Evidence Review Summary Findings

Results: What the evidence tells us

• 80% of articles associate positive outcomes for water sector governance with accountability and advocacy interventions (e.g. improved operations)

• 32% of articles found positive impacts (e.g. more people using safe water services)

A diverse set of 28 factors are associated with the performance of accountability and advocacy interventions.

• Most frequently associated with positive outcomes were:

  • A constructive approach (37 papers)

  • Training, human resource availability and professionalism (28)

  • Leadership and champions (28)

  • Taking a strategic approach (27)

  • Good public communications (23)

  • Dialogue and convening (23)

  • High levels of trust and legitimacy (21)

• Most frequently associated with negative or no outcome were:

  • A poor understanding of community and power dynamics (28)

  • Ambiguous institutional responsibilities (17)

  • Weak inter-agency accountability (17)

  • A challenging water use context (17)

  • Limited financial resources (16)

  • Low levels of trust and legitimacy (15)

Theory of Change

These factors have been classified depending on whether they are internal to the intervention, external, comprising the operational context for the intervention, or at the interface between these two. This analysis of the evidence supported the development of a theory of change, presented below, to explain the many complex pathways from accountability and advocacy interventions to outcomes and impacts.