Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making in the water and sanitation sector in Bomet county, Kenya

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(1)Master. Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making in the water and sanitation sector in Bomet county, Kenya. POLYAKOVA, Katerina, GARANIS, Loukas. Abstract Today, the lack of clean water and proper sanitation methods is a problem for many developing countries such as Kenya. With the help of the SDGs, governments have guidelines that will enable them to create better policies for their country. However, those policies won't be accurate enough at the local level. It is the case for Bomet County, which is among the neediest region for water and sanitation in Kenya. In the study, we realize that to build better policies for Bomet, we need to create local indicators for the people that are left behind. For this reason, the Global Institute for Water Environment and Health (GIWEH) aims to strengthen the monitoring framework of the County. In this context, we designed a set of indicators that focuses on the real needs of local communities in terms of gender issues, affordability of water and sanitation services and rural development.. Reference POLYAKOVA, Katerina, GARANIS, Loukas. Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making in the water and sanitation sector in Bomet county, Kenya. Master : Univ. Genève, 2020. Available at: http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:145136 Disclaimer: layout of this document may differ from the published version..

(2) Global Institute for Water Environment and Health (GIWEH) Dr. Nidal Salim. University of Geneva/GRID-Geneva Dr. Gregory Giuliani. Building Local Indicators for More Evidence-Based Policy Making in the Water and Sanitation Sector in Bomet County, Kenya MASTER’S THESIS BY Katerina Polyakova Loukas Garanis. MSc in Innovation, Human Development and Sustainability University of Geneva, Switzerland. - January 2020 -.

(3) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making. TABLE OF CONTENTS. 1. Abstract. 4. 2. Introduction. 5. 2.1 Background: Collecting Local Data. 5. 2.2 Theoretical Framework. 7. 2.3 Research Problem and Questions. 8. 2.3.1 Research Problem. 8. 2.3.2 Research Questions. 9. 2.4 Definitions. 11. 2.5 Structure of the Paper. 12. 3. Literature Review 3.1 Public Policies, Global Indicators & Inequalities. 13 13. 3.1.1 Public Policies & Strategies. 13. 3.1.2 Agenda 2030 & Monitoring. 14. 3.1.3 Inequalities & Disaggregated Indicators. 17. 3.2 Defining Local Indicators. 18. 3.2.1 Indices & Local Indicators. 18. 3.2.2 Adequate Indicators for Better Policies. 19. 3.2.3 Obstacles. 20. 3.2.4 Existing Projects in Kenya and Bomet. 21. 4. Institution & Internship. 23. 4.1 The Institute. 23. 4.2 The Internship. 26. 4.3 The Flagship Project. 29. 2.

(4) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making 4.3.1 Purpose. 29. 4.3.2 Methodology. 30. 5. Research Question 1: Equity Areas & Institutional Context 5.1 Equity: the Three Key Areas. 34 34. 5.1.1 Gender Issues. 34. 5.1.2 Affordability of Water. 35. 5.1.3 Rural Areas. 36. 5.2 Institutional Context. 38. 5.2.1 State Actors. 38. 5.2.2 Non-state Actors. 42. 5.2.3 Monitoring Programs. 43. 6. Research Question 2: Developing Local Indicators. 47. 6.1 Developing Relevant Indicators: the Methodology. 47. 6.2 The Case Study of Bomet County. 49. 7. Research Question 3: Support & Added-value for Bomet County’s Policies. 59. 7.1 Strategies & Policies of Bomet County. 59. 7.2 The SDGs & the Local Indicators. 63. 8. Reflexive Thoughts. 69. 8.1 Impact Assessment. 69. 8.2 Recommendations & Policy Actions. 75. 8.3 Next Steps: Geographic Information Systems (GIS). 77. 8.4 Limitations. 79. 9. Conclusion. 81. 10. References. 84. 3.

(5) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making. 1. Abstract Today, the lack of clean water and proper sanitation methods is a problem for many developing countries such as Kenya. With the help of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), governments have guidelines that will enable them to create better policies for their country. However, those policies won’t be accurate enough at the local level. It is the case for Bomet County, which is among the neediest region for water and sanitation in Kenya. In the study, we realize that to build better policies for Bomet, we need to create local indicators for the people that are left behind. For this reason, the Global Institute for Water Environment and Health (GIWEH) aims to strengthen the monitoring framework of the County. In this context, we designed a set of indicators that focuses on the real needs of local communities in terms of gender issues, affordability of water and sanitation services and rural development. A methodology that combines scientific literature and official documents from the County was used in order to create these indicators. Moreover, an analysis of the project was made with the DPSIR Framework (Driving Forces - Pressures - State - Impact - Responses), suggesting to use more participatory approaches during GIWEH’s project.. 4.

(6) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making. 2. Introduction 2.1 Background: Collecting Local Data According to United Nations (UN) Water’s report on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 in June 2018, half of the world’s population may lack access to safe 1. water and sanitation by 2050 (UN Water, 2018). In Kenya alone, more than 19 million people lack access to clean water near their habitation (Water Aid, 2018).. Between the creation of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) (Lenton et al., 2008)2 and the Post-2015 Development Agenda (Martin, n.d.), the importance of water and sanitation as a goal on its own has increased. The 6th SDG, namely “Clean Water & Sanitation”, was developed to “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all” (UN, 2019).3 However, in Kenya and in many other parts of the world, people are still being left behind. The main challenge for people and organizations working towards the accomplishment of SDG 6 is to gather and present enough relevant data to help decision-makers adopt fair and equitable policies. Indeed, to be able to track progress on SDG 6 and develop useful strategies, there is a need to quantify and monitor targets (Jaiyesimi, 2016).4 According to UNICEF (2014)5, governments realize the importance of monitoring and evaluation and how it can help improve performance.. In the Kenyan Constitution (CoK) of 2010, the article 43 states that it is the human right of every person to have access to clean water in sufficient quantities and to appropriate standards of sanitation (Watershed, 2018). In order to provide these services efficiently, the Ministry of Water and Sanitation (MWS). See p.10 See p.247 3 ‘Goal 6: Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform’ 4 See p.14 5 See p.97 1 2. 5.

(7) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making needs to design targeted, fair and inclusive data-driven policies. However, according to a report from Watershed (2018), the water utilities in Kenya only collect and report data for their regulated services, which only cover 48% of Kenyans (21.8 million people). Therefore, the population in urban low-income areas as well as in unregulated rural communities are left behind (Ibid). The lack of reliable data was already one of the biggest bottlenecks preventing the improvement of WASH (Water Sanitation and Hygiene) services during the MDG period (Jaiyesimi, 2016).6 It is still a major problem today in Kenya.. Drawing from this problematic, the Global Institute for Water, Environment and Health (GIWEH) designed a project that complements and structures the water and sanitation monitoring framework in Kenya. To fill the gaps and help the most vulnerable, GIWEH’s flagship project aims at restoring equity in three key areas: gender issues in water and sanitation accessibility, affordability of water and rural development. The project aims to build a water monitoring framework that will benefit Kenya’s government and counties in terms of data collection, storage, reporting and dissemination. It also aims to develop capacity building workshops that will support county government workers in terms of data collection, storing and analysis practices.. Our six-month internship at GIWEH, supervised by the director of the organization, Dr. Nidal Salim, was primarily focused on this flagship project. Our objectives were centered around the development of local indicators that would increase data accuracy for better water and sanitation equity in the target area in Kenya. The aim of our research was to create an integrated methodology that would result in the collection of detailed and relevant data for each specific region to which it was applied. With adequate reporting standards and dissemination, the goal is that this methodology leads to more data for fairer, more sustainable local public policies for water and sanitation.. 6. See p.16. 6.

