2019 - WASH CLUSTERwashcluster.net/sites/default/files/2020/GWC-Annual-Report-2019-fin… · 3 abbreviation & acronyms gwc annual report 2019 / abbreviation & acronyms acf action

ANNUAL REPORT

2019

GLOBAL WASH CLUSTER MARCH 2020

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GWC Annual Report 2019 / CONTENTS

CONTENTS

ABBREVIATION & ACRONYMS 3

INTRODUCTION 5

1 GOVERNANCE 62 PROGRESS ON THE GLOBAL WASH CLUSTER STRATEGIC PLAN IMPLEMENTATION 8

Strategic Objective #1: Support to national humanitarian WASH coordination platforms 9Strategic Objective #2: Ensure that key WASH stakeholders have the capacity to coordinate and deliver emergency WASH response 15Strategic Objective # 3: Influence and advocate for an effective humanitarian WASH coordination response and funding 24Strategic Objective # 4: Provide humanitarian WASH actors a timely access to appropriate and accurate knowledge on coordination and response 26

3 PROGRESSES OF TECHNICAL WORKING GROUPS 29Cash and Market 29Assessment 31Quality of Response 32Operational Research 35Faecal Sludge Management 36

4 FINANCIAL ANALYSIS OF THE 2016-2020 GWC STRATEGIC PLAN IMPLEMENTATION 37Funding 37Allocation and Expenditures 38

5 FUNDING TRENDS OF WASH OPERATIONAL RESPONSES IN PRIORITY COUNTRIES 39Funding Sources 39Overall Funding Situation of Humanitarian WASH Responses 40Funding for WASH Operational Platforms in Priority Countries 40

CONCLUSION 41

ANNEXES 41

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ABBREVIATION & ACRONYMS

GWC Annual Report 2019 / ABBREVIATION & ACRONYMS

ACF ACTION CONTRE LA FAIM AAP ACCOUNTABILITY TO AFFECTED POPULATIONSBAT BOTTLENECK ANALYSIS TOOLCALP CASH AND LEARNING PARTNERSHIPCAR CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLICCAST CLUSTER ADVOCACY AND SUPPORT TEAMCCCM CAMP COORDINATION AND CAMP MANAGEMENTCCPM CLUSTER COORDINATION PERFORMANCE MONITORINGCDC CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTIONCISUR COMMONLY IMPLEMENTED SEVERLY UNDER RE SEARCHEDCLA CLUSTER LEAD AGENCYCTK CLUSTER TOOLKITCRS CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICESDRC DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGODSS DUTCH SURGE SUPPORTDTM DISPLACEMENT TRACKING MATRIXEAWAG/ SWISS FEDERAL INSTITUTE OF AQUATIC SCIENCE SANDEC AND TECHNOLOGY AND SWISS FEDERAL INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGYELHRA ENHANCED LEARNING AND RESEARCH FOR HUMANI- TARIAN ASSISTANCEEEHF EMERGENCY ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH FORUMEMOPS OFFICE OF EMERGENCY PROGRAMMESFST FIELD SUPPORT TEAMFTS FINANCIAL TRACKING SYSTEMFSM FAECAL SLUDGE MANAGEMENTGBV GENDER-BASED VIOLENCEGOLWIE GOVERNMENT-LED COORDINATION OF WASH IN EMERGENCIESGSC GLOBAL SHELTER CLUSTERGTFCC GLOBAL TASK FORCE ON CHOLERA CONTROLGTO GERMAN TOILET ORGANIZATIONGWC GLOBAL WASH CLUSTERGWC SP GLOBAL WASH CLUSTER STRATEGIC PLANHAR HUMANITARIAN ACTION REVIEWHIF HUMANITARIAN INNOVATION FUNDHNO HUMANITARIAN NEEDS OVERVIEWHPC HUMANITARIAN PROGRAMME CYCLEHRP HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE PLANIASC INTER-AGENCY STANDING COMMITTEE IAWG INTER-AGENCY WORKING GROUP IFRC INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE RED CROSSIM INFORMATION MANAGEMENTIMC INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CORPSIMO INFORMATION MANAGEMENT OFFICERIOM INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF MIGRATION

JOF JOINT OPERATIONAL FRAMEWORKJMP JOINT MONITORING PROGRAMMELAC LATIN AMERICA AND CARIBBEANMBP MARKET-BASED PROGRAMMINGMBPWIE MARKET-BASED PROGRAMMING WASH IN EMERGENCIESM&E MONITORING AND EVALUATIONMPC MULTI-PURPOSE CASHMR MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS MTR MID-TERM REVIEWMSF MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRESNCA NORWEIGAN CHURCH AIDNHWCP NATIONAL HUMANITARIAN WASH COORDINATIONPLATFORMNGO NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONSOCHA OFFICE OF COORDINATION AND HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRSOCV ORAL CHOLERA VACCINEPCA PROGRAMME COOPERATION AGREEMENTQAAP QUALITY ASSURANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECTQAAS QUALITY ASSURANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEMRRT RAPID RESPONSE TEAMSAG STRATEGIC ADVISORY GROUPSBP STANDBY PARTNERSDC SWISS AGENCY FOR DEVELOPMENT AND COOPERATIONSDG SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALSI SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONALSO STRATEGIC OBJECTIVESOF STRATEGIC OPERATION FRAMEWORKSWA SANITATION AND WATER FOR ALLTA TRANSFORMATIVE AGENDATOC THEORY OF CHANGETOR TERMS OF REFERENCETOT TRAINING OF TRAINERSTWIG TECHNICAL WORKING GROUPUNDAC UNITED NATIONS DISASTER ASSESSMENT AND COORDINATIONUNICEF UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN’S FUNDUNHCR UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEESURD GROUPE URGENCE RÉHABILITATION DÉVELOPPEMENTUSAID/OFDA UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSISTANCEWAC WEST AND CENTRAL AFRICAWASH WATER, SANITATION AND HYGIENEWCC WASH CLUSTER COORDINATORWHH WELTHUNGERHILFEWHO WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATIONWHS WORLD HUMANITARIAN SUMMITWOC WASH OPERATIONAL COORDINATIONWSI WATER SEVERITY INDEXWVI WORLD VISION INTERNATIONAL

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GWC Strategic Plan / INTRODUCTION

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INTRODUCTION

The Global Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Cluster (GWC) Annual Report for 2019 summarizes the key results achieved over the year, the key challenges faced in implementing the GWC Strategic Plan (SP) and recommends activities to overcome the challenges. The 2019 Annual Report follows the model established in the 2018 Annual Report. The priority activities are identified and listed in line with the new Result Framework defined by the GWC partners in 2019, defined by the Mid-Term Review (MTR) (see Annex 1).

The report is divided into four main sections:

1. Update on the governance of the GWC;

2. Progress on the GWC SP implementation, with a summary of the key achievements, main constraints in 2019 and priorities for 2020; 3. Update on the progress and main priorities of the GWC’s Technical Working Groups (TWiGs);

4. An analysis of the Funding Trends for the humanitarian WASH sector and WASH operational responses in priority countries.

GWC Annual Report 2019 / INTRODUCTION

PHOTO CREDITS:

© UNICEF/UN0145995/Schermbrucke (p.1)© UNICEF/UN0199488/Noorani (p.4)© UNICEF/UN055938/Gilbertson VI (p.6)© UNICEF/UN0139605/LeMoyne (p.11)© UNICEF/UN061567/Dejongh (p.23)© UNICEF/UN0145994/Schermbrucke (p.28)© UNICEF/UN061561/Dejongh (p.42)

https://washcluster.net/twigs

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1 GOVERNANCE

To date, the GWC is made of 77 full and associated members. The Cluster Advocacy and Support Team (CAST) was established to carry out the responsibilities of the Cluster Lead Agency (CLA), including leadership and operational support for the GWC. In addition, the Strategic Advisory Group (SAG) composed of nine members provides improved representation of WASH partners to the GWC. This includes four international non-governmental organizations (NGOs): Action Contre la Faim (ACF), Norweigan Church Aid (NCA), Solidarités International (SI), and Welthungerhilfe (WHH); two United Nations organizations: the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as the CLA and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR); one international organization, the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC); one representative of the National Cluster Coordinators: the State of Palestine; and one associated member: Red-R.

GWC Annual Report 2019 / 1 - GOVERNANCE

https://washcluster.net/about-us

https://washcluster.net/partners

https://washcluster.net/cast

https://washcluster.net/sag

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KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

• The GWC increased the number of partners with the addition of three non-governmental organizations (NGOs) demonstrating increased interest to join the GWC and the central role that it plays on information sharing and driving the sector agenda.

• Following recent discussions with WASH partners, several gaps and needs were identified in Fecal Sludge Management (FSM) in crisis. As a result, the GWC identified a need for a five-year to improve FSM, including improving knowledge management and sharing, and increased technical support for on-going and new emergen-cies. As a result, a TWiG was established with the aim of strengthening the WASH sector and WASH partners capacity to better respond to FSM needs in on-going and future crises.

• The new leader for the consortium of the Field Support Team (FST) was elected. Since 2017, the agency lead of the consortium has been NCA and will handover leadership on the 30th September 2020. A call of interest was conducted in 2019 to take over the leadership of the FST and ACF was unanimously selected by the GWC’s SAG. ACF will commence the role of the consortium leader of the FTS as of 1st October 2020 and are responsible for presenting a proposal to the United States Agency for International Development Office of Foreign Assistance (USAID/OFDA) for funding.

• The GWC has provided regular updates on new emergencies and information sharing the GWC’s SAG and partners. There have also been regular and on-going consultation with the GWC’s SAG for events like the GWC Annual Meeting and also the Inter-Agency WASH Group (IAWG) on the WASH Capacity Study. This has helped to reduce the divides within the sector and ensure that the GWC collectively represents the WASH sector and not only the WASH Cluster.

• The 24th GWC meeting was held from the 17th – 21st June 2019, with the participation of more than 120 experts in the WASH sector and 15 Emergency Directors, from the world’s most active and funded agencies, engaged in emergency WASH. The focus of the GWC meeting was exclusively on the capacity of the WASH Sector, and the “Capacity of the WASH Sector” study that was initiated by the GWC and IAWG initiated in collaboration with the Groupe Urgence Réhabilitation Développement (URD). The first two days were devoted to understanding the seriousness of the problem through sharing field experiences in Yemen, Bangladesh and Syria as well as through the capacity study findings. This was followed by group work that resulted in five recommen-dations to strengthen the WASH sector response capacity to humanitarian crisis, and presented to and endorsed by 15 Emergency Directors of organizations active in humanitarian WASH (during the High-level meeting). The accumulation of this process provides the basis for the strategic framework of the humanitarian Road Map for 2020 – 2025 to “Deliver Humanitarian WASH at scale, Anywhere and Any Time”, articulating how through collec-tive commitments and strategic engagement the humanitarian capacity of the WASH sector will be enhanced.

