Making use of available water and sanitation data through independent monitoring programmes

Monitoring of water and sanitation activities and progress in some countries often fails to provide data/information to accelerate decision on sector investments, resource allocation, relevant policy framework among others. The UNICEF/WHO Joint Monitoring Programme, in its efforts to support countries to strengthen monitoring, sought budget support from the EU in 2006 to pilot a project to help make better use of available sector data in Africa. The project aims to minimize the challenges associated with reliable data on WASH, so that available data can effectively support decisionmaking. The aim of the project is to assemble, analyse, repackage and disseminate relevant WASH data at regular intervals. Three monitoring platforms have been established in Ghana, Mozambique and Nigeria, all of which have started yielding outcomes that are worthy of sharing with stakeholders.