(8) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making. 2.2 Theoretical Framework To structure our research, we have methodically looked at different scientific, political and judicial papers. First of all, we have examined official documents such as Kenya Vision 2030, the County Governments Act and the County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP) for Bomet County. These documents presented the short, medium and long-term strategies and policies put in place by the national and county governments to improve water and sanitation services. We linked those to the analyses of Rotimi Jaiyesimi (2016), who described the challenges of reaching the SDGs in emergent countries such as Kenya. This paper allowed us to better comprehend the global aspect of the indicators linked to the SDGs and thus, understand their limitations when applied at the regional scale. This was confirmed by Winkler and Satterthwaite (2017), who state that the SDG indicators, not being disaggregated by sex, income group, urban/rural location or ethnicity, flatten the statistics and therefore, omit a large number of marginalized populations. Coming from this assumption, it is evident that policy makers need accurate information to design policies that can effectively reduce inequalities in regards to water and sanitation. This fact is confirmed by the works of Salameh (2000) and Sullivan (2002), who extensively worked on creating indices that take into account local specificities. The Water Poverty Index (WPI) was then improved by Wilk and Jonsson (2013) by adding qualitative data to the index. Garriga et al. (2013, 2015) further underlined the urgency and the importance of gathering disaggregated local data to support targeted policy making. The same authors also nuanced their approach by presenting some of the major obstacles to the collection of local data. Sivi-Njonjo (2013) and Garriga (2013) also provided case studies of local data collection in Kenya, notably in Homa Bay County. However, no such research has been found for the county of Bomet, which is the third worst county in terms of access to water and sanitation services. Since development funding can be scarce, we believe that it is necessary to prioritize the neediest, such as the communities in Bomet County. By shifting from the. 7.

(9) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making global SDG indicators to local disaggregated indicators, our research attempts to fill the lack of studies done in Bomet County in terms of water and sanitation equity.. 2.3 Research Problem and Questions 2.3.1 Research Problem Today, the number of people without access to safe water and sanitation is alarming, especially in developing countries and vulnerable communities. Since the launch of the MDGs and, more recently, the SDGs, we have witnessed a global effort to collect and publish more and more data about water and sanitation issues. However, the focus mostly still lies on national aggregated indicators that fail to show the inequalities in the access to water and sanitation services (Winkler and Satterthwaite, 2017). We still witness a huge lack of relevant data collected at the local scale. The collection of disaggregated data is necessary to prioritize the most vulnerable populations and to support the design of better and fairer policies. One of the main reasons that lead to this unavailability of relevant data is weak national monitoring systems in terms of defining the target data and the level of disaggregation, collecting and storing the data in a nation-wide transferable database, analysing the data and reporting the results in a standardized fashion and finally, disseminating the data efficiently to decision-makers.. The scope of GIWEH’s flagship project encompasses all these elements and strives to strengthen the water and sanitation monitoring framework in Kenya. Our research focuses on the first chain link of this process, which is the definition of relevant data that needs to be collected in order to reveal inequalities and support better decision-making. To clarify which data needs to be collected to reach this goal, we investigated how we could develop a set of local indicators in the county of Bomet, Kenya. We believe that collecting data through this set of indicators can lead to more adequate support for more equitable policies. Therefore, we assume that they can be developed through an in-depth analysis of. 8.

(10) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making the local context in terms of inequalities, socio-economy, geography and demography as well as through a thorough disaggregation of the indicators (for example by sex, income group, location (urban/rural), ethnicity, etc.).. 2.3.2 Research Questions Having identified the fact that the absence of relevant indicators at the local scale fails to show inequalities, and therefore, doesn’t support local public policy making in terms of water and sanitation services, the aim of this research is the following:. Develop a set of local indicators that accurately represents inequalities in the WASH sector and thus, leads to more targeted and sustainable data-driven public policies in Bomet County, Kenya.. To achieve this objective, we have formulated three research questions that will guide us throughout the paper:. 1. Which aspects of equity are important in Kenya regarding water and sanitation services and who are the different actors of the WASH sector?. When talking about water and sanitation in Kenya, inequalities are blatant between men and women, urban and rural residents, different ethnic or income groups, etc. Before trying to define a set of indicators that is relevant for a given region, it is necessary to examine the inequalities that exist in Kenya, for water and sanitation. Ideally, all equity areas should be prioritized, but in the timeframe defined by GIWEH for its project, the focus has to be limited. Furthermore, we need to analyse the hierarchy between all the actors of the WASH sectors. To develop indicators, we need to understand the different roles and mandates in data collection at the local and national scale.. 2. Which indicators are relevant to the peculiarities of Bomet County?. 9.

(11) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making. After the preliminary results brought by the first question are defined, it is key to perform an in-depth study of the socio-economic, demographic and geographic context of the County of Bomet. As stated before, development and governmental funding for water and sanitation services can be limited. It is therefore important to target the priority problematics of each village and community. These priorities can only be defined through an in-depth research about the peculiarities of each community and a dialogue with the people. To prevent marginalized populations such as women, low income households and rural inhabitants from being forgotten in averaged national statistics, it is also essential to disaggregate information as much as possible (by sex, income group, location, ethnicity, etc) (Winkler and Satterthwaite, 2017).. 3. Do the indicators support decision-making in Bomet County?. Disaggregating the data provides access to a higher level of accuracy and allows decision makers to prioritize the most vulnerable populations. Since Bomet County has established strategies and policies for WASH issues, it is necessary to determine if our indicators align and support these strategies.. To verify the validity of our hypothesis, we conducted a scientific desk research, which we analysed jointly to the reports produced in the scope of our internship. To fulfill the objectives of the latter, we conducted interviews with relevant stakeholders in Geneva, attended conferences on the subject and communicated with experts in Kenya.. 2.4 Definitions For the purpose of this paper, a few important terms need to be defined. Water, sanitation and hygiene services include all the infrastructure and services related. 10.

