A comparison of country performance in realizing universal WaSH The - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

A comparison of country performance in realizing universal WaSH

Ryan Cronk The Water Institute at UNC The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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The water, sanitation, and hygiene performance index

Human development and human rights context

• Water and sanitation featured prominently in the Millennium

Development Goals

• Water and sanitation are recognized as human rights (through

General Comment 15)

• Progressive realization requires that each government take steps to

achieve the full realization of rights to the maximum of its available resources

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Human development and human rights context

• The Sustainable Development Goals provide potential for

convergence of human development and human rights policy.

• Monitoring approaches to assess progress towards development

goals have focused on the level of coverage

• New monitoring instruments needed to examine performance and

progressive realization (no quantitative measures of progressive realization exist)

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Countries with high improved water coverage:

• Sweden (100%)
• France (100%)
• United Kingdom (100%)

High income countries Countries with low water coverage:

• D.R. Congo (47%)
• Mozambique (49%)
• Mauritania (50%)

Low income countries

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The difference between coverage, rates of change, and performance

Challenge: comparing water access between high and low income countries is not meaningful

Countries with high rates of change in improving water access:

• Mali (4.3 percent per year)
• Tajikistan (3.6 percent per year)
• El Salvador (3.6 percent per

year) Countries with low rates of change in improving water access:

• Ghana (-1.32 percent per year)
• Solomon Islands (-1.7 percent

per year)

• Colombia (-2.4 percent per

year)

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The difference between coverage, rates of change, and performance

Challenge: Countries are at different levels of water and sanitation coverage AND development

The difference between coverage, rates of change, and performance

• To compare countries fairly, we need to compare country rates of

change to best-in-class performance at different levels of coverage.

• Frontier analysis enables this comparison.
• We based the WaSH Performance Index on this approach.

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The WaSH Performance Index

The WaSH Performance Index compares country performance in the following components:

• Water access
• Water equity
• Sanitation access
• Sanitation equity

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Calculation of access and equity

• Access: rate of change in improvement in coverage
• Equity: the rate of change of the gap in coverage between rural and

urban settings

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Increasing equity in Peru Decreasing equity in Timor Leste

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72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 Bangladesh (2007) Bangladesh (2009) Bangladesh (2010) Coverage (%) Coverage data per year

Sanitation coverage in Bangladesh

Rate of change: 2.5 percent per year

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• 6
• 4
• 2

2 4 6 8 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Rate of change (%/year) Improved sanitation coverage (%) All country rates of change Frontier points Performance frontier

Performance frontier, Best-in-class performance

1 Bangladesh 0.5

• 1

Comparison of performance versus country characteristics

• Bivariate regression
• Independent variables include:
• World Development Indicators: GDP, Under-five mortality rate, World Region,

World Bank Income classification

• Worldwide governance indicators (World Bank): control of corruption, voice

and accountability, political stability, governance effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law

• Future publications will incorporate additional data sources (e.g. UN-

Water GLAAS) and include multivariate analysis

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Water coverage

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Low water access coverage across Sub- Saharan Africa

Water access performance

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Mixed water access performance across Sub- Saharan Africa

Water access coverage versus performance

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Coverage Performance versus

Despite persistently being the region with the lowest water coverage in the world, water access performance among countries in Sub-Saharan Africa varies widely, with both top and bottom performers.

Sanitation access performance

15 R² = 0.4934 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 10 30 50 70 90 GDLP (log) Sanitation coverage (%)

Sanitation coverage vs. GDP (log)

R² = 0.0032 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

• 1
• 0.5

0.5 1 GDP (log) Sanitation performance index value

Sanitation access performance vs. GDP (log)

Despite the widespread assumption that countries with higher GDP will perform better in improving access to water and sanitation, GDP is not correlated with performance.

Sanitation equity performance

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• Progress toward equity in sanitation is associated with

governance indicators including control of corruption, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, and rule of law.

• These results suggest the enabling environment

contributes to progress in sanitation equity.

