Sustainability Planning and Monitoring

ORGANIZING AND INTERPRETING THE DATAparticipants think about the outcomes and discusstheir implications for the project/program. Whatdo the emerging consensus/divergence of views/patterns mean? What do they say about thestrengths and weaknesses in the agencies? Isanything surprising? To whom? Why? What arethe implications for further exploration? For furtheraction for improvement? Who should do what?Facilitators use such questions to generate a groupdiscussion. When inter-category sensitivities areanticipated, the discussion is held in several small,homogenous groups where people feel morecomfortable in expressing their opinions. Cofacilitatorsthen bring the results from all thegroups to the plenary. Summarizing groupresponses on cards helps focus this presentationand makes it easier to record results later.At the plenary, if a consensus seems to emergefrom the above discussion about the overall scoreto be assigned, it is recorded on a largescoreboard. This is done in a graphic way showingeach achieved score against the maximum possiblescore, to enable visual monitoring of theassessment activity as it progresses from oneexercise to the next. If consensus is not achieved,the differing scores are recorded as such, markingthem with the names of categories whoseassessments they represent. The group then movesto the next exercise.At the end of all the assessments, the finalscoreboard is presented to the whole group. Theyuse it to identify and jointly rank areas ofinstitutional strengths and weaknesses, in termsof support for sustainability and equity in theoutcomes of water supply and sanitationinterventions made by the institution.Facilitators generate a plenary discussion on whatcan be done to build on the strengths and improveon the areas of weaknesses. The participantsdiscuss, agree on and record implications foraction needed at each of the three levels: thecommunity, sector agency/institution, andpolicymaking. Scores and actions agreed uponare recorded for future monitoring of progress bythe participating stakeholders and for presentationat the next assessment level, the policy analysisdialogue.5.7 Policy analysisThe analysis of sector or agency policies can bedone through a half-day workshop with high levelpolicy formulators and national directors ofprojects, using a process similar to stakeholders’meetings. An alternative is to interview key officialsat times convenient to them and then gather themfor a presentation and discussion of a summaryof interview results. If the interview option is chosen(see Chapter 6), the results are also discussedwith the interviewees as the interview progresses.This serves as a joint analysis of findings on thelinks between policies and results on the ground,although it is limited to the participants in eachseparate interview. If the more participatoryworkshop option is chosen, the final score boardarrived at will depict the seven aspects assessed(see example in Figure 9). The scores depicted inthe bars represent the participants’ assessment ofthe extent to which different aspects of current sectorpolicies are supportive of gender- and povertysensitivedemand-responsive approaches.Scores from more than one project may be usedtogether as all projects operating within the sametime frame in a country are implemented underthe same sector policies. Comparing severalprojects make the participatory policy analysis amore potent instrument of change. In the examplein Figure 9, both projects came across as weakon their vision with respect to gender. This wasrelated to the lack of clarity in policies at the timeabout why or how gender was important. In thenext step, the group of participating policymakers58