(12) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making to different sources of drinking water, water for agriculture and livestock, toilets, sewerage systems and waste disposal methods, wastewater treatment, handwashing and more. Indicators are defined as variables that measure different aspects of a problem, which is usually not measurable as a whole (such as WASH), in order to track its progress (Bunge, 1975). For a single problem, there can be a vast multitude of indicators. In this paper, we will often use the term “local indicator”. We define local indicators as indicators that are relevant to and efficiently capture the specific socio-economic, demographic, geographic and environmental situation of a given administrative region or community. Local indicators will focus on measuring the priority areas related to WASH issues of a specific county. The latter were created in 2010, in Kenya, through the new Constitution, which redefined the roles of administrative regions. Power and responsibilities were devolved to 47 newly-created county governments (USAID, 2019). The geographic scope of the project focuses on Bomet County. A catchment area (or drainage basin) is the geographic area where rainfall collects and is drained by common rivers. Finally, a monitoring framework i s defined as the methods, mandates, documents and communications used by the relevant authorities to collect, store, analyse and disseminate data relevant to WASH issues. Also included in the framework is the capacity and duty of reporting t he data in a standardized and regular manner between the different institutional levels. Capacity-building, on the other hand, refers to the increase of a target group’s competencies in regards to a specific task. In the case of GIWEH’s project, workshops and group discussions aim to increase workers’ capacity to use data collection and storage software, execute timely reports and produce visual representations of data in order to facilitate data-driven decision making.. 2.5 Structure of the Paper The three research questions outlined previously will guide our reflection throughout this paper. However, we will first set the relevant theoretical framework for our problematic by presenting an extensive review of the. 11.

(13) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making literature. Then, we will describe the host institution for our internship (GIWEH), our tasks and the flagship project. The fourth, fifth and sixth parts of the paper will discuss the three research questions, namely the equity areas and the institutional context, the set of indicators and its relevance for Bomet’s policies. Finally, we will reflect on the project as a whole (impact and next steps) and discuss potential recommendations and limitations. Concluding remarks will follow.. 12.

(14) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making. 3. Literature Review 3.1 Public Policies, Global Indicators & Inequalities The role of GIWEH is to strengthen the capacity of its partners through educational, scientific, technical and financial assistance in order to help policy makers design more equitable, fair and evidence-based policies. Therefore, in the following paragraphs, we will present the official literature on public policies in Kenya and on the SDG indicators.. 3.1.1 Public Policies & Strategies A public policy is defined as “a relatively stable, purposive course of action followed by an actor or set of actors in dealing with a problem or matter of concern” (Anderson, 2003).7 Therefore, to solve a specific problem and create public benefits, governments implement policies. For example, if a government has issues in the provision of water and sanitation services, it will create policies to achieve better access and improve the services.. During the past twenty years in Kenya, the government formulated several formal WASH policies. According to Seppälä (2002), despite strategic policies and the definition of targets, the goals set for the WASH sector have not been achieved.8 The analysis of the author provides explanations to these policy failures, among which the particularly centralized system of water management. Since 2008, the Kenyan water sector is guided by the Kenya Vision 2030 strategy document. The vision is “to transform Kenya into a newly industrializing, middle-income country providing a high quality of life to all its citizens by 2030 in a clean and secure environment.” (Government of Kenya, 2008). The policy aims to raise the economy of the country in an environmentally friendly manner. According to the policy document, Kenya also wants to achieve 100% coverage of. 7 8. See p.2 See p 375. 13.

(15) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making safe water supply and 100% access to basic sanitation services by 2030. According to the government of Kenya, in 2015, the water coverage achieved was about 56.9%, which is far from the goal aimed by the Kenya Vision 2030 (Kenyan Ministry of Health et al., 2017). The main challenges for the country lie in the fact that there are still low quality services in urban and rural areas, and the coverage and quality of services are insufficient for the most vulnerable populations (Kenyan Ministry of Health et al., 2017).. Indeed, there are still inequalities in the access to water and sanitation services and a large portion of the population is still lacking litres of clean water and basic sanitation daily for survival (Castro et al., 2009). Therefore, for a policy to be effective, there is a need to design a monitoring and evaluation framework that allows re-evaluation of the linkages, outcomes and assessments to determine if the chosen interventions have been effective (Harvey et al., 2019). In other words, gathering data is an important part of evaluating the effectiveness of a policy.. 3.1.2 Agenda 2030 & Monitoring The SDGs are closely related to the policies of a country. According to Jaiyesimi (2016), the SDGs provide both opportunities and challenges for developing countries. Indeed, implementing the targets of the goals is costly but beneficial in the long-term. Among the challenges, measuring progress towards the SDGs as well as evaluating policies are key to achieving the goals (Ibid). While designing policies, it is important to note that each nation can interpret the SDGs in its own way and translate them into national policies.. The SDGs are 17 goals with 169 targets that all UN Member States accepted in 2015, including Kenya. The goals were made for developed and developing countries. They are an urgent call to action (UN , 2016).9 Among them, the SDG 6 aims to “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation. 9. ‘SDGs: Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform’. 14.

(16) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making for all” (UN, 2016).10 It is a crucial matter because billions of people are still lacking safe water, sanitation and handwashing facilities. It will take enormous efforts to achieve this goal. Furthermore, climate change ignites irregular floods and severe droughts. Therefore, to measure the progress of countries, global indicators were developed by the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG SDG) (Ibid). The indicators require a huge amount of data that will need to be produced and analysed. This will allow us to see if progress was made and if national policies were successful.. For African countries, including Kenya, data collection is a problem. Indeed, nations struggle to have coordinated water and sanitation monitoring frameworks because of the lack of skilled personnel for this special task (Jaiyesimi, 2016). The analyses of Jaiyesimi show that Africa is still missing the necessary infrastructure to make earth observations and ground-based monitoring. It also lacks a standardized data collection, storage and analysis tools.. UN Water’s goal is to monitor and report water and sanitation issues worldwide. In 2019, they launched a platform called The SDG 6 Portal, t hat shows the latest data on WASH issues, provided by different countries and verified by the UN agencies. There are 11 global indicators that track progress towards SDG 6. For Kenya, some indicators are missing because there is not enough available data to produce an estimate, such as for drinking water, sanitation, wastewater and ecosystems (UN Water, 2019).11. 10 11. ‘Goal 6: Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform’ ‘Country (or area). SDG 6 Data.’. 15.

(17) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making. Source: UN Water, The SDG 6 Portal for Kenya. In a written report made by the Ministry of Devolution and Planning (2017), which is responsible for the implementation of the agenda 2030 for sustainable development in Kenya, the government underlines that it is conscious of the number of challenges faced in order to implement the goals. Indeed, the aggregation of data into national indicators is a problem. There is insufficient disaggregation to show inequalities among the most vulnerable populations. Moreover, there is an absence of baseline data for some indicators and this affects the monitoring of their progress. Added to that, the government noted an inadequate monitoring and reporting capacity for the implementation of the SDGs. Indeed, in relation to water and sanitation, data collection, availability and accuracy are limited in some remote parts of the country (Ibid).12. Therefore, there is missing data caused by poor national monitoring systems. To be able to achieve the targets for 2030, it is important to implement a. 12. See p.19. 16.

