Examples of advisory missions
Updated - Monday 13 July 2009
Short advisory assignments included:
- West Africa: Financing mechanisms for ECOWAS;
- Global: Support to definition of SNV water programme worldwide;
- Bangladesh: Appraisal of DANIDA WatSan programme;
- Cape Verde: Pricing reform;
- Niger: Participatory evaluation of PLAN Nederland's WASH programme;
- Finland: FINNIDA policy;
- India: Contribution to sector reform
West Africa: Financing mechanisms for ECOWAS (January 2006)
According to a study by the EU Water Initiative finance working group, the information gap on available financing mechanisms for the water sector is considerable. As a contribution to bridging this gap, The Water Resources Economic Unit of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) asked IRC to investigate financing mechanisms applicable for organisations – both governmental and non-governmental – and individuals based in the ECOWAS community of countries.
IRC has collected information, contacted organisations and compiled a guide listing over 80 financing mechanisms with a particular focus on four sub-sectors: 1) Water supply and sanitation 2) Integrated Water Resource Management 3) Wastewater management and 4) Irrigation.
The guide was approved by ECOWAS and will soon be available on the ECOWAS website.
Global: Support to definition of SNV water programme worldwide (August 2005)
SNV is one of the organisations that has been invited to contribute to the target of the Ministery for Development Cooperation to provide water and sanitation coverage for 50 million people. The mission consisted of 11 days of staff time to contribute to a framework proposal covering five countries and providing sustainable coverage for an estimated seven million people. The framework document concentrates on capacity building and not on direct investments through implementation of water supply and sanitation services as SNV’s current focus is on capacity building and local ownership in the context of decentralisation.
Bangladesh: Appraisal of DANIDA WatSan programme (May 2005)
Appraisal of DANIDA five-year WatSan programme in Bangladesh. Focus on: decentralized provision of watsan services, hygiene behaviour, community sanitation – March-May 2005.
Cape Verde: Pricing reform (March 2005)
Pricing reform of the five municipal water companies on the island of Santiago, Cape Verde. Establishment of a strategy for the tariff reform. Focus on institutional environment and tariff policy, the demand side, the supply side (financial management) – March 2005.
Niger: Participatory evaluation of PLAN Nederland's WASH programme (March 2005)
IRC was requested to carry out a participatory evaluation for the Water, Hygiene and Sanitation programme of PLAN Niger in the district of Dosso. The evaluation was carried out between November 2004 and March 2005. The programme under evaluation focused on community participation, community management and partnership with capacity building of local organisations. During this programme, relevant project programmes including the mid-term review reports were studied, and in-depth discussions with PLAN Nederland, the main donors of the project, were held. Based on this, the participatory tools and methods were proposed and further developed during the first mission. Two missions took place. The first mission was in Dosso, where a field team, composed of an independent national consultant and three Plan field staff members, were trained on-the-job in participatory evaluation methods. During the second mission a programmatic review was held to analyse the approach used by the programme, the stakeholder involvement and general efficiency of the programme. The evaluation also looked at to what extent the programme was gender- and poverty-sensitive as well as child-centred.
Finland: FINNIDA policy (2004)
Read the Finnida Water Policy. It includes a literature review, electronic conference and face-to-face meeting of Finland's contribution to water sector development, to ensure that this donor maximises its contribution to meeting the water supply and sanitation goals set by the international community for 2015.
India: Contribution to sector reform (2002)
Contribution to sector reform in India ; participation of the IRC and WEDC team in the process of sector reform in India may well be the most challenging advisory task of the year 2002. The Government of India, its Ministry of Rural Development and the Rajiv Ghandi National Drinking Water Mission, committed themselves to reforming the rural water supply and sanitation sector. Together with UNICEF they invited IRC to assist in this sector reform that seeks to put in place a decentralized framework throughout India to ensure sustainable, safe drinking water supply and effectively-used sanitation facilities with relevant hygiene behaviours. IRC supported the development of the capacity building strategy for this extraordinary undertaking. The approach selected combines motivation, skills creation and actually applying these skills. The development process included: strategic planning by senior leaders, detailed scoping studies in selected districts and initial training and motivation of some 200 key trainers/capacity builders.
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