OIC OWAS/AWF [email protected]

17) Mr. Tefera Woudeneh Tunisia OIC AWF [email protected]

18) Mr. Peter Akari Tunisia AWF – Chief of Water Policy

[email protected]

19) Mrs. Germaine Diah Tunisia Assistant AWF [email protected]

H.6. Projects assessment report (separate vol-ume)