(18) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making standardized monitoring system and to collect sufficient amounts of data to measure the progress towards the goals.. 3.1.3 Inequalities & Disaggregated Indicators The SDGs aim to resolve inequalities in the world with 17 goals by 2030. However, for water and sanitation issues, as mentioned before, it is more complex. Kenya is having trouble representing the inequalities of the most vulnerable because of problems such as insufficient disaggregation, weak data collection in remote areas and inadequate reporting systems.. According to Winkler and Satterthwaite (2017), the SDGs don’t pay enough attention to the disaggregation of data. Therefore, multiple forms of inequalities are not represented in national statistics. The authors state that disaggregation is an important tool to monitor the inequalities and some aspects don’t receive enough attention, such as ethnicity, for example. Because of the lack of disaggregated data, marginalized people are not prioritized, thus further increasing inequalities. Therefore, the analysis given by the broad indicators of the SDGs will be incomplete. Indeed, the same authors say that marginalized communities are often not part of the monitoring effort and, when data is aggregated, they become invisible in the analyses. For example, semi-nomadic pastoralists are often on the move and sometimes live far away from roads, which makes it difficult to collect their information. This has a dramatic effect on decision-making and policies. The needs of marginalized populations, forgotten in the data collection and analysis, will not be taken into account in new policies.. In order to design fairer, more sustainable policies, it is necessary to take into account the marginalized communities and reduce the inequalities inherent to the SDG indicators. Therefore, there is a need to complement the latter with other indicators, which will take into account the population left behind.. 17.

(19) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making. 3.2 Defining Local Indicators The literature usually agrees on the fact that defining local indicators is a good way to collect valuable information for decision makers and better represent inequalities at the local scale. As we saw before, the SDG indicators are not complete and are not representing inequalities. Therefore, disaggregated data and local indicators could be one of the solutions that can complement the SDGs and integrate the marginalized groups. In the following paragraphs, we will bring forward the relevant literature regarding the indices that have been developed in order to collect local information, how these indices can be useful for decision makers and which are the obstacles that limit the collection of data for local indicators. We will then examine what has already been done in Kenya and, more specifically, in Bomet County.. 3.2.1 Indices & Local Indicators There is abundant literature on indices that have been created to try and illustrate the complex relationship between water, sanitation, hygiene and poverty. One of the milestones in the measurement of socio-economic inequalities related to water and sanitation has probably been the Water Poverty Index (WPI).. This index has been constantly redefined over the past twenty years by geologists (Salameh, 2000), environmental economists (Sullivan et al., 2002), water engineers (Garriga and Foguet, 2010) and, more recently, climate adaptation experts (Wilk and Jonsson, 2013). The primary aim of the WPI is to associate socio-economic parameters with water and sanitation availability in order to measure the level of poverty that can be attributed to specific water-related issues (Sullivan et al., 2002). Thus, the root causes of water-related poverty can be identified more clearly. Because every community is different in terms of human development, the factors responsible for water-related poverty change according to the specific characteristics of every community. This identification provides decision makers with better information and enables. 18.

(20) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making them to adapt their policies and target specific action areas for each and every community. Indeed, the WPI can illustrate the linkages between poverty and WASH assessments at the community level, but also at the level of the “village, district, region and nation” (Ibid).. According to the same authors, the development of an index that takes into account local specificities will enhance the information available to decision makers, better represent the inequalities in water-resource availability between different communities and provide better insight on which water-related projects have the most potential for improvement. Furthermore, key stakeholders in pilot countries have noted that, in order for the WPI to be a strong index, it has to be “locally relevant”.. Building on the WPI, Wilk and Jonsson (2013) have developed the Water Prosperity Index (WPI+) by including qualitative indicators such as “community interviews and participatory exercises”. For example, such data can show differences in the prioritization of water issues between genders. The results of this study showed that there were significant differences between the WPI and the WPI+, thus highlighting the importance of qualitative indicators that can illustrate different social aspects of water issues. Indeed, the authors state that, as much as quantitative data helps decision makers design their policies, qualitative data also “improves understanding of which issues to prioritize” (Ibid).. These authors thus show the importance of taking the differences between villages and communities into account when developing such indices.. 3.2.2 Adequate Indicators for Better Policies Now that we have showed different indices that have been created to demonstrate the link between local WASH indicators and poverty, we will see how different authors justify the relevance of these indices for policymakers.. 19.

(21) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making In order to amplify the progress on water and sanitation issues worldwide, and especially in developing countries, Garriga et al. (2015) state that it is urgent to “provide policymakers with evidence which may be the basis for effective planning, targeting and prioritization”. Indeed, and as stated before, policymakers need accurate data to target their policies on relevant priority areas and on the neediest.. According to Wilk and Jonsson (2013), national aggregated indicators fail to show social differences at the local scale. Yet these differences are key in the process of prioritizing and targeting vulnerable populations. In this sense, disaggregated local indicators help “increase equitable water allocation”. This statement stems from the observation that every community and village has different socio-economic challenges. Therefore, it is crucial to address these differences when trying to design effective policies.. Finally, different case studies using the WPI across the globe have found that different indicators are best applied for different locations (Manandhar et al., 2012). This shows that indices such as the WPI are sensitive to the differences of context of each study area (community, village or basin level).. National aggregated indicators omit the reality of girls, women, boys and men in relation to water and sanitation. Therefore, it is important to focus efforts on disaggregated local indicators in order to truly enhance the service provision for the most vulnerable.. 3.2.3 Obstacles The literature agrees that policies are more targeted if based on local and relevant indicators. However, collecting data at the local level is not easy and authors have faced different obstacles in that regard.. First, it is important to note that even when the data is available, the mechanisms that allow policymakers to use the data in order to design better policies are. 20.

(22) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making often unclear (Garriga and Foguet, 2013). The reasons raised by the authors include undefined roles of institutional bodies in the water sector as well as absence of clear data-collection procedures to regularly update the indicators. Thus, it is crucial to implement a sound reporting and monitoring framework in order to collect reliable data at the local scale and disseminate it in an efficient way to the policymakers.. Regarding the process of data collection, the usual limitations concern the type of data collected as well as the comparability of the data (Garriga et al., 2013). For example, household surveys will capture the needs, wants and personal situations of the targeted population but will not show how a water point is managed. Therefore, another type of data will be needed to get the whole picture. Another problem arises when we need to compare indicators used to measure different variables. According to the same authors, “to assess trends over periods of time or to compare indicators regionally has therefore remained challenging.” 13. 3.2.4 Existing Projects in Kenya and Bomet Being a water-scarce country, Kenya has welcomed many researchers testing the use of local indicators for WASH issues.. Garriga et al. (2013) have looked at combining data from Water Point Mapping (WPM) and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) in order to create a more robust water poverty measure. The study area in Kenya is Homa Bay County, which is located in the Lake Victoria South Catchment Area. In another study, Garriga. and. Foguet. (2013). compare. health. impact. indicators. to. multidimensional indicators such as the standard Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) indicators and another composite index. The study uses data from more than 20 counties in Kenya.. 13. Garriga et al. (2013), p. 701.. 21.

(23) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making Furthermore, studies regarding the use of local indicators for WASH issues in Bomet County as a target area could not be found. This is even more interesting considering the fact that Bomet is the third county with the least access to improved sources of water (see figure below).14 Considering that financial aid and investments in the water and sanitation sector are limited, the most vulnerable population has to be prioritized.. Source: Sivi-Njonjo (2013), p. 32. On the other hand, Nairobi, which has a relatively high access to water, benefits from a variety of different research studies. As such, our research tries to address this gap by studying the characteristics of Bomet County and thus, by focusing on less well-serviced counties.. 14. Sivi-Njonjo (2013), p. 32. 22.