• The Emergency Environmental Health Forum (EEHF) was also held in June 2019, linked to the GWC meeting. This year’s theme was “Disease Outbreaks and Their Control” and aimed to share new research and learning; provide a forum to discuss new approaches and innovation in the sector; to bridge the silos between WASH and other humanitarian sectors, and to identify research gaps in the emergency environmental health sector.


https://www.urd.org/en/publication/report-of-the-study-on-the-capacity-of-the-wash-sector-to-respond-to-emergencies-2019/

https://washcluster.net/sites/default/files/WASH Sector Roadmap 2020-2025.pdf

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MAIN CONSTRAINTS

• Fundraising and contributions to support the efforts made by the GWC remain a challenge. This particularly impacts the ability to progress on key agenda points to move the WASH sector forward. Despite the willingness and interest by the GWC on this, the time allocated by WASH partners to support the key agenda points remains limited.

• An increased expectation of the GWC to move beyond the humanitarian architecture of coordination into influencing the policy for the WASH sector, i.e., humanitarian-development nexus and addressing broader technical issues. Despite increased interest by the GWC to contribute more broadly, the available resources (e.g., human resources and financial) are limited and not sufficient to address the needs required to take on this additional responsibility.

PRIORITIES FOR 2020

1. Consolidation of the diverse initiatives launched over the past few years will be priorities, particularly that of capacity development and advocacy for the WASH sector.

2. Preparation for the development of new GWC strategy which ends in 2020. It has been agreed by the GWC SAG that the GWC strategy should be aligned with the UNICEF strategy to better align fundraising efforts.

3. New members of the GWC SAG will be elected this year. This will involve a call for interest and a transparent election process.

4. The GWC will also play a crucial role in supporting the transition of the leadership of the consortium for the FST, which will shift from NCA to ACF as of 1st October 2020.

5. The GWC meeting will take place in Delft in November 2020. The theme of the meeting is the role of the pri-vate sector in humanitarian WASH response. The meeting with be hosted by the Dutch Surge Support (DSS).

6. The GWC will continue to strengthen key strategic collaboration, including partnerships with IAWG, the private sector and other clusters.


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2 PROGRESS ON THE GLOBAL WASH CLUSTER STRATEGIC PLAN IMPLEMENTATION

The monitoring framework of the GWC’s SP (see Annex 2) provides details on the different outcomes and outputs associated with each Strategic Objective (SO) and an indication of their achievement so far.

Strategic Objective #1: Support to national humanitarian WASH coordination platforms

In 2019, the WASH cluster approach was activated in three countries: Mozambique, Burkina Faso and Venezuela. The Field Support Team (FST) have been active in all three countries throughout 2019, supporting in technical areas including Coordination, Information Management and Assessment.

The FST, supervised by the GWC’s Cluster Advocacy and Support Team (CAST), and administratively managed through a consortium led by NCA remains the core mechanism of providing remote or deployable support to National Humanitarian WASH Cluster Platforms (NHWCP) - aimed to enhance national capacity to coordinate humanitarian preparedness and response - whether the cluster approach is activated or not.

The GWC’s FST is a consortium of partners from ACF, IMMAP, IMPACT, NCA, Oxfam GB and SI in close collaboration with UNICEF. The nine-person FST, with expertise in coordination, information management, assessments and preparedness, managed by the GWC CAST and hosted by one of the consortium members. The funding for the operational support of NHWCP in 2019, through the FST mechanism, is from a grant with USAID/OFDA, with supplementary support by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (specifically for salaries of three FST members). In addition, UNICEF provides operational support of the NHWCP through the management and coordination by a Senior WASH Cluster Coordinator (WCC) and a Senior Information Management Officer (IMO).

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

GWC Annual Report 2019 / 2 - PROGRESS ON THE GWC STRATEGIC PLAN IMPLEMENTATION

• The FST supported 17 countries through 29 deployments over a total of 1,409 days in 2019 (see Figure 1). Key highlights of the NHWCP operational support include:

• In Mozambique, due to the rapid-onset emergency support included two deployments of IMOs, one deployment of a sub-national Cluster Coordinator in Beira and assessment support via the REACH Initiative. During these deploy-ments the Information Management (IM) reporting mechanism, 4Ws, dashboards, contacts and analysis were set up covering four operational hubs for the response.

• In Burkina Faso, due to the ongoing deterioration of the crisis support by FST included the set-up of the IM systems and support to the new coordination structures through a deployment aim to provide coaching and mentoring by an IMO. Burkina Faso will continue to receive support in 2020.

• In Venezuela, due to the emerging crisis support included the establishment of a new cluster with the deployment of a WCC and an IMO. Training and remote support of StandBy Partners (SBPs) in coordination and IM were also provided.

https://washcluster.net/fst

https://washcluster.net/fst

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Support by the FST to NHWCP (see Figure 1) spans across key technical areas as follows:

• Coordination deployments: 13 deployments over a total of 747 days to 12 NHWCP were conducted. This includes support to the Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh/Cox Bazaar and a sub-national response in Sitwe, Myanmar. In addi-tion, support was provided to responding to Cyclone Idia in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. In the Sahel, the response was supported in Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria. Additional countries also received support, including Sudan, Cameroun and Syria. A planned deployment to support the cholera response in Yemen was cancelled due to challenges in obtaining the visas.

• Information Management deployments: 11 deployments over a total of 594 days to 10 NHWCP were conducted. The countries supported were the Cyclone Idai response in Mozambique and Zimbabwe and other deployments in Burkina Faso, Cameroun, Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Venezuela.

• Needs Assessment deployments and remote support: this ranged from light remote support to the implementation of needs assessments (in the field) for a total of 18 countries. Four countries benefited from deployments including Bangladesh, CAR, Mozambique and Somalia. In addition, 14 countries, including Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, CAR, DRC, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Mozambique, Myanmar, South Sudan, Sudan, Venezuela, and Yemen, received remote support for needs assessments related to activities including technical advice on methodology design and review of information management products. In Somalia, extensive support was provided through the deployment of dedicated staff to conduct assessments for the Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) and Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) processes. This included close collaboration with the NHWCP to improve the analysis framework and secondary data review, to carry out qualitative data collection to complement existing data sources, and support to deliver information management products. Through the partnership with the REACH Initiative, the GWC supported more than 15 needs assessments for the WASH sector and other initiatives such as the Infrastructure Mapping exercise in Bangladesh or the GWC’s Indicator Question Bank.

• FST support from 2015 – 2019: the FST has continuously provided support to NHWCP through coordination, assess-ment and IM. This includes a total of 2,894 days to support coordination, 560 days to support assessment and 3,038 days to support IM (see Annex 3).

• Remote Support and GWC Helpdesk (Skype group): a total of 23 countries were provided with remote support by the FST over a total of 812 days (35 days for assessment, 485 days for IM work and 292 days of support for WCC work-related issues)1. The GWC Skype group provides an opportunity for peer to peer support and reinforces linkag-es between global and national levels for coordination.

• Coordination Tool Kit (CTK): this is a toolkit that provides a way to rapidly access and broadly disseminates new coordination processes, such as needs assessment, cash transfer etc.). The CTK is also a tool that supports the two-day online GWC self-induction course provided for new coordination staff prior to deployment. It has been accessed by 1,113 visitors, with an average of 110 visitors per month, with 75 per cent of those as a repeat visitor. The pages most visited were coordination platform, humanitarian coordination system, Terms of Reference (ToR) and work plan. The first pages of the site are the most frequently visited currently. The other most visited page is related to needs assessment and reports. In addition, the section on the “Coordination team” has also been frequently visited, where the general ToRs for coordination staff can be found.provided.

1 This includes humanitarian coordination system, capacity development, coordination performance, needs assessment and analysis, primary data collection, gap analysis and advocacy.

https://www.reachresourcecentre.info/country/bangladesh/cycle/615/#cycle-615

https://washcluster.atlassian.net/wiki/download/attachments/10782065/2019 GWC Assessment Indicators Bank.xlsx?version=1&modificationDate=1558683031920&cacheVersion=1&api=v2

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2 This was one of the key findings from the Minimum Requirements (MR) Evaluation.

• National Cluster Coordinators Meeting: the meeting was held in Budapest in March 2019. The meeting brought together 17 WCCs and 7seven IMOs from 17 countries. The agenda focuses on key topics, including the WASH Co-ordination Capacity Building Framework and resources, Needs Assessments – tools and techniques particularly look-ing at, with a particular focus on the HNO analysis challenges and illustrated with examples from Syria and Bangla-desh; and the Quality of Response and, with updates on the Quality Assurance and Accountability Project (QAAP). The meeting highlighted two priorities for national coordination, including that Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) is the weakest performing core function in cluster activated countries , and the lack of clarity regarding the development of national WASH strategy, both as part of the annual Humanitarian Programme Cycle (HPC) and the comprehensive Strategic Operation Framework (SOF) processes.

• FST Face to Face Meeting and development of management tool: the meeting was also held in Budapest in March 2019. The aim of the meeting was to discuss FST management issues and agree on improved ways of working for the future. The use of multiple online tracking tools for the different types of FST activities (e.g. support requests, deployments, remote support, capacity development and training, project indicators) is not efficient and that a single online portal is needed. As a result, the development of an online management portal for the FST has been complet-ed to track all real-time information to be used by the CAST, members of the FST and the consortium agencies. This is referred to as the AutoReport and provides a “one-stop” shop for management and tracking of the FST. It will be officially launched and systematically rolled out starting in early 2020.

• Minimum Requirements Evaluation: the FST conducted an evaluation of the Minimum Requirements (MR) for Cluster Coordination in 22 priority NHWCP. The evaluation followed a systematic approach of interviewing each Cluster Coordination team (i.e., the WCC and IM) to assess the status vis-a-vie the coordination using indicators for each MR and providing a rating of 0 to 3. The process followed the same approach taken in a similar exercise completed in 2018. The results of the evaluation provided useful information in giving a snapshot picture of the status of each NHWCP, for example, the wide-reaching challenges with Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) (see Annex 4).

• Satisfaction Survey: the FST conducted a short survey with NHWCP to assess the satisfaction of the FST services and delivery. The survey was an online survey sent to all NHWCP irrespective of whether a request for support had been made or not. The results were very satisfactory to satisfactory for questions on the overall experience of re-questing and receiving deployment support and remote support. The areas for improvement included better commu-nication on the different types of support available and means of accessing it, as well as promoting the CTK.

http://washcluster.net/sites/default/files/2020/20191216_GWC_FST_2019_Satisfaction_Survey_Report.pdf

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FIGURE 1 COUNTRIES HAVING BENEFICIATED FROM FIELD SUPPORT TEAM OPERATIONS IN 2019 (IN # OF DAYS)

CountryRegion

ASSESMENT

IMO

WCC

0 50 100 150 200 250 Days

EAPR

MENA

ROSA

WCA

RES

AR

SOURCE - GWC (2019)

LACR

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MAIN CONSTRAINTS

• The FST has one sole donor, which is USAID/OFDA. This does create a lack of flexibility to the scope of activities which the FTS can provide operational support. For example, the limitation on flexibility does not allow for deployments to support coordination of refugee responses using funding from USAID/OFDA (as it not part of the agency’s mandate). that support coordination, due to compliance issues with the agency’s mandate. As a result, support to refugee respons-es, such as in Bangladesh/Cox Bazaar or to countries for coordination processes has relied on other funding sources, including the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and UNICEF.