Country rankings

• Full list of country ranks on the Water Institute website:

http://waterinstitute.unc.edu/wash-performance-index-report/

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Implications for policy and practice

• Human rights: Index enables objective and comparable assessment of

progressive realization.

• Offers insight on country performance and relationships between

country performance and country factors

• The Index informs finance ministers, external support agencies,

practitioners, and investors on the types of investments to make – for example, in infrastructure, governance or both.

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Future improvements

• Explore alternate models to calculate rates of change (e.g.

Generalized Additive Models)1

• Alternate calculations of equity (e.g. wealth quintiles)
• Human rights specific index (e.g. including process and structure

indicators)

• Hygiene performance
• Non-household settings (e.g. schools and health care facilities)

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1 Fuller, J. A., Goldstick, J., Bartram, J., & Eisenberg, J. N. (2016). Tracking progress towards global drinking water and sanitation targets: A within and among country analysis. Science of The Total Environment, 541, 857-864.

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Photo: Ryan Cronk, 2014

Thanks for your attention. Questions? Full report available on our website:

http://waterinstitute.unc.edu/wash-performance-index-report/

Methods paper forthcoming

Acknowledgements: Jeanne Luh, Ben Meier, Mike Fisher, Kate Shields, Kaida Liang, Jamie Bartram

Funding provided by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation

Back up slides

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Implications for policy and practice

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• 4
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2 4 6 8 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Rate of change (%/year) Improved sanitation coverage (%)

All historical rates Frontier points Maximum frontier

Above average sanitation coverage Below average sanitation coverage

64% coverage, global sanitation average

Positive component value Negative component value

Implications for policy and practice

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• 6
• 4
• 2

2 4 6 8 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Rate of change (%/year) Improved sanitation coverage (%)

All historical rates Frontier points Maximum frontier

Above average sanitation coverage Below average sanitation coverage

64% coverage, global sanitation average

Invest in a mix of enabling environment and implementation Invest in targeting under- served populations

Negative component value Positive component value

Invest in country capacity building and enabling environment

Stakeholder consultation

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• Think tank events held

with stakeholders and experts at major WaSH events

• Expert recommendations:
• Clear communication of the

concept

• Align with SDGs
• Future proof

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• Fig. 1. Different trajectories of access to drinking water and
• sanitation. Access to improved sanitation in rural Viet Nam

showing a linear trajectory (Panel A). Access to improved sanitation in rural Thailand showing saturation (Panel B).

Fuller, J. A., Goldstick, J., Bartram, J., & Eisenberg, J. N. (2016). Tracking progress towards global drinking water and sanitation targets: A within and among country

• analysis. Science of The Total Environment, 541, 857-864.

Countries with high rates of change in improving sanitation access:

• Pakistan (4.7 percent per year)
• Fiji (4.3 percent per year)
• South Africa (4.2 percent per

year) Countries with low rates of change in improving sanitation access:

• India (-2.9 percent per year)
• Burundi(-3.9 percent per year)
• Timor Leste (-5.4 percent per

year)

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The difference between coverage, rates of change, and performance

Challenge: Countries are at different levels of development

Countries with high rates of change in improving water equity:

• Liberia (6.6 percent per year)
• Zimbabwe (4.5 percent per year)
• Niger(4.4 percent per year)

Countries with low rates of change in improving water equity:

• Gambia (-1.9 percent per year)
• Cape Verde (-2.2 percent per

year)

• Timor-Leste (-2.3 percent per

year)

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The difference between coverage, rates of change, and performance

Challenge: Countries are at different levels of development

Top five countries:

• 1. El Salvador
• 2. Niger
• 3. Egypt
• 4. Maldives
• 5. Pakistan

Bottom five countries:

• 1. The Dominican Republic
• 2. Gambia
• 3. Ghana
• 4. Samoa
• 5. Timor-Leste

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Overall index: top five and bottom five countries

Overall index: most populated country performance

• Among the most populated countries in the world, Pakistan, China,

and Nigeria were top performers (ranked 5, 11, and 18 respectively)

• Conversely, Russia, the Philippines and India were bottom performers

(ranked 72, 83, and 92 respectively)

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