A lot of things are important when it comes to creating a monitoring system. Not everything, however, is possible. Through my work, I’ve found that people are generally great at appreciating the former, often less great at appreciating the latter.
“What’s Important”
There are a lot of things people want to know about water access. As a result, most monitoring systems end up pretty bloated. Sit in a room full of water-sector people, and ask what data should be collected. Expect to be overwhelmed. The following diagram shows some common requests.
Figure 1 – A (small) selection of commonly requested waterpoint monitoring indicators.
“What’s Possible”
This is where it gets harder. You could make a great water access monitoring system by attaching radio-signal emitting flow-rate censors to every tap and boreholes in the country. Would it work though? Could you afford it? Of course not. And what’s true for radio-signal emitting flow-rate censors (a technology I may have just invented for the sake of this post) is also true of much more commonly requested indicators.
Figure 2 – Some of the reasons why not everything that’s important is possible.
Next Step – Know What You Want to Do
“What’s Possible” changes immensely depending on what you’re trying to do. If you’re trying to do a one-time survey for policy/research purposes, a lot is possible. In a one-time survey, with enough money, you can collect almost any data.
If you’re an NGO trying to monitor your own programs, a lot is usually possible as well. NGOs typically have relatively few waterpoints that they’re trying to monitor, and have a lot more money to play with than government.
However, if you’re working with government, trying to help them set up their own monitoring systems, you probably want to be careful. Local level governments (which is who are usually responsible for monitoring ) are generally subject to a lot of constraints. Money, incentives, staffing levels, technical capacity – all of these things can dramatically limit what you can do with a monitoring system.
Gratuitous Photo 1: The Temple of Apollo which housed the Delphic Oracle – “Know Thyself” (source: Wikipedia)
A lot of unrealistic monitoring system implementation is attempted because people confuse what they’re trying to do. So know yourself, know what you’re trying to do. If you want a lot of data, do a survey – but don’t try to take a survey-amount of data and cram it into a government monitoring system. It usually doesn’t work.
Monitoring at the Intersection
Generally, I think the concept that “the proof is in the pudding” works well here. A very good way to guarantee from the beginning that a government waterpoint monitoring system is at least possible is to have government staff at the helm from the beginning. This means relying on them to do the work, and to fund it. If they can’t implement the system initially, with your technical support, then it’s unlikely to be sustainable anyways.
Think about it – if the system is failing even while still enjoying your technical support, than the challenges probably aren’t technical; more likely the issue is that people aren’t incentivized to do the work, they can’t afford to fund the system, or they just don’t care about it. Either way, something is fundamentally off. But if you fund it and do the work, hoping government will take over after, you may only learn the truth once it’s too late. So have government fund the system, and do the work from the beginning.
Many of the challenges with sustaining waterpoint monitoring systems in Africa come from the lack of appreciation for “what’s possible”. Developing a monitoring system based solely on what you think is important is like developing a product without thinking about whether your customers want it or can afford it – it’s an incomplete strategy. But it happens all to often. Here’s to hoping that this approach will eventually change.