• The lack of broad diversity in the language skill set of members of the FST, specifically Portuguese for Mozam-bique and Spanish for Venezuela has created delays in responding to request. In both cases, the FST was able to identify human resources with the required languages under consultancy contracts. However, this required a longer-term frame to put these deployments into place. The current members of the FST include two human resources with French language skills (one WCC and one IMO) and two human resources with Arabic language skills (two IMOs).

• In addition, a deployment to one country was not completed due to the last-minute withdrawal of the visa, with no ex-planation provided from the issuing authorities. The FST provided remote support for coordination and IM, despite the in-country deployment not taking place.

• Another of the main challenges faced by the FST was the management and tracking, in real-time, of the diverse range of support provided by the team, along with achievements and milestones. This is now being addressed through the development of an online management portal. This is referred to as the AutoReport and provides a “one-stop” shop for management and tracking of the FST.

• There is a cited difference in the commitment to staff IMOs in NHWCP than WCCs, along with these profiles being used to double hat and provide information management across multiple sectors. As a result, the quality of data collection and analysis along with data products at the country level is weaker. This has also resulted in an increased demand for the FST’s IMOs. Linked to this, national IMOs also face challenges with timely sharing of data from assessments and operational responses from partners – which also impacts the quality of gap analysis, infographics and other data products at country level.

• In addition, inter-cluster data sharing remains weak, which does have an impact on the effectiveness of the support provided by the FST (particularly for needs assessments and IM). This is particularly critical in cases of waterborne disease outbreaks, such as cholera, during on-going, often complex, emergencies. The need for timely and reliable data and information sharing is most critical in these contexts. This aids in the effective identification and targeting of the most at-risk populations and groups for WASH responses.

• There were also challenges faced with the technical and analytical capacities of the NHWCP to conduct needs assessments. This varied across NHWCP due to the level of expertise of human resources available in countries to support these efforts. The aim of needs assessments is to identify the gap and facilitate timely and strategic decision making and are as effective as the decisions they are able to influence. Thus, the capacity of the NHWCP to optimize the findings of needs assessments, when conducted, to influencing and advocacy purposes is also a limitation. This situ-ation is further compounded by both a lack of IMOs in key countries and the rigorous analytical skills required to support data collection and analysis (these have been identified areas for capacity development among existing NHWCP staff).

• The CTK is a tool that provides a platform for the NHWCP for knowledge management and information sharing in the field. This is intended to help improve the standardization and dissemination of different information and products.However, one of the main constraints of the CTK is that there is not a set protocol for the production, finalization, validation and uploading or updating of the documents being shared by the field.


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PRIORITIES FOR 2020

1. Improve systematic support to NHWCPs: the GWC will aim to improve systematic support to NHWCPs. In ad-dition to other mechanisms and partnerships, beyond FST deployments, should be further explored to strengthen and sustain the surge capacity in the WASH sector3.

2. FST deployments and remote support: the FST consortium priorities will continue to focus on deployments and remote support in rapid-onset emergencies and deteriorating contexts. The leadership of the FST consortium will transition from NCA to ACF and will be conducted in a way that avoids disruption of core services. Diversification of the funding base for the FST consortium is critical, to increase flexibility for the scope of activities which the FTS can provide operational support (e.g., refugee contexts, HNO/HRP processes).

3. Improve assessment capacity: the development of a WASH Severity Index (WSI) aimed to classify the severity of WASH needs and vulnerabilities, based on established standards for analysis through a common framework, will be of key interest as another means for conducted support the NHWCP. This will improve assessment capaci-ties and be achieved through remote and in-country support.

4. Improve Information Management capacity: the FST will focus on the development of a GWC IM Road Map to address the identified and critical gaps related to data collection, validation, analysis and visualization. This will also focus on establishing a mechanism, through a set protocol to outline a systematic approach for data sharing among WASH and the key other clusters (e.g. Health, Nutrition, Education, Camp Coordination and Camp Man-agement (CCCM)).

5. Tool development and other support: the FST will increase focus on the creation of tools and processes for NHWCP to further develop the capacity to develop national WASH response strategies in line with the HPC and SOF. Other priority areas for support from the FST will centre on AAP and market-based programming.

6. CTK: the FST will increase and promote awareness and systematic use of the CTK through different dissemina-tion methods, at global and country levels. The establishment of a protocol will enhance and harmonize informa-tion sharing by the field and contribute to capacity development on coordination across countries.

7. Other key initiatives: this includes enhancing quality assurance and accountability of operational responses, through the establishment of a Quality Assurance and Accountability System (QAAS) across all national WASH clusters to identify when agreed standards are not met and support timely decision to prompt corrective actions.

8. GWC website: the reorganization of the content of the GWC website will be carried out, as a means to increase visibility and further promote the services provided by the GWC and FST. This should also increase accessibility by users of key documents to support coordination.

3 This includes expertise in needs assessment from United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC), the REACH Initative and Joint Information Activities Group (JIAG), along with coordination and IM from UNICEF’s Rapid Response Teams, SBPs, rosters, agreements with GWC partner organizations etc.

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Strategic Objective #2: Ensure that key WASH stakeholders have the capacity to coordinate and deliver emergency WASH responseBased on the Learning and Training Strategy developed in 2017, GWC’s CAST has continued to prioritize the development of strategic training packages and tools aimed at directly providing the most important training packages and mainstreaming core elements to partners. All the training packages, with the exception of the one on needs assessments4 , are available on the UNICEF Global Hub for Learning and Development, Agora5. In addition, new initiatives have been taken with IHE Delft Institute for Water Education (IHE Delft) to develop a series of technical training in 2020 (see Figures 2, 3 and 4).

FIGURE 2 CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT - COORDINATION OF THE HUMANITARIAN WASH RESPONSE

Coordination of the Humanitarian WASH Response

Target Group Incoming Level General Level Expert Level Trainer Level Institutionalization

Mainstreaming of Global WASH Cluster trainings in se-lected regional and interna-tional Academic Institutions or organizations in closed cooperation with UNICEF and GWC partners in order to sustain the training offer.

In 2020, a feasability study will be carried out with IHE to put all these trainings at scale

Current partners• Water Institute of Educa-

tion (Delft)• Bioforce (Lyon)• Middle East: Ger-

man-Jordan University

WASH ClusterCoordinators

Assessment Specialists

Information Management

Officers

On-line Induction CourseProvide

fundamental knowledge

and tools for WASH Cluster Coordinators, Information

Management Officers and Assessment specialists to perform basic coordination

tasks.

WASH Operational Coordination

(WoC)Provide in-depth

knowledge and tools for

WASH Cluster Coordinators, Information

Management Officers and Assessment specialists to

perform complex coordination tasks

and undestand how their tasks are

interrelated

Leadership & Coordination (L&C)

Provide soft skills on leadership styles and practices essen-tial to coordination

ToT on WoCTrain experts

capable to deliver above trainings

IM for Human. WASH coord.

Provide advanced skills to ensure humanitarian

WASH Information management

ToT on IM for Human,

WASH coord.Train experts


Assessing WASH sector needs

in EmergenciesProvide advanced

skills to lead humani-tarian WASH assess-

ment process

ToT on WASH AssessmentTrain experts



Developed Being developed To be developed

4 This will be developed in 2020 with the support of the REACH Initative.

5 Note that most are available in four languages, including English, French, Spanish and Arabic.

SOURCE - GWC (2019)

https://washcluster.net/sites/default/files/inline-files/170822-GWC-LTStrategy-Final.pdf

https://agora.unicef.org/

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FIGURE 3 CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT - PRIORITY TECHNICAL TRAININGS

Priority Technical Trainings

All WASH Practitionners

Epidemiology for WASH PractitionnersProvide fundamental knowledge and tools for WASH practitionners

to improve WASH response programming and response during diseases outbreaks (developed in cooperation with CDC and UNICEF)

ToT Epidemiology for WASH Practitionners

Market Based Programming for WASH in EmergenciesProvide fundamental knowledge on MBP (Including CTP) for WASH

practitionners to improve WASH response programming in emergencies (developed in cooperation with UNICEF, ACF, GTO, Oxfam)

ToT MBP for WASH in Emergencies

Graduate Professional Diploma Programme

Governance in Humanitarian ContextsProvide fundamental knowledge on context analysis, humanitarian princi-ples, framework and coordination mechanism, decision-making process in emergency including assessment, information management and GIS for

WASH, monitoring, quality and accountability systems of WASH programs.

Master of Science - option humanitarian - with the Delft “International Institute for Hydraulic

and Environmental Engineering” (IHE)

Public and Environmental Health in EmergenciesProvide fundamental knowledge on epidemiology, disease outbreak

outbreak cycle and control, watsan and vector control in emergencies, hygiene promotion, community engagement, and behaviour change, WASH

in health care facilities.

Building resilience systemsProvide fundamental knowledge on preparedness and risk management, water and sanitation safety plans, building resilient WASH servcies in the

context of climate change and in the fragile contexts (linking humanitarian, development and peace), addressing vulnerability, violence and social

inclusion through WASH programming.

Urban water and sanitation in emergenciesProvide fundamental knowledge on urban disaster response, urban water

and sanitation systems in emergencies, working with urban water and sani-tation stakeholders in emergencies, emergency energy supply and security

FIGURE 4 CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT - BRIEFING PACKAGE ON WASH CLUSTER COORDINATION FIGURE 4 Briefing Package for Implementing Partners on WASH Cluster Coordination

All WASH Practitionners

deployed in the field

Module 1 Module 2 Module 3 Institutionalization

Introduction to humanitarian WASH

coordinationA briefing that WASH staff

can follow before their assignment in an emergency context. This briefing focus on the humanitarian coordi-

nation system.

WASH sector response plan

A briefing for WASH staff prior to their deployment in an emergency context. This second module focus on the humanitarian response plan.

National WASH humanitarian coordination

platform

Briefing given by NCC focusing on context (institutional, co-ordination, and response) in the country for newly arrived

WASH staff in the country

Briefing sessions in Modules 1 and 2

should be provided by GWC partners to their

staff prior to their deploy-ments at Headquarters or

in-Country Office level. Briefing package in

Module 3 should be pro-vided by UNICEF to GWC

partners in country.