(24) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making. 4. Institution & Internship 4.1 The Institute GIWEH is a policy think-tank founded in 2007 by Dr. Nidal Salim. Its mission is to help vulnerable populations achieve a sustainable access to water and sanitation. In this sense, GIWEH provides scientific research support, technical tools, financial support through different partners and educational training through capacity building workshops for local partners (The Global Institute for Water Environment and Health, n.d.).15 The goal is to help decision makers design and implement sustainable, fair and equitable policies based on scientific, data-driven research. In practice, GIWEH supports policy-making at different levels - local, regional, basin, national and international. The team primarily focuses its projects in unstable, water scarce countries and post-conflict states such as Palestine, Kenya, Nepal, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, etc. (Ibid). The activities conducted by GIWEH in these countries include hands-on training for women and youth, capacity building workshops, creation of small factories and support to cooperatives in order to strengthen farmers’ livelihoods, creation of a data collection and reporting system, creation of a database that includes information related to water and sanitation and development of water purification technologies.. The executive board, at the top of the organisation’s management structure, meets twice a year to take long-term decisions about the organisation’s future projects, budgets, etc. It also advocates GIWEH’s cause to the greater public and represents it during conferences or high-level meetings. The general director, Dr. Salim, organises the secretariat, manages on-going projects and develops new projects with the Scientific Committee and the Advisory Board, which both provide specialised advice. These two committees comprise academics, scientists, consultants and sociologists from all over the world. The executive 15. ‘Vision, Mission, Values’. 23.

(25) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making board, the general director, the scientific committee and the advisory board meet once a year during the General Assembly.. Source: Organization structure. GIWEH website (n.d.).. Through its projects, GIWEH has supported the MDGs and, more recently, the SDGs. Although the focus on water and sanitation monitoring during the MDG period was limited to the proportion of the population with access to safe water and sanitation (WHO/UNICEF, 2004), the 2030 Agenda has included a goal entirely focused on water and sanitation (SDG 6). The new targets and indicators encompass public health issues, wastewater treatment, water quality, water-use efficiency, water stress, ecosystems and integrated water management (United Nations, n.d.). GIWEH structures its activities around the issues outlined by the targets of SDG 6.. 24.

(26) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making. Source: Programme Implementation Plan, Ministry of Water and Sanitation, Republic of Kenya (2018).. In 2015, GIWEH launched its flagship project: “Support for the 2030 Agenda Realization of water-related SDGs and rights”. The aim of the project is to provide assistance to partnering governments in aligning their policies, monitoring frameworks and water management tools with the targets defined in SDG 6 (The Global Institute for Water Environment and Health, n.d.).16 This includes support for the development of a water and sanitation database and reporting system coupled with capacity building workshops focused on the right use of these systems and the ownership of the program (Ministry of Water and Sanitation, 2018).. Unlike the SDGs and UN Water’s global agendas, the flagship project’s vision is to shift from the global to the regional scale, thus adapting to local conditions and specificities (Ibid). This effort sparks from GIWEH’s mission to focus on and prioritize vulnerable populations. Indeed, it is the belief of the Institute that aggregated national indicators fail to project a precise socio-economic picture of 16. ‘Flagship Project’. 25.

(27) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making a country. The inequalities between men and women, urban and rural citizens and people from different income groups, in relation to water and sanitation issues, are flattened. Therefore, without taking into account local differences, policies neglect insightful evidence. In this sense, GIWEH supports and aligns to the SDGs but goes beyond their global scope by filling in the gaps at the local level.. As many NGOs, however, the lack of reliable and regular sources of funding constitutes the main limitation of the institute, preventing it from achieving its full potential and realizing more projects. That being said, we believe that GIWEH follows the right theoretical path in its projects. Their objectives and implementation strategies are focused on the people and favour participatory approaches.. 4.2 The Internship The primary objective of the internship was to develop the flagship project in Kenya. Our role was to define and develop indicators that would adequately represent the socio-economic situation of the five pilot administrative regions (counties) regarding water and sanitation issues, and to design a data storage and dissemination system for these indicators.. To familiarize ourselves with the project, we studied the background literature that had been previously written by other staff members. This included the project description, the implementation plan, different Memorandums of Understanding with the main partners (Ministry of Water and Sanitation (MWS), Kenya Water and Sanitation Civil Society Network (KEWASNET), Water and Sanitation Regulatory Board (WASREB), Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) and Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA)) and reports on the institutional context and the existing indicators for water and sanitation monitoring in Kenya (Schmitz, 2017).. 26.

(28) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making In order to design pertinent indicators, we continued researching the theoretical mandates of WASH actors (both public and private) in Kenya and listing the indicators that these bodies were actually monitoring in practice. During this phase of the internship, we conducted extensive research on SDG 6 and how its indicators were calculated. Furthermore, in order to determine the extent to which the institutions cited above presented gaps in monitoring the water and sanitation situation, we had to create an exhaustive list of all the possible indicators that were related to WASH issues. This led to the redaction of one report and one Excel table with more than 250 potential indicators.. Since one of the subsidiary goals of the project is to increase the capacity of the local governments to report water and sanitation data to the national government, our next task was focused on better understanding the needs of these bodies regarding reporting formats (maps, databases, Excel files, etc.) and contents (indicators). To achieve this, we conducted interviews with UN Water, WMO, Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company (NCWSC) and attended conferences and talks related to the topic. We also performed tests on the different possibilities for displaying the data that would eventually be collected. This included several interactive data visualisation platforms such as GeoNode, Apache Superset and Tableau.. Our next task was to narrow our list of indicators down in order to design indicators that would be more closely linked to the different characteristics of each county. Thus, we produced a report analysing the priority areas for the five pilot counties, in relation to their particular economic, social, demographic and environmental specificities. By doing this research, we sought to accurately measure the level of equity in WASH issues among vulnerable populations at the local level. Consequently, we chose indicators that could reasonably be collected during the project’s timeframe and, most importantly, that answered the priorities of each county. Once again, the aim was to complement the broad aggregated indicators of the SDGs. We classified them into three key areas: gender. issues,. affordability. and. rural. development.. This entailed a. 27.

(29) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making disaggregation of most of our indicators by sex, income group and rural/urban area.. Last, but not least, our work led us to plan a three-week technical visit to Kenya to confirm or infirm the validity and usefulness of our indicator database. Therefore, we prepared meetings with county administration workers for WASH issues in each of the five pilot counties, as well as visits to all the catchment-level regional offices in Nakuru (Rift Valley Catchment Area), Kakamega (Lake Victoria North Catchment Area) and Kisumu (Lake Victoria South Catchment Area). We also planned interviews with the main WASH actors in Nairobi such as the MWS, the Water Resources Authority (WRA), the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) and the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS). Due to funding issues, the technical visit was postponed.. We finally consolidated our results and reports into a presentation and presented it to our supervisor at GIWEH (Dr. Nidal Salim) and to the Minister of Water and Sanitation, H.E. Simon Chegului, during the International Water Security Summit co-organised by GIWEH and the International Network of Basin Organisations (INBO) and held in Marrakech, Morocco.. The internship in itself had clear objectives and tasks, and the Institute provided us with the resources we needed in order to push the project forward. However, a few technicalities limited our actions and results. First of all, the production of preliminary reports and situation assessments required up-to-date official documents and access to relevant data on water and sanitation. Unfortunately, the communication with local partners was hindered by several events, such as a change of cabinet and an office closure. As a result, access to local up-to-date data was limited and the focus was mainly put on scientific literature available online. Furthermore, a technical visit to the five pilot counties was aborted due to a problem with funding. The results of our research were supposed to be confirmed or infirmed during this visit. Therefore, the validity of our indicators will only be ascertained after a field research.. 28.

