ICT enabled monitoring fosters greater accountability and improves WASH services in communities

UNICEF has been supporting the Ministry of Water Resources in the development & rolling-out of WASH Information Management System (WASHIMS) across Nigeria. WASHIMS is an user friendly tool for building, organizing and processing sector data for informed decision making. It has evolved from a stand-alone system in 2013 to an on-line web-based platform that now includes features for real time tracking. From only 12 Local Government Areas (LGA) using WASHIMS in 2013, presently there are 70 LGAs regularly operating it. Up-to-date data on the WASH situation is available for over 22,000 communities compared to only 2,600 in 2013. The introduction of real-time tracking of water point functionality has contributed to an increase in functionality from 56% to 71%, with one LGA reporting 98% functionality over 1 year. The widespread use of WASHIMS across the 70 LGAs has renewed interest among all sector players with potential for rapid scale-up across Nigeria.