SOURCE - GWC (2019)

SOURCE - GWC (2019)

Developed Being developed To be developed

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KEY ACHIEVEMENTS


YEAR TRAINING TOPIC LOCATION DAYS PARTICIPANTS NUMBER OFPARTICIPANTS

2019 BRIEFING ON COORDINATION AND LEADERSHIP (IN ARABIC) BEIRUT, LEBANON 6

SYRIA GOVERNMENT AND THE SYRIAN ARAB RED CROSS (SARC)

30

2019 ANNUAL WCC WORKSHOP BUDAPEST, HUNGARY 5 NATIONAL WCC AND IMO 25

2019 INFORMATION MANAGEMENT TRAIN-ING AND COORDINATION BRIEFING

BUEA AND BAMENDA, CAMEROON

2 SW AND NW HUBS 63

2019 EPIDEMIOLOGY AND WASH JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN 5 GLOBAL 25

2019 LEADERSHIP AND COORDINATION DAKAR, SENEGAL 5 REGIONAL WEST AND CEN-TRAL AFRICA STAFF 14

2019 WASH OPERATIONAL COORDINATION ERBIL, IRAQ 5 NATIONAL IRAQ 30

2019 PUBLIC HEALTH IN EMERGENCY AMMAN, JORDAN 3 REGIONAL UNICEF PART-NERS 5

2019 PUBLIC HEALTH IN EMERGENCY NAIROBI, KENYA 3 REGIONAL UNICEF PART-NERS 5

2019 WASH OPERATIONAL COORDINATION CARACAS, VENE-ZUELA 5 NATIONAL PARTNERS FROM

VENEZUELA AND BRAZIL 20

2019 MARKET-BASED PROGRAMMING FOR WASH IN EMERGENCY TRAINING

BANDUNG, INDONESIA 5 REGIONAL ASIA 25

2019 INFORMATION MANAGEMENT TRAIN-ING

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA 5 GLOBAL 25

2019 INFORMATION MANAGEMENT TRAIN-ING

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS 5 GLOBAL AND STANDBY

PARTNER 25

2019GOVERNMENT LED COORDINATION OF WASH IN EMERGENCIES WORK-SHOP

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA 5 NATIONAL AND PROVINCIAL

MINISTRIES 30

2019MARKET-BASED PROGRAMMING FOR WASH IN EMERGENCY TRAINING OF TRAINERS

NAIROBI, KENYA 6 REGIONAL ESARO AND GLOBAL 20

SOURCE - GWC (2019)

TRAINING DEVELOPMENT The CAST has summarized all available training that has been developed since 2008 into a database, which is regular-ly updated (every time training is conducted). This year, 342 individuals have participated in a diverse range of training offered by the GWC and its partners (see Table 1).

TABLE 1 SUMMARY OF GWC TRAINING IN 2019

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• GWC Briefing Package: a briefing package on WASH Cluster Coordination has been finalized. The package can be delivered as face to face, or through self-learning (using pre-recorded video content). It targets WASH staff that are not directly involved in coordination and is available in English, French and Spanish. The objective of this package is to increase knowledge and understanding of WASH practitioners of the role and responsibilities of WCC, and how they can contribute to coordination, particularly what is expected/required of them. The training aims to improve the interaction of partners with. A set of three modules are organized sequentially (starting with more general information then to more context-specific information):

• Modules 1 and 2 have been tailored to increase engagement and interest of WASH staff in coordination and to better understand 1) what can be expected of coordination mechanisms and clusters and 2) how they can contribute to coordination. These modules are designed to be delivered internally by partner organizations to WASH staff in headquarters or country offices. Module 1 provides an introduction to humanitarian WASH coordination as part of a two-hour face-to-face briefing. Module 2 focuses on the WASH sector response plan as part of a three-hour face-to-face briefing.

• Module 3 was designed to provide WASH staff with in-depth knowledge on tools, products, resources and management of coordination mechanisms and clusters at the country level. This module should be delivered by WCC to the partners in-country.

• Training on Information Management: a training course on IM has been finalized. The training aims to provide IMOs with the operational tools to perform all tasks related to information management and to increase their skills and competencies to effectively support the coordination functions at the national or subnational levels in protracted and/or sudden emergency settings. The course builds upon the interlinkages between Information Management, needs assessments, coordination (cluster and inter-cluster) and cross-cutting issues such as protection and Gen-der-Based Violence (GBV) to increase in-depth knowledge and understanding on this topics. This course targets staff and partners involved in WASH IM at national and sub-national levels. This can include current or future WASH IMOs (Assessment Specialists can also be considered) and IM staff from WASH partners that support coordination at national or sub-national levels. This course was designed for General/Expert level staff, and as such, participants are expected to have basic knowledge of IM or assessments as a prerequisite. Two pilots have been organized in Ethiopia and the Netherlands (at the Hague).

• The pilot in Ethiopia was held in October with 24 IMOs from the national and sub-national clusters. Feedback by participants was “very good” with a high level of appreciation for the group discussions and exercises which allowed time for information sharing, exchanging of experiences and learning. The course content was adjusted based upon the feedback from the participants and facilitator.

• The pilot in the Netherlands was held in November with 24 SBP roster members and IM specialists with less direct experience of WASH in the field. Feedback by participants was “good” and also highlighted the need for prior preparation for the course by the participants, as there was limited knowledge and familiarity with the humanitarian architecture (including systems and processes).

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

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• Online Induction Course on Coordination: an online induction course on coordination has also been finalized. It is available on UNICEF’s Global Hub for Learning and Development, Agora. This course is mandatory for all new coordination staff, including WCCs, IMOs and Assessment Specialists.

• WASH Operational Coordination Training: A face to face, one-week training on WASH Operational Coordination (WOC) training was organized in Iraq in August with 30 participants from coordination platforms, WASH partners and national government staff from technical line ministries for WASH. Another WOC was organized in Venezuela in September with 20 participants from UNICEF, WASH partners and governmental staff.

• Training on Leadership and Coordination: face-to-face training on leadership and coordination training was organ-ized in Lebanon with 30 participants.

• Government Led Coordination of WASH in Emergency (GoLWIE): this training focuses on building capacity on Humanitarian WASH Coordination Capacity with national governments and systems strengthening. The 2012 Transformative Agenda (TA) highlighted the temporary gap that humanitarian clusters address, and the responsi-bility of clusters to build the capacity of the national government to be able to progressively take a leading role on coordination, ultimately, transitioning cluster-led coordination to sector-led coordination once adequate capacity has been reached. Four years later, this agenda was pushed further forward as part of the launch of the Grand Bargain Initiative. The largest donors and humanitarian agencies made several commitments to better localize humanitarian coordina-tion and to strengthen the role of national and local governments along with civil society actors to lead, coordinate and monitor the humanitarian WASH response. Localization of humanitarian WASH coordination and response has been consequently included in the strategic plan of the GWC. As such, the GoLWIE initiative has been designed by the GWC’s CAST, Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) and UNICEF. The objective of this initiative is to strengthen the role and responsibility of national and local governments and their relevant institutions to led WASH sector coordination in all humanitarian crisis contexts (including the refugee crisis, natural disasters, conflicts, soci-oeconomic crisis, migration). A one-week GoLWiE event was organized in Ethiopia, by GWC and UNICEF country office. The event was held in October with 30 participants from technical line ministries for WASH from federal and regional levels. The event focused on increasing knowledge and understanding of the emergency WASH sector coordination and a gap analysis of the coordination system in Ethiopia was also conducted. The workshop aimed to:

• Provide essential knowledge on coordination systems as defined by the Humanitarian Reform;

• Conduct an analysis current bottlenecks preventing national governments to coordinate humanitarian WASH response based on international standards;

• Map the capacity of the national government for each coordination functions (e.g., needs assessments, strategic planning etc.) based on a set of criteria developed by UNICEF GoLWiE, as well internal criteria as relevant; and

• Establish a Road Map to build the capacity of the national government to lead and coordinate the humanitarian WASH response. In addition to a review on how to mainstream the Road Map into existing Emergency Prepar-edness Action planning and other general WASH sector capacity development plans.

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• Epidemiology for WASH practitioners: the GWC in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and UNICEF have conducted three training focused on “Epidemiology and Data Collection Methods for WASH in Emergencies” since 2017. The training has targeted WASH staff working in humanitarian emergencies. The aim of this training has been to build the epidemiological capacity of the WASH sector, with an aim to improve programming and response efforts. The training has been held in Uganda in November 2017 for the East Africa region, in Hungary in April 2018 for the Middle East region and in South Africa in October 2018 for the Southern and West African (Anglophone) countries. As the training is facilitated by a CDC Epidemiologist, there have been questions raised about the sustainability of the training and how to best strategically deliver it into the future (particularly once the partnership and funding will have been completed between CDC and UNICEF/GWC). There are recognized needs and interest, extensive, which have been expressed for the training to continue. However, as the current training package is still at the semi-final stage for use by others trainer, there is the need to finalize the training package and develop a Training of Trainers (ToT) package to further replicate the training and also incorporate lessons learned into the package. As such, the CDC, GWC and UNICEF have decided to engage a consultant in 2019 to:

• Finalize a standard training package which can be replicated by CDC, UNICEF and the GWC and its partners for future training; and

• Develop a ToT module to effectively train individuals to deliver the content of the standard training package using adult learning techniques, targeted instructions and practice in training others.

STRENGTHENING OF PARTNERSHIP FOR CAPACITY BUILDING

• The GWC is, with funding and support from UNICEF, is developing a strong partnership with the IHE Delft to build their capacity and to jointly create a European Master Level Coordination training course. A cooperation framework between UNICEF and IHE Delft will be established in 2020.

• The GWC continued to support the development of the Master of Humanitarian WASH with the German Jordan University. This has been conducted with active support from ACF and the GWC’s CAST, who participate in the Steering Committee for this degree programme.

REGIONAL INITIATIVES

• The GWC organized two trainings, one in Jordan and one in Kenya, with the REACH Initiative, focuses on assessments in WASH emergencies. 12 Assessment Officers based in eight countries, including Bangladesh (3), Iraq (1), Libya (1), Somalia (2), South Sudan (1) Syria (2), Uganda (1) and Yemen (1), were trained in basic WASH in emergency. The training content included basic WASH in emergency concepts, group exercises on how to apply WASH knowledge for assessments, and country presentations delivered by participants to share best practices and learning on assessment and information management activities.

• The GWC increased capacity-building efforts in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region. This included UNICEF’s LAC Regional Office completing the WOC training and hosting a webinar on coordination with Venezu-ela, along with completing a shortened version of the WOC training in El Salvador.

• Bioforce also supported the GWC through the organization of a regional Leadership and Coordination training in Senegal with 13 participants from different countries in the West and Central Africa region (WCA).


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MAIN CONSTRAINTS

• The lack of a dedicated budget available to organize a GWC CAST and UNICEF Office of Emergency Pro-grammes (EMOPS) level training.

• The lack of a systematic approach by UNICEF to support capacity development on coordination and leadership.

• The lack of ownership from many of the UNICEF Regional Offices regarding WASH cluster coordination. This includes the lack of a consistent approach to mainstream core GWC training in all the regions, forcing the GWC’s CAST to explore alternative strategies to scaling up capacity development efforts (i.e., strategic partnership with IHE Delft).

• The need to tailor and customize coordination training to address each specific context and county, which increases the time required and dedicated resources needed to plan and deliver training on coordination.

• The limited capacity available to deliver training to the expectation and demand levels that have been created. This requires an urgent scale-up strategy on capacity development to be defined by the GWC (aligned with the Road Map 2020 - 2025).

PRIORITIES FOR 2020

1. Consolidation of learning and training efforts: this includes also a consolidation exercise of the IM training with other UNICEF led Clusters (i.e., Nutrition, Education, Child Protection).

2. Development of a Training on Assessment for WASH: this will be the last training to be added to the existing training package currently available to all Humanitarian WASH Coordination and IM Platforms and their part-ners. It will be a five-day course targeting WCCs, IMOs and WASH partners and will focus on roles and respon-sibilities, along with methodologies and tools used for assessments (as part of the humanitarian programme cycle). The training will increase their skills and competencies to effectively support the coordination functions and perform WASH assessment-related activities, at the national or subnational levels in protracted and/or sudden emergency settings. This course targets staff and partners involved in WASH response and coordination at national and sub-national levels. This can include current or future WASH IMOs and Assessment Specialists and WASH partners that support coordination at national or sub-national levels. This course was designed for General/Expert level staff, and as such, participants are expected to have basic knowledge of IM, assessments and coordination as a prerequisite.