(30) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making. 4.3 The Flagship Project 4.3.1 Purpose As we have seen, there is a need not only to define relevant indicators, which will vary according to the characteristics of each community, but also to ensure that there are rigorous reporting mechanisms in place in order to allow a clear transmission of information between all institutional bodies involved in water and sanitation monitoring. Without the appropriate dissemination of information to policymakers, the efficiency of policies will not increase.. For these reasons, GIWEH launched in 2015 a project encompassing all dimensions of water management - local data collection, data storage, data analysis, reporting, dissemination and capacity building. The aim of the project is to “enhance decision-making at every scale.” (The Global Institute for Water Environment and Health, n.d.).17 To achieve this goal, GIWEH provides assistance to partnering governments in designing more equitable, sustainable and fairer local policies based on relevant, disaggregated data. This entails support for the development of local indicators, the creation of a water and sanitation database, a clearer reporting system and capacity building workshops focused on the right use of these systems and the ownership of the program (Ministry of Water and Sanitation, 2018).. GIWEH’s main partner in this project is the Ministry of Water and Sanitation. It was a precondition for the Institute to partner directly with a governmental entity in order to facilitate the project’s activities, gain time and increase the potential ramifications resulting from the project. Furthermore, the main beneficiary is the Kenyan government, at both the national and county level. Through the project’s activities, the Ministry’s capacities to collect data and track progress on water and sanitation services will be strengthened. Thus, more data will be available to “make fair, equitable and sustainable political decisions [...] to 17. ‘Flagship Project’. 29.

(31) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making answer the needs of the Kenyan population.” (The Global Institute for Water Environment and Health and Ministry of Water and Sanitation, 2017). Furthermore, the 47 county governments now have the constitutional obligation to provide every person with clean and safe water in adequate quantities. It is therefore necessary to act at the county level in order to start reducing disparities. Initially, the project was planned in five pilot counties: Kericho, Bomet, Nandi, Uasin Gishu and Nakuru.. 4.3.2 Methodology In order to design a monitoring framework that highlights inequalities, the project’s activities are focused on three levels: research, monitoring and capacity building. Therefore, the main steps of the project, which will be described in the following paragraphs, are driven by these three core concepts.. Research The design of a valid monitoring framework starts with a thorough analysis of the initial situation of the target country as well as of the target area and its communities (Schmitz, 2017). This includes an assessment of the roles and mandates of the institutions, organizations, firms and utilities related to public or private water management. First, data collection and dissemination practices are compiled at the national level. Then, their suitability for reporting purposes, such as for tracking progress on the SDGs, are assessed (Ibid).. Finally, it is imperative to correlate these findings with the organizations that operate at the local scale, such as county offices for water management and water user associations (Ministry of Water and Sanitation, 2018). Such linkages are important because information has to be efficiently transferable between the local, county and national levels of government in order to truly improve public policies. Furthermore, on top of being easily transferable, information has to be readable and understandable by decision makers. It is only when these two conditions are fulfilled that relevant data can have an impact and increase the effectiveness of local policies.. 30.

(32) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making. After defining the overarching institutional context of water management from the national to the community level, the project analyses the water resources situation of the targeted area (Ibid). In the scope of collecting local data, which will be relevant to the characteristics of each community, it is logical to do a thorough socio-economic analysis of the targeted communities. During this research, geography, demographics and socio-economic peculiarities of the area are listed. From these findings, priority areas are defined. These areas correspond to the most pressing issues to deal with according to the three key criteria (gender issues, affordability and rural development).. Monitoring The second step in designing a reliable framework for monitoring progress on SDG 6 at the local level is to develop indicators that will accurately measure the items of the priority areas. Each priority area being specific to the different communities, the indicators will necessarily reflect the situation of each area. Therefore, after analysing the situation in each target area, GIWEH “tailors the guidelines [of the project] to meet the specific needs of each case.” (The Global Institute for Water Environment and Health, n.d.).18 In order to develop relevant indicators, research had to be done on how to calculate values for certain indicators. For this project, it was important to include both global indicators, that were asked by UN Water in regards to global reporting, and fill the gaps with local indicators. Meetings were thus conducted with officials from this organization to better understand what they were looking for in terms of information and how to calculate this information. This was done to complete the reporting ladder from the local to the global scale.. Once the target data is defined, a team of volunteers from county governments, public agencies or universities will start collecting data. A major component of the project consists in the creation of a water and sanitation online system that will enable a standardized entry and storage of the newly collected data. The aim 18. ‘Projects’. 31.

(33) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making is to create an organized database “accessible to all and transferable to the different institutional scales.” (The Global Institute for Water Environment and Health and Ministry of Water and Sanitation, 2017). This will allow enhanced analysis capabilities for improving public policies at the local level based on well-structured data.. Lastly, GIWEH’s flagship project incorporates a visualisation and dissemination component. In order to enable users to understand the spatial distribution of the information gathered, geographic information systems (GIS) technologies will be used. Indeed, visually representing data on a map facilitates the decision-making process and favours geographically fair decisions (O’Looney, 2000). According to the Kenyan County Governments Act, county governments are now legally responsible, through their County Planning Units, to ensure “the establishment of a GIS based database system.”19 Along with allowing clearer reporting of data across institutional scales, the GIS element of GIWEH’s flagship project also reinforces the counties’ capacities to transition to geo-spatial databases while conforming to current law.. Capacity building After research and monitoring, the last level on which the project operates is capacity building. Indeed, the need for regular data input brings about two things: first, the database created for monitoring purposes has to be constantly updated, and second, this updating process will have to be carried out by local county government officials after the project is completed (The Global Institute for Water Environment and Health and Ministry of Water and Sanitation, 2017). Therefore, it is important to ensure that people related to the program acquire the necessary competencies to continue collecting, storing, analysing and disseminating data, but also to further train other people to do these tasks. For this purpose, documentation and tutorials will be designed to help build capacity during dedicated workshops.. 19. See art. 105.1.f. 32.

(34) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making Learning how the database system (entry and analysis) works is important, but it will be equally indispensable to transfer knowledge on the use of GIS systems. Indeed, to ensure the GIS maps act as an efficient decision support tool, relevant stakeholders need to learn how the software works and how it can be used to visualize and transmit important data as part of reporting requirements. The theoretical structure of GIWEH’s flagship project therefore relies on three core concepts. Preliminary research will first enable the team to assess the situation in the target area - both institutionally and in terms of water resources - in order to customize the subsequent monitoring framework. For this framework, relevant local and disaggregated indicators will allow the team to collect information, which will, in turn, facilitate decision-making and enhance local public policies. Capacity building, which is the last core step of the project, closes the loop and allows the local project team to fully take over and be autonomous in the activities and in the use of the required software.. 33.

