Reflections on Water Witness’s Global Evidence Review. Part one: good inputs lead to good outputs.

Fountain in Peru: Credit: Gustavo Rios

As a WASH professional with lots of experience in capacity building, I always encourage trainees to reflect on publications and see how the evidence relates to them. I don’t work in advocacy, but this report still made me think. Here are a few of my thoughts.

What does the evidence tell me?

Reading the Evidence Review, one finding struck me. I was pleased to see that “training, human resource availability and professionalism” was the second highest ranked factor in the performance of accountability and advocacy interventions, after “a constructive approach”. Now I admit I’m biased. To a person with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To a specialist in WASH capacity building, everything looks like a training issue.  I would argue that a constructive approach is the result of professionalism and good training. So, I can see from this evidence that if you want good accountability, then good human resources should be your top priority.

Many other highly ranked factors are “outputs” such as leadership, good communications, good understanding of community dynamics or strategic approaches. How do we get these? well I would say through employing good, qualified staff., (but there again I am biased). “Difficult water and environment contexts” are challenge, but that just increases the level of expertise needed to deal with them. Even factors such as inadequate funding are (perhaps) partly due to the quality of staff in terms of applying for funds, presenting cases for budget increases and delivering work efficiently. Why invest in a sector that does not perform well?

So why doesn’t professionalism get more attention? Gender sensitivity and decentralisation are factors that were ranked much lower in determining a positive outcome, but I have far more reports on gender on my bookshelves than I do about WASH capacity building. “Ambiguous roles and responsibilities” is a lower ranked factor, yet there are many tools to help analyse the enabling environment, but not many tools to help analyse WASH training needs. If capacity is such a high ranked issue, surely it will feature in accountability interventions? Media campaigns, tracking funds, lobbying and asserting rights are worthwhile activities, but if you want to improve accountability and therefore improve services, why not take a short cut and just professionalise the sector?

So where is the evidence for professionalism?

Part of the issue is a lack of decent metrics for staff quality. Medics and teachers have well established qualification systems, but a Human Resource professional will have a challenge in identifying well-trained WASH staff. A person with an engineering degree may have never studied water and the chances of gender approaches being taught on their course are even lower. A social scientist may have a good awareness of gender issues, but can they relate these to toilet design or selecting a suitable solid waste management system? For nearly 200 years, engineering has been recognised as a profession in the UK, but even here people use the title “engineer” when they are not members of a professional association. How can we be accountable to communities when we cannot say if we are employing suitably qualified staff? Would this be acceptable for the medical profession? I do not want my dentist to learn “on the job”. Having a robust method of assessing quality would help support staff recruitment and career development. It would also hold organisations to account.

Time is an issue. It takes decades for quality training to show itself. Three or four years at college, a similar time learning to put that theory into practice. Another three or four years to gain experience and progress up the career ladder to a position where you can make decisions. It is only then that the result of many years of professional development begins to show. That is a big investment in time, effort and money , then somebody less (not?) qualified gets the job you applied for. For a donor wanting results in a couple of years, capacity building does not deliver. Even if there are investments in training, the benefits are initially accrued by the individual. They may move employer or even leave the sector, taking their skills with them. How can we justify an investment in a single person when the sector may not see the benefit? Conversely that investment lasts a (working) lifetime. Media campaigns do not.

Measuring quality

It’s not just an issue of training but quality training. If you can read this blog, you have probably been taught to read. That does not make you a teacher. Many WASH institutions will deliver training, but how many of the staff planning workshops and writing materials have ever studied how to train? They may know the topic, but that does not make them a trainer, any more than being able to read makes you a teacher. Spending time and money on pipes does not create a water supply – you need a suitable designer and builder. They will carry out surveys and monitor progress to make sure they get the system working. Spending time and money on training may give the illusion of capacity development, but without training needs assessments and assessing learning outcomes, we may just be left with a pile of used flip chart paper. One aspect of being a professional is knowing when you are not qualified to carry out a task. Borehole tests, willingness to pay surveys and water quality testing are specialist tasks that do need expertise beyond general knowledge of WASH. Should training be added to that list?

What does the evidence tell you?

This report has brought together many studies and reports in an attempt to deliver better water services. This underlying strand relating to professional staff is a welcome finding. I am biased. So are others. Economic specialists may just pick out the funding issues and policy wonks may only notice the institutional arrangements. The writers (who carried out the research) concluded that more research was needed. They are also biased – towards research. The data is there in the report, however. If you want “positive outcomes for water governance”, then invest in staff. You know they’re worth it.

Brian Reed is a freelance WASH capacity builder with over 30 years of experience in the sector.