Rural WASH project in Zimbabwe: monitoring and feedback mechanism for accelerating progress

A large scale Rural WASH Project is being implemented in 33 districts of Zimbabwe since June 2012. Failure of formal and routine monitoring mechanism during the initial phase of implementation led to development of innovative, rigorous but a very simple monitoring, feedback and reporting mechanism. This was built and integrated into the routine monitoring and reporting system of the implementing partners without creating additional burden. This mechanism proved to be extremely successful in tracking the progress at logframe/national, provincial/regional, implementing partner, district and indicator level on monthly basis. The mechanism was linked to development of corrective action plans at various levels aimed at accelerating progress. Each month a comprehensive graphical report is prepared and shared at national, provincial, and district levels with all stakeholders including donors. The overall progress on the project so far is well on track which was substantially behind before initiation of this monitoring mechanism.