(35) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making. 5. Research Question 1: Equity Areas & Institutional Context To address water management issues worldwide and improve the services provided to local communities, heavy investments will be needed. However, funding is limited and thus, it is crucial to make targeted investments prioritizing the neediest and based on data-driven evidence. This will allow public policies to have the most impact. Because current national aggregated indicators on water and sanitation access flatten the differences between communities, genders, income groups, locations and ethnicities, it is necessary to disaggregate the data and collect it locally. Public policies that are supported by participatory processes and relevant data will have a greater chance at reinforcing equity in terms of access to water and sanitation services. In order to develop a set of relevant indicators that will highlight inequalities, we will first present the three key equity areas outlined by GIWEH. Then, we will show the findings of our preliminary institutional context analysis.. 5.1 Equity: the Three Key Areas 5.1.1 Gender Issues There are many inequalities between men and women in regards to access to water. Women and girls are the most disadvantaged because they are the ones that bear the role of traveling long distances and queuing for several hours at local kiosks to gather water for their daily domestic tasks. This is detrimental to their health as the water points are far away. Moreover, in many cases, girls skip school because of the role they play in water gathering (USAID, 2018).. Access to sanitation services also creates inequalities for girls. According to a study made by Jewitt and Ryley (2014), there is a linkage between poor sanitation in schools and low attendance rate for post-pubescent girls. Indeed, in. 34.

(36) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making Kenya, girls in low-income areas have limited access to sanitary towels. During the interviews, many of them cited this as a reason to miss school during their menstruation. At the time of the study, the price of sanitary towels was about 65-120 Kenyan shillings (KES) (0.65 to 1.20 CHF) and the daily average Kenyan income was just over 1 CHF per day. It is unaffordable for most families.20 This is only an example amongst many others. Handwashing facilities also pose significant trouble for women and girls in public places (schools, workplaces or health centers). The World Bank (2018) mentions that if toilets are not separated, or if there is no water to wash hands, it also poses major issues for women having their menstruations. Therefore, there needs to be special attention paid to these gender-related issues.. In addition, women lack the opportunity to be heard politically on water-related issues. Even if they are the most concerned by the water task, it is often men that are at the head of water services. Therefore, decisions for new investments in the water sector usually forego the opinion of women. As women are the main customers and users of water in Kenya and in order to achieve the SDG 6, it is necessary to take into account women’s voices in water issues (World Bank, 2018).. 5.1.2 Affordability of Water Because of large differences in income, the affordability of water varies greatly between different income groups and urban or rural areas.. First of all, there are disparities in the access to individual taps or yard taps. According to Ledant (2013), some neighborhoods might have universal coverage while others won’t have any coverage. Those who don’t have access to a tap will rely on other sources of water. The problem stands in the fact that households that are connected to the water utility network are being subsidized, while those who are not connected usually pay much higher prices for water. For example, in Nairobi, the subsidized rate is 18.71 KES for each of the 10 first cubic meters, 20. Ibid, see p.141. 35.

(37) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making then it increases by blocks up to a maximum of 53.80 KES per cubic meter. Those who are not connected to this network, usually because of a lack of financial resources to build a tap, will pay a lot more to have alternative suppliers. As a comparison, in Nairobi, water kiosks tariffs fluctuate around 400 KES/m3 and handcarts around 1’000 KES/m3. Tankers and private boreholes are even more costly alternatives (Ledant, 2013). In short, people who can afford to have pipes and taps pay less for their water and people who have no access to a tap because of financial hardship have to pay up to 10 times more for water.. 5.1.3 Rural Areas Just as for gender and income group, there are huge disparities in access to improved sources of water between rural and urban areas. These inequalities also exist inside urban areas in informal settlements.. According to Mumma (2005), Kenya's Water Act 2002 was not effective to meet the needs of the rural poor, thus generating inequalities. Indeed, the study states that there is a positive relation in Kenya between poor access to reliable water service and degree of marginalization. In addition, even inside the areas serviced by the Water Service Providers (WSPs), the networks rarely serve everyone. Yet, according to their criteria, everyone is eligible to be serviced. In 2016, the Water Act was amended and a focus was put on the measures necessary to improve access in rural areas. However, there is insufficient literature to this day to gauge the change brought about for the rural poor.. In terms of water quality, it will depend on the type of source used for accessing water: it can be improved or unimproved. According to Sivi-Njonjo (2013), those who have access to improved water sources are less prone to be contaminated by water. Improved water sources include piped water, rain harvested water, borehole water and water from protected wells. On the contrary, unimproved water sources, which include water from rivers or streams, dams, ponds, lakes, unprotected wells, unprotected springs and water vendors face a higher risk of contamination (Ibid).. 36.

(38) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making. Access to improved water sources greatly differs by region (rural or urban). Sivi-Njonjo (2013) tells us that in total, only 50% of Kenyans have access to safe drinking water. The majority of these people are situated in urban areas (72%), meaning that they have one and a half times more access to improved water sources than individuals living in rural areas. Among the five pilot counties chosen for the project, three score below the national average in terms of access to improved sources of water (Kericho 40%, Nandi 36% and Bomet 24%) (Ibid). The other two score above the national average (Uasin Gishu 74% and Nakuru 60%).. Source: Sivi-Njonjo (2013). KNBS & SID. Exploring Kenya’s inequalities.. In the same report, we see another important point that is the lack of sanitation and access to safe waste disposal methods in rural areas. To enhance public health and wellbeing in a community, it is a crucial point to consider. Indeed, the disparities between urban and rural areas are staggering. Nationally, 61.1% of the population in Kenya has access to improved methods of waste disposal. This includes a connection to the main sewer, septic tank, cesspit, ventilated -improved pit latrine and covered pit latrine. Unimproved sources of waste disposal include uncovered pit latrines, bucket latrines and bush. According to Njuguna (2019), open defecation has increased among households. The huge majority of the 14% of people who resort to open defecation are considered. 37.

(39) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making poor. With poverty, residing in rural areas constitutes one of the most significant causes of open defecation. Parallely, the richest households changed to the use of pit latrine with slab in 2003 to the use of flush toilets connected to a sewer in 2014. The middle income households are using pit latrine without a slab and the poorest households kept practicing open defecation (Njuguna, 2019).. Striving to reinforce equity in access to water and sanitation, the project focuses on reflecting the true situation of marginalized populations. Inequalities are blatant and the set of indicators developed during our research will have to take into account gender, income group and residence in rural or urban areas in order to provide help for policy design.. 5.2 Institutional Context In the broader scope of defining a nation-wide systematic data collection, collation and reporting system, we must first assess the current institutional and technical capacity to manage and monitor water resources at the national and county levels. This is a necessary step that will allow us to better understand the institutions responsible for data collection at the local scale, and who they answer to at the national level. This is essential to develop local indicators through a dialogue with both the institutions and the people.. 5.2.1 State Actors National level The Ministry of Water and Sanitation (MWS) is the overarching institution in terms of water and sanitation management. Its mandate is to monitor and implement the national water management strategies. Among other roles, the MWS is charged with “improving the [...] access to water resources information.” (Schmitz, 2017).. The Water Resources Authority (WRA) is responsible for regulating the management and use of water resources, and therefore, plays a crucial role in collecting, storing, analysing and disseminating data related to water and. 38.

