Measuring sustainable delivery of water, sanitation and hygiene services at the household level: does the measure matter?

Abstract

Water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) are at the very core of sustainable development. As we embark on a new round of global goals to follow the 15 year Millennium Development Goals period, namely the Sustainable Development Goals, a top priority is to address a coherent framework for monitoring these services. In coming years, the sector will witness the development of a variety of multidimensional monitoring measures, albeit from different perspectives. This paper reviews three different multidimensional approaches that are increasingly adopted to determine the level of service delivered at the household. At the global level, a ladder approach to monitoring has been promoted by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme. Alternatively, the use of aggregated indicators is widespread, as they are adequate to capture and simplify the complexity inherent in services delivery. Finally, the Alkire & Foster methodology for multidimensional poverty measurement has been extensively used for pro-poor targeting. We adapt this method to capture a set of direct household-related water and sanitation deprivations that batter a person at the same time. Taking the international post-2015 monitoring framework as a reference point, this article analyses these measures and their outcomes. For illustrative purposes, one small town in Mozambique is selected as initial case study. We conclude that multidimensional measures are needed to provide a complete picture of the context in which the WaSH services are delivered. In consequence, they are useful to report on the SDG monitoring architecture.