3. Development of a cooperation framework between UNICEF and IHE Delft: this new cooperation framework between IHE Delft and UNICEF will contribute to the overall capacity development of the WASH sector. For UNICEF, this is part of a broader strategic objective to address technical, managerial and coordination gaps in the humanitarian WASH sector – as stated in humanitarian Road Map for 2020 – 2025 to “Deliver Humanitarian WASH at scale, Anywhere and Any Time”. This will also contribute to achieving key global initiatives, particularly the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6. For IHE-Delft, this initiative is an integral part of their work and aligns with their mandate to strengthen the capacity of the water sector through partnerships to achieve global sustainable development and contribute to achieving all the SDGs. It is anticipated that the scope of the cooper-ation framework will fill critical gaps identified in the humanitarian WASH sector related to educational programs, operational research and knowledge management.




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6 Local level is considered from regional to community level.

It should benefit organisations (including GWC partners), and professionals working in the humanitarian WASH sector (including current and future decision-makers). It will also directly benefit IHE Delft students, alumni, and staff as it strategically reinforces IHE’s educational, operational and research capacity in humanitarian WASH (which is critical for this initiative). Based on the GWC strategy 2016-2020 and the IHE Delft strategy 2018-2023, the structure of the cooperation is framed on four axes. Each of the complementary axes creates the enabling environment for IHE Delft to become a driving partner in strengthening the capacity of the humanitarian WASH sector. The axes include:

• Axis 1: Educational programs with high quality and coherent packages including tailored and specialized training, short courses and graduate-level degrees on humanitarian WASH using various learning forums (online, face-to-face, blended learning and open courseware etc.);

• Axis 2: Operational research generating evidence to inform decision-making in humanitarian settings and supporting the implementation of innovative solutions to address challenges faced by the sector;

• Axis 3: Knowledge management focusing on the uptake of the evidence generation, co-creation of knowl-edge and the scaling up of knowledge sharing and exchange to inform professionals on key information in a timely manner; and

• Axis 4: Capacity development of people and institutions to create learning pathways and knowledge sharing.

4. Humanitarian WASH Sector Road Map: as a follow up to the meeting held with Emergency Directors from leading humanitarian agencies in 2019, the humanitarian WASH sector has developed a strategic document, the Road Map 2020 - 2025, aimed at strengthening the capacity of the sector. One of the key pillars is capacity development and aims to address human resources challenges, the professionalization of the sector, people management, research, innovation and knowledge management. As the Road will be aligned with the IHE Delft’s cooperation framework and will also contribute to reaching some of the identified outcomes in the next five years.

5. The Localisation Agenda: as highlighted in the UN Secretary-General’s report for the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS), the humanitarian sector must ‘reinforce, not replace’ local systems, using the comparative advantages of an increasing range of diverse humanitarian actors. However, “local organisations do not have the skills and experience required to conduct technically difficult interventions”. The cooperation framework with IHE Delft will also contribute to reducing the gaps in terms of technical and learning capacity at the local level by mobilizing UNICEF and IHE Delft’s local partners and networks

6 .

6. Supporting the SDGs and the nexus approach between development and humanitarian actors: through overarching work on capacity development, IHE Delft aims to provide tangible contributions to achieving all SDG, including SDG which focused on WASH. UNICEF works with government, partners and other UN agen-cies to support countries around the world to achieve Global Goals. The IHE Delft’s cooperation framework has been embedded across the organizations and will also support the achievement of SDG globally, particularly in fragile contexts and in countries facing significant humanitarian risks.

7. Research, innovation and knowledge management: the IHE Delft’s cooperation framework will also con-tribute to and be aligned with the research gaps identified by the Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF), as a globally-recognised programme for the humanitarian WASH sector.

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The GWC has disseminated a knowledge management survey in July 2017 which highlights the priority topics for research in the humanitarian WASH sector. This focused on the need for increased evidence and knowledge generation and details how this should be captured, shared and taken up. IHE Delft’s recognized expertise and capacity in research, knowledge management and information sharing, as well as in-house expert knowledge in these priority topics for research, only further supports the effective development of these processes in the WASH sector.

8. Consolidate the GoLWIE initiative and adopt a new approach: this includes using the lessons learned from the workshop held in Ethiopia to further strengthen the methodology being taken by this approach and plan for further workshops in 2021.

9. Capacity Building in Assessments: this will include the development of an assessment training for GWC partners while rolling out the WSI where relevant.

10. Implementation of three WOC training in priority countries and region: these will be rolled out in two coun-tries (Burkina Faso and DRC) and one region (Panama) with 20 to 30 participants.

11. Implementation four Market-Based Programming (MBP) in WASH emergency contexts (): these will be rolled out in three countries (Cameroon, Germany and Iraq) with 24 participants and in one region (Senegal) with an academic partner, Bioforce, for 24 participants. The training package will also be translated into French to support further dissemination.

12. Epidemiology for WASH practitioners: the outputs of the on-going consultancy will be finalized in 2020 and will be used for the next round of training, with the first taking place in Amman for Yemen WASH staff.

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7 The IAWG is a group of the largest 12 WASH agencies which meet annually to discuss technical issues and to organize the EEHF. 8 The constraining factors include: security and access, logistics and aid bureaucracy, insufficient and inflexible funding, and significant human resource

issues.

Strategic Objective # 3: Influence and advocate for an effective humanitarian WASH coordination response and funding

• WASH Capacity Study: the main focus was on the continued follow up of the 2017 October meeting on the Ca-pacity of the WASH sector which was held in Brussels. The GWC and IAWG

7 initiated a worldwide WASH capaci-ty study in collaboration with the URD. The study, “Capacity of the WASH Sector” was an in-depth evidence-based analysis of the humanitarian WASH capacity and provided a set of operational and strategic recommendations for humanitarian agencies and donors to collectively improve current performance and capacity of the WASH sector to respond to new and complex challenges at scale, and with quality 8. It put forward the challenges faced and constraining factors for the humanitarian capacity of the WASH sector to respond to emergencies, despite the significant efforts to improve coordination and delivery of quality programming, which had not always been suc-cessful. The recommendations included survival WASH, working in insecure contexts, donor engagement, surge capacity, proper funding, coordination and coherence, multi-disciplinary manner and ready for the future.

• Humanitarian WASH Sector Road Map: during the 24th GWC meeting held in June, the recommendations from the WASH Capacity Study were further elaborated into actionable items aimed at enhancing the capacity of the WASH sector to respond to emergencies. Five recommendations were presented to and endorsed by 15 Emergency Directors of organizations active in humanitarian WASH during the High-level meeting. The accumu-lation of this process provided the basis for the strategic framework for the Road Map 2020 – 2025 articulating how through collective commitments and strategic engagement the humanitarian capacity of the WASH sector will be enhanced. The GWC’s CAST launched a consultancy in December to support the development of the strategic document in collaboration with key partners.

• In line with the Grand Bargain commitments on the humanitarian-development nexus, GWC’s CAST continued to work for better inclusion of the humanitarian agenda within the WASH sector focusing on three pillars:

• Continued dialogue with Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) with the goal of increasing engagement between development and humanitarian WASH stakeholders in countries, and further support SWA’s development mandate, aligning it with the global humanitarian agenda. GWC CAST’s developed a position paper to advo-cate for the integration of a risk-informed approach and strengthening resilience to be embedded into the new SWA framework for fragile states, increasing the focus on crisis and disasters.

• The first pilot of the inclusion of humanitarian criteria in the WASH Bottleneck Analysis Tool (BAT), a sector analysis and monitoring tool developed in 2011 by UNICEF and World Bank as part of the Marginal Budgeting for Bottlenecks approach aiming to track and remove the barriers to sustainable and efficient WASH services at national, regional, service provider and community levels took place in Ethiopia and Syria.

• The GWC’s engagement on the humanitarian-development nexus also resulted in a learning event hosted by the German WASH Network in December, which brought together humanitarian and developmental WASH partners to identify tangible actions to accelerate cooperation in fragile states with SWA.of accessing it, as well as promoting the CTK.

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

https://www.urd.org/en/publication/report-of-the-study-on-the-capacity-of-the-wash-sector-to-respond-to-emergencies-2019/

25


The recommendations include establishing country focal points in pilot countries to strengthen dialogue and set strategic priorities, integrating a set of humanitarian development WASH interventions and indicators, agreeing upon a common accountability framework, encouraging humanitarian and development commitments by countries and partners, identifying a WASH champion for the sector, actively engaging and participating at GWC and SWA events and meetings, and increasing joint advocacy and communication efforts through published papers, webi-nars, and online resources (e.g. SWA Tools Portal).

• Inter-sectoral coordination on disease outbreaks: the GWC’s CAST also continued engagement with the WASH Working Group of the Global Task Force on Cholera Control (GTFCC) by promoting and advocating for inter-sectoral coordination, based on the joint initiative taken by the Global Health and WASH Clusters based on the joint evaluation aiming to review and improve the integrated response to cholera and AWD outbreaks within humanitarian crises. The results from the review indicate that leadership and accountability of the humanitarian community’s contribution to national cholera preparedness and response is often unclear, leading to parallel and overlapping coordination mechanisms, vague roles and responsibilities, often resulting in inaction, limited preparedness and delays and gaps in response. This initiative triggered discussions between the Emergency Directors of WHO and UNICEF to engage a broader discussion to guide responsibility and coordination for the Health and the WASH sectors. The production of a global analysis of existing barriers and gaps in a coordinated and integrated cholera response and a paper on higher-level leadership and accountability issues around cholera was completed as part of the first phase of the joint evaluation.

• Humanitarian Action Review: The GWC’s CAST supported UNICEF exercises on the Humanitarian Action Review (HAR) in the WASH sector in Iraq to appraise the WASH humanitarian responses and the capacity of the partners in-country and to ensure that the coordination performance as duly considered. The full report is available.

MAIN CONSTRAINTS

• Fundraising to and contributions by partners required for the GWC to move forward key agenda points for the WASH sector are limited and remain a challenge.

• There are increasing expectations for the GWC to provide broader contributions to the WASH sector in terms of influencing policy and addressing technical issues, beyond that of its mandate to support the coordina-tion platform. Despite this additional responsibility, the GWC has not been provided with any additional resources (in terms of human or financial).

• Bridging the gap between humanitarian and development sectors remains extremely challenging, despite the global agenda to do so. GWC has made significant efforts to collaborate with key stakeholders, initiatives and platforms in this regard but progress remains slow and additional support is required to meet this objective.

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PRIORITIES FOR 2020

1. Humanitarian WASH Sector Road Map: the strategic document will be launched on World Water Day in March 2020. The GWC CAST’s will support a consultancy from March to July to develop a plan to roll out and imple-ment the Road Map 2020 – 2025. These strategic initiatives form the basis to define the implementation plan and focus on key areas identified for capacity development, globally, institutionally and locally, to achieve the vision of the Road Map 2020 - 2025. This will be supported by a Financing Framework, which will outline the investments required to reach the vision, strategic axes and prerequisite pillars of the Road Map 2020 -2025. A workshop with GWC’s partners will be held in May in Geneva to support the next steps to operationalize the Road Map 2020 – 2025.