(40) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making sanitation issues (Republic of Kenya, 2016). It translates the Ministry’s mandate into concrete actions on the ground. The WRA must also communicate data to the different catchment offices for decision-making (forecasts, projections, etc.) (Schmitz, 2017).. Furthermore, the law states that the WRA “shall ensure that there is a national monitoring and geo-referenced information system on water resources” (Republic of Kenya, 2016). In this sense, the Authority has the duty to regularly ask and retrieve information on everything related to water and sanitation. This information is asked from local institutions such as county governments and catchment level offices. According to the WRA website, the national information and monitoring system is currently being updated.. Once again, the legislation sends a positive signal and legitimizes GIWEH’s project. Indeed, as stated before, a GIS system is necessary to facilitate decision-making. By explicitly stating the need for a geo-referenced information system, the Water Act 2016 consolidates the message sent to all Kenyan water actors and thus, gives GIWEH a strong legal base for its actions.. The Water Services Regulatory Board (WASREB) is the regulatory body of the water sector in Kenya. It develops indicators to monitor and evaluate the implementation of national WASH policies and strategies. The WASREB also plays a direct role in licensing WSPs. WSPs are required to regularly collect data on surface water, groundwater and effluent quality and quantity. Thus, they play an important role in data collection for water and sanitation monitoring (Ministry of Water and Irrigation, n.d.).. Catchment level As a significant part of our project focuses on facilitating the transmission of information between institutional scales, it is important to understand the hierarchy of organisations working in the WASH sector.. 39.

(41) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making At the catchment level, the WRA operates regional catchment-level offices for every basin. For the Lake Victoria South Catchment Area, the office is located in Kisumu; for LVNCA, in Kakamega and for RVCA, in Nakuru (Water Resources Authority, n.d.). The regional offices are responsible for gathering data and advising the national WRA. They are managed by the Deputy Technical Coordination Managers (DTCMs) and they report to the Technical Coordination Manager (TCM), who is stationed at the WRA Headquarters in Nairobi.. Through different partnerships, WSPs are supposed to work closely with catchment stakeholders in order to ensure that both the quality and quantity of water in the catchment is sufficient for their abstraction. Such partnerships include the Kisumu Water and Sewerage Company, the Mwanza Urban Water and Sewerage Authority (Tanzania) and the National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) of Kampala (Uganda) who partnered with the aim of each organisation developing a Water Safety Plan. The three utilities are dependent on the Lake Victoria basin for their raw water.. The WRA also established Basin Water Resource Committees (BWRC). They are composed of different stakeholders from the basin area (private sector, agricultural sector, counties’ administration, water experts, etc). Their role is to report to the WRA and advise the county governments in matters related to the conservation, use and management of water resources. Among other things, the law stipulates that these BWRC have the role to collect and analyse data as well as manage the database on water resources at the catchment level. Thus, the BWRC constitutes a very important point of contact for GIWEH.. Sub-catchment level While all institutional levels are relevant for the project, the sub-basin level provides useful information about local communities.. At the sub-catchment level, each BWRC allows and facilitates the creation of Water Resources Users Associations (WRUAs). The latter are community-based. 40.

(42) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making associations, which can be contracted by the BWRC as agents to perform certain duties in water resource management. They should also assist in data collection processes if needed. Collaboration with these WRUAs is essential to create a truly participatory and inclusive data collection and dissemination system. They are represented just above the users on the figure below.. Source: 2030 Water Resources Group. Understanding the Kenya 2016 Water Act.. In Bomet County, there a few sub-catchment areas such as Nyangores, Amala and part of the Mara River basin. For all these sub-catchments, communities have assembled in the form of WRUAs. These associations are the water management structures that are the closest to the people. They act as a communication channel between the “environmental services from the river and the livelihoods of local communities.” (Richards and Syallow, 2018). In the Mara River basin, achievements range from riparian land restoration and protection, soil erosion reduction, decrease in illegal abstraction, conflict resolution, etc. (Moncrieff, 2017).. 41.

(43) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making From these findings, we can see that there is a clear hierarchy between all the institutional levels in terms of water and sanitation monitoring in Kenya. The legal roles and mandates of the different organizations were first defined in the Water Act 2002 and were later strengthened in the Water Act 2016. To better understand how reporting is done, it is important to understand this hierarchy. Thus, it is essential for GIWEH to understand how, where and when the information flows.. 5.2.2 Non-state Actors Although the main information circuit is mostly composed by governmental organizations, there are also non-state actors that are engaging in water and sanitation monitoring. These are mainly non-governmental organisations (NGOs), international organisations (IOs), civil society and the scientific community.. The UN Environment Program, for example, has its headquarters in Nairobi. Their role is to set the global environmental agenda, oversee the implementation of the SDGs related to the environment and promote the environment globally (UN Environment, 2017). The UN Environment also has a global water quality database called GEMStat. It provides useful data about water and sanitation, thus showing a global overview of the state of water bodies at global and regional levels. The aim is to create a unique global water monitoring network in order to track progress on SDG 6. The GEMStat database already contains 4 million entries for rivers, lakes, reservoirs, wetlands and groundwater system from 75 countries including Kenya.. This platform is a tool that will be used by GIWEH in the scope of its project. However, the goal is to go further than this database and move from the global to the local agenda. Furthermore, not all the data is public and a request was sent to access data for the five counties of the project. An answer has not been received as of yet.. 42.

(44) Building local indicators for more evidence-based policy making Furthermore, Dig Deep is an example of an NGO that works to ensure “clean drinking water, safe toilets and good hygiene” (Dig Deep, n.d.) to many children and communities that lack these services in Bomet County. They build taps, toilets and do trainings. They also monitor the projects and the quality of the water in the area. Therefore, they are part of the information circuit: they collect data and disseminate it.. Finally, research institutes, such as the Kenya Water Institute (KEWI), also perform scientific research for the water sector (Kenya Water Institute, 2017). The KEWI mainly offers consultancy and high-level training for water-related issues. For the scope of its mandate, it has worked closely with many water utilities, notably Naivasha Water and Sewerage Company in Nakuru County. The main consultancy services they offer are related to water and waste analysis, environmental impact assessment and capacity building. In the scope of our project, it could be interesting to understand how they collect data and what kind of capacity building training they offer.. 5.2.3 Monitoring Programs Apart from classic institutions and organizations, there are also other projects that focus on monitoring water and sanitation issues, such as crowdsourcing projects or earth observations using satellite imagery.. Crowdsourcing Since the County Governments Act of 2012, counties have the obligation to foster a participatory approach to decision making by including citizens in the process (National Council for Law Reporting, 2012).21 Among other principles, county governments should promote the “protection and promotion of the interest and rights of minorities, marginalized groups and communities and their [timely] access to relevant information”.22 Under this legal impulsion, a few projects involving citizens for water monitoring have been created in Kenya. They focus. 21 22. See art. 87 Ibid, art. 87c. 43.