2. Humanitarian Development Nexus: the GWC’s CAST will work in collaboration with the German WASH Net-work to follow up on the outcomes of the learning event. This includes a follow-up meeting to take place in 2020 and the establishment of a Technical Working Group on the humanitarian-development nexus by GWC’s CAST and SWA.

3. Inter-sectoral coordination on disease outbreaks: the second phase has developed a draft Joint Operational Framework (JOF) to support the GHC and GWC with tools and guidance to lead and implement a coordinated and integrated approach for preparedness and response to cholera outbreaks. This will be finalized in 2020 through consultation with WASH and Health Cluster Coordinators and cholera coordination specialists. The key next steps include active dissemination of the findings and development and roll-out of an implementation strategy for all levels of humanitarian coordination architecture.

4. Humanitarian Action Review: in collaboration with UNICEF, the GWC’s CAST will participate in a HAR planned in three Sahel countries (Mali, Burkina, Niger). This is the first time is being carried out in three countries simul-taneously. This review is a critical piece of work to take stock of the current WASH response and analyze best practices, main gaps, and concrete actions to improve the scale and quality of the response.

Strategic Objective # 4: Provide humanitarian WASH actors a timely access to appropriate and accurate knowledge on coordination and responseThis Strategic OhasObjective centred on two main expected outcomes:

• Humanitarian WASH-related lesson learned, evidence generation and innovative approaches corresponding to identified priority gaps are disseminated and used by GWC partners to improve coordination and response in subsequent emergencies; and

• New knowledge on Humanitarianhumanitarian WASH is disseminated and used by GWC partners to improve coordination and response in subsequent emergencies.

27


KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

• Improving evaluation of the NHWCP performance: in collaboration with Tufts University, the GWC CAST’s have developed a set of minimum requirements to measure progress of NHWCP’s on the implementation of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) cluster coordination functions based on outputs and activities and to complement of the Cluster Coordination Performance Monitoring (CCPM) exercise led by the Office of Coordination and Humanitarian Af-fairs (OCHA). These use of the MRs have become increasingly instrumental in monitoring the performance of NHWCP. Using the framework of the Knowledge Management Strategy, this year, the MRs have been used to develop a Theory of Change (ToC) on cluster coordination, which will be tested in 2020. In addition, the following results have been achieved:

• A report identifying the lessons learned on WASH Cluster Coordination over the past ten years and identifying the ToC for WASH Cluster Coordination was written in cooperation with Tufts University (as part of the PCA);

• A manuscript was submitted in Disaster Journal has been finalized and should be published in 2020; and

• A second phase of the PCA with Tufts University was agreed upon and will be implemented in 2020.

• GWC resource centre: 199 resource documents were reviewed and uploaded onto the GWC’s Resource Centre, which was set up as part of the Programme Cooperative Agreement (PCA) developed with Tufts University in 2018. Documents are included in the resource centre using rigorous criteria to include only documents that are based on strong evidence.

• Humanitarian WASH Capacity Study: the GWC and the IAWG initiated a worldwide WASH Capacity study in collab-oration with the Groupe URD. The study, “Capacity of the WASH Sector” was an in-depth evidence-based analysis of the humanitarian WASH capacity and provided a set of operational and strategic recommendations for humanitarian agencies and donors to collectively improve current performance and capacity of the WASH sector to respond to new and complex challenges at scale, and with quality. It put forward the challenges faced and constraining factors for the humanitarian capacity of the WASH sector to respond to emergencies, despite the significant efforts to improve coor-dination and delivery of quality programming, which had not always been successful. The recommendations included survival WASH, working in insecure contexts, donor engagement, surge capacity, proper funding, coordination and coherence, multi-disciplinary manner and ready for the future.

• Humanitarian Development Nexus Learning Event: the GWC’s engagement on the humanitarian-development nexus also resulted in a learning event hosted by the German WASH Network in December, which brought together humanitarian and developmental WASH partners to identify tangible actions to accelerate cooperation in fragile states with SWA. The recommendations include establishing country focal points in pilot countries to strengthen dialogue and set strategic priorities, integrating a set of humanitarian development WASH interventions and indicators, agreeing upon a common accountability framework, encouraging humanitarian and development commitments by countries and partners, identifying a WASH champion for the sector, actively engaging and participating at GWC and SWA events and meetings, and increasing joint advocacy and communication efforts through published papers, webinars, and online resources (e.g. SWA Tools Portal).

• Cash and Market Event with Global Shelter Cluster: a two-day joint event hosted by the GWC and Global Shelter Cluster (GSC) on Cash and Market was organized with participation from 31 WASH and Shelter partners. The objective of the event was to discuss and analyse the specific programming considerations to be taken (given the specificities and constraints for both sectors) for the application of cash and market-based modalities in the WASH and Shelter

https://wrc.washcluster.net/search

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MAIN CONSTRAINTS

• The MRs are the backbone for the monitoring of the performance of the NHWCPs but the systematic use of the MRs requires an in-depth review to minimize subjectivity by the NHWCP in the appraisal process This review will be carried out in 2020 and based on evaluation exercises that will be piloted by the GWC’s CAST with Tufts University in Bangladesh, DRC and Yemen.

• The consolidation of the GWC’s Resource Centre and UNICEF’s WASH Knowledge Platform would be a sig-nificant step towards optimization of the availability of knowledge on humanitarian WASH for WASH partners. To date, the dialogue with UNICEF on this has remained limited and should be an area of focus to be improved upon in 2020. It would be mutually beneficial to agree upon a standard approach to disseminating humanitarian WASH knowledge.

PRIORITIES FOR 2020

1. Minimum Requirements for NHWCP: the GWC with support from UNICEF has taken forward the responsibility to achieve key results in the area of knowledge management with NHWCP and partners to improve practices towards more efficient coordination and better quality responses based on lessons learned. The second phase of the PCA with Tufts University aims to support UNICEF’s goals to fulfil humanitarian WASH coordination and ensure that gaps in programs are minimized, there is sufficient funding for a response, the response is inclu-sive, strategic, and effective while addressing gaps, builds partnerships, and predictable, and result in a quality response at the household/beneficiary level. There are two main objectives of the project are anticipated to ex-pand upon the knowledge sharing goals of the GWC while and fill evidence gaps on the outcomes and impacts of coordination that will assist in quantifying the value-add of WASH coordination in humanitarian emergencies. The main activities include:

• The expansion of the WASH Cluster Knowledge Management Repository and responding to the knowl-edge management needs of the humanitarian WASH community; and

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GWC Annual Report 2019 / 3 - PROGRESSES OF THE TECHNICAL WORKING GROUPS

3 PROGRESSES OF TECHNICAL WORKING GROUPS

Cash and MarketTWIG members: ACF, Cash Learning Partnership (CaLP), Catholic Relief Services (CRS), German Toilet Organization (GTO), GWC’s CAST, Oxfam, NCA, Save the Children, UNHCR, UNICEF and WHH.

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

• The TWiG on cash and market developed a work plan for 2019 and 2020 that included the following focus areas:

• Development of a strategy to provide on-going operational support to countries on MBP for WASH in emergency contexts;

• Development of a capacity-building strategy aiming at strengthening knowledge of WASH practitioners on MBP for WASH in emergency context, and mainstreaming in institutions;

• Rolling out an advocacy strategy to highlight the specific programming considerations to be taken (given the specificities and constraints in the WASH sector) by the humanitarian stakeholders when using MPC programming; and

• Strengthening knowledge of the appropriate application of MBP for WASH in emergency context among WASH practitioners.

• To support test the ToC and evaluate the outcomes and impacts of WASH cluster coordination in three different contexts which could include Bangladesh, DRC, Myanmar and Yemen. The three main objectives of the evaluation include how the use of the MRs can influence outcomes in the WASH sector; promote a shift from opinion-based evaluation towards an evaluation of how the activities carried out by NHWCP are useful (or not) to influence WASH response outcomes, and in the long-term explore the possibility to devel-op a real-time evaluation approach for WASH clusters and review the GWC Minimum Requirements. The evaluation will be based on a protocol agreed by the GWC partners. The key findings and learning from these pilots will also be used to revise the MRs. Communications products, including reports, infographics and presentations, will be produced and disseminated through different communication channels (e.g. online blogs, e-discussions, updates and social media) along with a publication in a peer-reviewed journal and presentation at relevant conferences (of the published manuscript).

2. Knowledge Management on MBP in the WASH sector: the GWC’s CAST will launch a consultancy to support evidence generation of the impact of MBP in the WASH sector. Three separate reports, one on water, one on sanitation and one on hygiene, will be produced focusing on the practices and evidence of the impact of MBP on the WASH sector, with a fourth report analysing specific practices and evidence of the impact of Multi-Pur-pose Cash (MPC) programming on WASH outcomes. In addition, the consultancy will conduct a gap analysis to identify new operational research needs and protocols to fill the current evidence gap highlighted during the consultancy.

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• The achievements of the TWiG include:

• The second pilot Market-Based Programming for WASH in Emergency (MBPWIE) training was organized in Bandung, Indonesia in September with 25 participants. This used refined content based on the first pilot training was carried out in Nairobi, Kenya in November with 28 participants. These pilots resulted in the finalization of the MBPWiE training package, which consists of technical content related to WASH market assessments, program design implementation of MBP for WASH and monitoring. The pilots were jointly organized by ACF Spain, IFRC, the GTO and UNICEF with the support of CashCap.

• The first ToT on MBPWiE was also organized in Nairobi, Kenya in November with 18 participants. This was conducted with the support of the ICRC, Oxfam GB, Save the Children and UNICE. It resulted in the certification of 15 individuals as co-facilitators capable to deliver training on MBP for WiE in the future. As a next step, these 15 individuals will deliver an MPBWiE training with a certified facilitator, to be validated as certified facilitators. Currently, there are seven certified facilitators available to deliver MBP for WiE training.

• The first version of the GWC’s Guidance on Market Based Programming for WASH has been published in April 2019. This document was developed in parallel with the development of MBPWiE training. The document is a key resource which provides WASH practitioners with conceptual frameworks, examples, lesson-learned and meth-odological steps to assess, design, implement, and monitor MBPWiE. It was elaborated in a collaborative manner between ACF Spain, GTO and UNICEF and reviewed for technical feedback by the TWiG members.

• UNICEF launched a consultancy on the “Systematic review of practice and evidence of the impact of MBP on WASH”. The consultancy is expected to last six months and will focus on systematically building the evidence base on MBP for WASH, including a mapping of current practices and knowledge resources, identification of knowledge gaps and development of knowledge products.

• A two-day joint event hosted by the GWC and GSC on Cash and Market was organized with participation from 31 WASH and Shelter partners. The objective of the event was to discuss and analyse the specific programming considerations to be taken (given the specificities and constraints for both sectors) for the application of cash and market-based modalities in the WASH and Shelter sectors. The outcome of the event was agreement on the development of advocacy messages for dissemination to decision-makers at high levels (e.g. Grand Bargain, donor agencies etc.).

• A set of outcome indicators for MPC programming for the WASH sector have been defined. These articulate the specific programming considerations to be taken (give the specificities and constraints for the WASH sector) for the application of cash and market-based modalities in the WASH sector. The list of indicators and specific programming consideration to be taken were shared with USAID/OFDA (the lead for this workstream of the Grand Bargain). USAID/OFDA maintained a simplified version of the document, taking into account under which conditions the WASH sector would be accountable for the monitoring and results of MPC interventions.

https://washcluster.net/sites/default/files/inline-files/190417 Multipurpose Cash Outcome Indicators - FINAL %28002%29.pdf

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PRIORITIES FOR 2020

1. Develop standard monitoring framework for MBP for WASH in emergency context. The framework should provide WASH partners and WASH coordination platforms with a standard set of indicators to be used to moni-tor the progress of the MBP interventions or strategies. It should also provide the basis for evidence generation of the impact of MPC programming in the WASH sector.

2. Update of the existing GWC Guidance of Market Based Programming for WASH to include more details on modalities such as voucher fairs, and inclusion of MBP for WASH Theory of Change and Monitoring and Evaluation (M &E) framework.

3. Expand the rollout of the MBPWIE training package. These will be rolled out in three countries (Cameroon, Germany and Iraq) with 24 participants and in one region (Senegal) with an academic partner, Bioforce, with 24 participants. The training package will also be translated into French to support further dissemination.

4. Other plans for scale-up and broad dissemination of the training package on MBPWiE include the development of a webinar series with ProWASH and Save the Children (with an audience of 100 participants expected) and the identification of funding to support additional training, with the aim of reaching 1,000 individu-als over a two year period.

5. The GWC’s CAST will launch a consultancy to support evidence generation of the impact of MBP in the WASH sector. Three separate reports, one on water, one on sanitation and one on hygiene, will be produced focusing on the practices and evidence of the impact of MBP on the WASH sector, with a fourth report analysing specific practices and evidence of the impact of MPC programming on WASH outcomes. In addition, the con-sultancy will conduct a gap analysis to identify new operational research needs and protocols to fill the current evidence gap highlighted during the consultancy.

AssessmentTWiG members: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), IOM, NCA, REACH Initiative, Samaritan’s Purpose, UNHCR and the World Health Organization (WHO).

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

• The Assessment TWiG for WASH was established in 2016, as an initiative of the GWC, to address the identified gap and need for improved coordination of WASH assessments. Per the ToR, agreed in July 2017, the TWiG had the following objec-tives:

• Assist the national WASH platforms by providing assessment-related guidance, sharing tools and good practices; o Develop reference documents to increase knowledge and capacity of WASH Cluster partners with regards to assessment;

• Strengthen WASH Cluster involvement in multi-sectoral assessment initiatives and discussions to ensure proper and harmonized collection of WASH indicators in coordinated and joint assessments; and

• Provide strategic guidance to the WASH Cluster on assessment-related initiatives and activities.

• However, in 2019 a joint decision was made to transition from a TWiG to an informal community of practice and as a resource group or platform for technical reviews of assessment initiatives and tools. The members agreed that the main objectives of the technical working group had been achieved and the TWiG was deactivated in October 2019.

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PRIORITIES FOR 2020

1. As the TWiG for Assessments has transitioned to a community of practice and resource group for technical reviews of assessment initiatives and tools, there are not set priorities in the coming year.

2. However, the GWC will continue to focus efforts on the development of a WSI aimed to improve assessment capacities through remote and in-country support (as cited under SO1).

Quality of ResponseTWiG members: International Medical Corps (IMC), NCA, Oxfam GB, Relief International, Selected WCC, SI, UNHCR, UNICEF and World Vision International (WVI)

• Due to lack of resources, particularly staff, the development of reference documents and guidelines for assessments were put on hold by the TWiG. Nevertheless, the platform has proved useful as a community of practice where members can provide updates on WASH assessment initiatives and as a resource group or platform for the review of assessment initiatives and tools.

• For example, the TWiG has represented an invaluable source of technical input and opportunities for collaboration that con-tributed to the following outputs:

• IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) Data Dictionary: the TWiG has reviewed the WASH section of DTM indicators and questions, as well as the new WASH sectoral analytical frameworks. The new tool is structured on four modules aimed at understanding respectively the magnitude of needs, the severity, the underlying factors and priority groups.

• UNHCR’s 60 Sample Camp Survey: the new methodology designed by UNHCR for household rapid assessments in camp settings was reviewed and piloted by TWiG members in different contexts.

• GWC Question Bank: this repository that contains a list of 20 indicators and related questions has also been technically reviewed several times by the TWiG. The document is being updated to ensure alignment with UNHCR, Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) indicators and the new DTM tools.

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

• Due to lack of re The Quality and Accountability TWiG met regularly throughout the first half of the year and focused on the progress of the outputs of the QAAP – including field visits and other outputs. In addition, the TWiG provided valuable contri-butions that guiding the implementation of the project and influenced the approach taken for the development of the QAAS.

• During the second half of the year, the engagement of the TWiG shifted its focus towards a joint role as a technical review committee for the QAAP. There was also a noted increase in the bilateral engagement of the members of the TWiG in the project as well.

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PRIORITIES FOR 2020

1. The Quality and Accountability TWiG will be re-activated to provide a technical review of key outputs of the QAAP. This includes the guidance note and analytical framework as well as tools for collective data collection, analysis and action planning. In addition, membership of the TWiG will be reviewed to ensure that the range of technical expertise on QA is better reflected as the QAAP moves into Phase 2 of the project. This will also include engagement with GWC partners about the QAAP through a targeted dissemination plan, using a variety of communications channels.

2. Phase 2 of the QAAP will focus on carrying out robust testing of the methodologies developed in 2019, with in-country capacity provided to NHWCPs. This will occur for an expanded number of target countries where the QAAS will be further piloted. Additionally, opportunities to utilise UNICEF’s critical role as CLA across multiple sectors will be explored, to strengthen synergies and promote harmonization of approaches towards quality and accountability.

3. A global team will provide additional support to Phase 2 of the QAAP, collecting evidence and lessons from the targeted countries, to improve the existing tools and guidance. By the end of 2020, the QAAS will be complete-ly developed and tested for broad implementation by NHWCPs across different contexts (with minimal external support required).

• The strategic objective of the QAAP is to ensure that each and every NHWCP is actively managing quality using the QAAS, which aims to:

• Strengthen the quality of WASH responses globally;

• Enable strong participation and ownership from all WASH partners;

• Provide accountability between partners, wider stakeholders, and the affected population;

• Enable other external stakeholders such as donors, national governments and peer humanitarian organizations to have confidence that resources are being managed effectively;

• Ultimately allow the men, women, boys and girls affected by crisis to have confidence that WASH programming carried out on their behalf will meet minimum requirements for quality, and that they will be able to effectively hold WASH part-ners to account for the quality of their work; and

• Support effective quality management, providing operationally relevant information to decision-makers in a way that allows corrective actions to be jointly agreed and implemented in a timely way

• The expected outcomes and results for the QAAP project include:

• Completion of a comprehensive desk review of existing QAAS that helped to develop a modular QAAS framework that each NHWCP can use to tailor to their context.

• Piloting of the QAAS in four humanitarian WASH responses (in Bangladesh, Colombia, Myanmar and South Sudan) to better understanding current best practice in quality assurance and as a comparative analysis to the current systems in place.

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4. There is the recognition that the successful implementation of QAAS in humanitarian WASH responses may require overcoming several challenges. Without direct management of teams in-country, changing behaviours and ways of working relies upon motivating uptake for the project among key decision-makers. Also noting that turnover of key staff is high in humanitarian contexts, and that new staff may not be familiar with ongoing initiatives. NHWCP teams are also often overloaded with different priorities and have limited bandwidth to take on additional initiatives, even if it could result in a reduced overall workload in the longer term.

5. To mitigate these risks during Phase 2 of the QAAP, a targeted dissemination plan, using a variety of commu-nication channels aimed at uptake among NHWCPs and WASH partners will be put into place. This will include the use of webinars, regional meetings and other opportunities for NHWCPs in targeted countries to support information sharing on the implementation of the QAAS will be taken. This will aim to create the enabling envi-ronment for the uptake of the project and increased focus on the importance of quality in operational responses.

6. In addition, guidance, tools and support materials will be tested and revised to ensure appropriateness and that they tailored for the contexts in which NHWCPs are operating. Case studies and learning from countries which have successfully implemented components of the QAAS will be shared with other NHWCPs further promote uptake of the project. In-country specialized support will be available remotely and will provide real-time guid-ance to help overcome any challenges faced in the implementation of the QAAS.

7. The key expected outcomes by the end of 2020 are:

• Guidance, tools, knowledge management and training resources required to set-up effective QAAS in humanitarian WASH responses are available and broadly disseminated. Key resources include the finali-zation of the Guidance for NHWCPs and for external stakeholders; the development of a Cluster Quality Toolkit (integrated within the wider GWC CTK) and the development of a training package.

• Strengthening of the GWC’s FST capacity to provide specialized operational support to NHWCPs in the setup and implement of the QAAS. The recruitment of a Quality Assurance and Accountability Officer to work closely with the FST members to support in-country and remote support will also occur. A monitoring system to collect users feedback including uptake, perception levels and level of satisfaction of the QAAS will be set up and tested – and incorporated into the QAAP.

• The WASH sector will have a harmonized and systematic approach for monitoring and reporting to main-stream quality assurance and accountability in humanitarian WASH programming. NHWCPs are expected to use an online self-reporting tool to regularly report on compliance of meeting the minimum requirements for QAAS. This tool will be developed to monitor progress in the implementation of the QAAS globally.

• A better understanding of the strategic opportunities and partnerships for harmonizing approaches to QAAS between clusters will be further explored (initially with UNICEF-led clusters and the Shelter Clus-ter). A feasibility study on expanding the application of QAAS to other clusters will be conducted by the QAAP team, in partnership with the GWC’s CAST and partners. Scope to expand to other clusters beyond UNICEF-led and Shelter will also be considered.

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Operational Research TWiG members: CDC, Enhancing Learning and Research for Humanitarian Assistance (ELHRA), IFRC, IMC, iMMAP, Médecins sans Frontières (MSF)-Belgium, NCA, Oxfam GB, SI, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology and Swiss Federal Institute of Science and Technology (Eawag/Sandec), Tufts University, UNHCR and UNICEF.

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

• The humanitarian WASH Operation Research TWiG held an initial meeting in London in January 2019 with participation from 15 of agencies (including CDC, Eawag/Sandec, ELHRA, GWC, IFRC, IMC, IMMAP, MSF, NCA, Oxfam GB, SDC, SI, Tufts University, UNHCR and UNICEF). The main outcome of the meeting was the agreement of the TWG focus on providing a one-stop-shop for research initiatives, reducing barriers to research and encouraging and promoting cooperation. The TWiG will not define precise research questions but identify priority areas for work. This includes:

• Increasing the evidence base by filling in gaps related to commonly implemented but severely under-researched interven-tions (CISURs);

• Strengthening the evidence base by increasing the depth of knowledge on all interventions (i.e., moving the evidence base up the no/weak//moderate evidence on the y-axis of the ‘evidence map’ created in the Yates systematic review);

• Researching emerging context-specific issues, such as how to provide WASH interventions in the Syria context;

• Researching new interventions being generally promoted in the sector including MBP and cash in humanitarian emergen-cies, FSM etc.;

• Researching links to other program areas, including cholera, Oral Cholera Vaccine (OCV), protection, innovation, malnu-trition etc.; and

• In addition, more consideration might need to be given to the barriers to developing an evidence base in the WASH sec-tor. Gender, dignity and other social outcomes and cross-cutting issues also require more consideration.

• The TWiG continued to focus its efforts on key priorities, including the identification of knowledge gaps and how to advocate for resources to address these; dissemination of key research; information sharing on capacity development (especially for field-based WASH staff); promoting partnership, at global and country-level between WASH research and WASH implement-ers; and creating a better culture of monitoring and evaluation to measure collective impact of inter-sectoral action.

• Development and expansion of the data repository website, the GWC’s Resource Centre, to include a clear definition of what constitutes eligible research and the mechanism for submitting documents. Note that there are currently 199 documents which have been reviewed and uploaded.

• The TWiG also supported the dissemination of the launch of the Gap Analysis in Emergency WASH Study 2020 consultancy with an experienced academic partner.

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PRIORITIES FOR 2020

1. To develop and implement the action plan for the identified priorities. Each priority will have a lead agency that will be responsible for coordinating the contributions by the other agencies, and will further define the output and time frame for completion. It is anticipated that the activities will be completed in 2020 and 2021.

2. To provide technical support ELHRA, GWC and Oxfam for the follow-up study to be conducted, focused on WASH Gap Analysis. This builds up the study completed in 2013 on Emergency WASH Gap Analysis. The study will be lead by experienced academic partners and will produce a collective gap analysis of the emergency WASH sector. Input will be collected from WASH staff, those working in the WASH sector and people affected by crises. The study will be used to set priorities and influence innovation actors in investment choices and improve outcomes for people affected by crises. Communications products, including reports, infographics and presentations, will be produced and disseminated through different communication channels (e.g. online blogs, e-discussions, updates and social media) along with a publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

Faecal Sludge Management TWiG members: ACF, BORDA, Dutch Surge Support (DSS), Eawag, GTO, GWC, IFRC, IHE Delft, International Organization of Migration (IOM), MSF-Netherlands, Netherlands Red Cross, Oxfam GB, SI, UNHABITAT, UNHCR, UNICEF and Waste Netherlands.

PRIORITIES FOR 2020

1. To develop and implement the action plan for each of the pillars identified as priorities for the workstreams. Each pillar will have a lead agency that will be responsible for coordinating the contributions by the other agen-cies, and will further define the output and time frame for completion. It is anticipated that the activities will be completed in 2020 and 2021.

2. The appointment of an FSM Coordinator to assist with the pillar workstreams. This individual will also be availa-ble to support deployments and remote support for FSM, in collaboration with the FST. Support can include key activities such as needs assessments for FSM, standards for FSM, coordination on FSM, capacity development for FSM, evidence generation and learning on FSM, and knowledge management and information sharing on FSM.

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

• The humanitarian WASH The FSM TWiG held its first meeting on 30th October. The TWiG brings together a diverse group of WASH partners, internal and external to the traditional GWC members. The main outcomes of the meeting were agreed upon for the TWiG, to conduct a mapping of the various project in progress (Octopus project, E-compendium on Sanitation Technologies etc) to assess and identify the critical gaps in FSM (based on field experiences) and to define the seven gap areas (as outlined below).

• The FSM TWiG also identified seven gap areas or pillars as priorities for workstreams to be taken forward to improve the WASH sector operational response. These include standards for FSM, coordination on FSM, capacity development for FSM, evidence generation and learning on FSM, advocacy for FSM and assessment and data collection and analysis to promote decision making, knowledge management and information sharing on FSM.

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GWC Annual Report 2019 / 4 - FINANCIAL ANALYSIS OF THE GWC STRATEGIC PLAN

4 FINANCIAL ANALYSIS OF THE 2016-2020 GWC STRATEGIC PLAN IMPLEMENTATION

Funding The GWC received US$ 2.5 million as funding to implement the GWC’s SP and activities this year. These funds continue to remain insufficient but relatively stable over the period of 2013 - 2019 (see Figure 5). There was a noted decrease in funding available as compared to last year, from US$ 3.2 million to $US 2.5 million, due to no further funding by one of the key donors, ECHO.

FIGURE 5 FUNDING TRENDS FOR THE GWC 2013-2019

Allocation and Expenditures The trend and breakdown of the allocations and expenditures for the GWC’s SP have remained steady over the period of 2013 – 2019 (see Table 2 and Figure 6). This has included key expenditures to operational support (70.5 per cent), CAST (23 per cent) and capacity building (3.9 per cent) over this period. Note that the increase in allocations and expenditures for CAST is a result of the recruitment of two Rapid Response Team (RRT), one to support WCC and one to support IM. These positions are key to contributing to predictable support to sectorial coordination by the GWC.

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GWC Annual Report 2019 / 4 - FINANCIAL ANALYSIS OF THE GWC STRATEGIC PLAN

TABLE 2 - ALLOCATIONS AND EXPENDITURES FOR GWC’S SP

FIGURE 6. FUNDING BREAKDOWN FOR GWC FROM 2013 – 2019

SOURCE - GWC (2019)

With a funding need estimated at US$ 3.9 million for 2019, there has been a funding gap of 6.4 per cent to implement the GWC’s SP. In addition, GWC has continued to prioritize Operational Support this year, allocating 57 per cent of the available budget to support this, while noting that this has reduced support to other longer-term objectives of the GWC’s SP. This included the fact that Capacity Building, Advocacy and Knowledge Management remain consistently under-funded, further limiting the GWC’s ability to support capacity development for coordination and increasing knowledge base in the sector.

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GWC Annual Report 2019 / 5 - FUNDING TRENDS OF WASH OPERATIONAL RESPONSES

5 FUNDING TRENDS OF WASH OPERATIONAL RESPONSES IN PRIORITY COUNTRIES

Funding sources The top ten donors agencies funded the humanitarian WASH sector in 2019 with a total of US$ 3,727,052,979 (see Table 3). This includes funds allocated to HRP US$ 2,874,837,025 and non-HRPs US$ 852,215,954.

TABLE 3. TOP DONOR AGENCIES FUNDING TO THE HUMANITARIAN WASH SECTOR IN 2019

DONOR AGENCIES HRP(US$)

NON-HRP(US$)

TOTAL AMOUNT(US$)

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, GOVERNMENT OF 679,581,087 126,717,631 806,298,718

EUROPEAN COMMISSION’S HUMANITARIAN AID AND CIVIL PROTECTION DEPARTMENT 480,519,311 206,201,626 686,720,937

CENTRAL EMERGENCY RESPONSE FUND 328,339,801 89,155,622 417,495,423

UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN’S FUND 392,467,229 3,626,222 396,093,451

UNITED KINGDOM, GOVERNMENT OF 316,833,870 47,942,678 364,776,548

JAPAN, GOVERNMENT OF 164,415,938 153,638,018 318,053,956

GERMANY, GOVERNMENT OF 146,807,159 97,424,889 244,232,048

SAUDI ARABIA (KINGDOM OF), GOVERNMENT OF 141,889,753 53,938,032 195,827,785

CANADA, GOVERNMENT OF 114,746,287 37,163,212 151,909,499

SWEDEN, GOVERNMENT OF 109,236,590 36,408,024 145,644,614

SOURCE - FTS (OCHA)

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GWC Annual Report 2019 / 5 - FUNDING TRENDS OF WASH OPERATIONAL RESPONSES

Overall Funding Situation of Humanitarian WASH Responses Globally, WASH funding has remained more or less consistent compared to 2019 in terms of the percentage of total humanitarian (HRP and non-HRP) dedicated to the sector. Despite increased needs, the trend for funding allocated to humanitarian WASH sector from 2013 to 2018 for HRPs and non-HRPs, has remained stagnant and has not exceeded more than 50 per cent, on average (see Figure 7). Furthermore, since 2009, less than 4 per cent of all reported funding registered in the humanitarian has been dedicated to the humanitarian WASH response.

FIGURE 7. EVOLUTION OF WASH FUNDING, HRP AND NON-HRP 2013 – 2019

SOURCE - GWC 2019

Funding for WASH Operational Responses in Priority Countries The funding for the humanitarian WASH sector in 14 priority countries has continued to vary widely over the period of 2015 to 2019. The priority countries that continue to experience trends of decreased funding of HRP and non-HRP are Afghanistan, Cameroon, DRC, Ethiopia, Somalia, Syria and Yemen when comparing funding figures from 2018 to 2019. The countries that experienced trends of increased funding of HRP and non-HRP were Bangladesh, CAR, Iraq, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria and South Sudan when comparing funding figures from 2018 to 2019 (see Annex 5).

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GWC Annual Report 2019 / CONCLUSION AND ANNEXES

CONCLUSION In 2019, the momentum on the operational support to countries continued, while significant progress was achieved on the other strategic pillars of the GWC’s SP, particularly on capacity building, knowledge management and advocacy. In line with the Grand Bargain agenda, important initiatives were taken to strengthen market-based programming in the WASH sector, localisation with the rollout of the GoLWiE, reinforce the humanitarian-development nexus through engagement with the GTO and SWA, and the development of the QAAS (as part of the QAAP) to improve the quality assurance and accountability of the humanitarian WASH response as a sector.

In addition, the GWC’s CAST in collaboration with the IAWG conducted an in-depth evidence-based analysis of the humanitarian WASH capacity and provided a set of operational and strategic recommendations for humanitarian agencies and donors to collectively improve current performance and capacity of the WASH sector to respond to new and complex challenges at scale, and with quality. This lead to the development of the strategic document, the Road Map 2020 - 2025, aimed at strengthening the capacity of the sector. These strategic initiatives form the basis to define the implementation plan and focus on key areas identified for capacity development, globally, institutionally and locally, to achieve the vision of the Road Map 2020 - 2025. This will be supported by a Financing Framework, which will outline the investments required to reach the vision, strategic axes and prerequisite pillars of the Road Map 2020 -2025.

The GWC with all the above activities and initiatives has demonstrated that it has successfully achieved the transition from a coordination platform, with the main focus on operational support, to a policy platform, able to influence decision-makers while maintaining its support not only in coordination as well as other technical aspects. The GWC’s leadership has been demonstrated and acknowledged in different evaluations, including UNICEF’s evaluation on protracted crises from 2014 to 2019. However, despite a high level of achievements, progress continues to remain fragile and highly dependent on the external financial support received by the GWC. In addition, the level of engagement of the partners remains limited but an extra strain on the efforts to reach these achievements by the GWC’s CAST. The capitalization and optimization of fully harnessing these emerging efforts remain a significant risk in the coming year. This which would represent a major loss for the humanitarian WASH sector. Moving forward the GWC and its partners will need to work collaboratively in an effective manner to ensure that the strategic aims of the cluster are met.

ANNEXES available here 2019 COUNTRY PROFILES files available here

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Lvu0WEMe3cgrel_cVFPV-QKk7Q5Y6qwP/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11VGmjmDOWNTJ1brEAB8mvNKJb2T0qTwP?usp=sharing

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