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Set up a quality assurance system for the response
Know the AAP and GWC accountability framework and train partners on it
There is a common agreement among actors that the highest possible quality of response should be achieved. There is however no consensus on what exactly quality means in the field, at which phase of the response are we expected to reach peak quality, and who is accountable for ensuring it. For many contextual reasons (lack of competent staff, security and access issues, lack of materials locally available etc) it can be challenging for aid organizations to reach high quality standards. It is therefore important for the WASH sector to agree on clear achievable quality targets to be respected by all partners, thus making quality monitoring possible.
Ensuring that the WASH partners can provide to the affected populations a humanitarian response complying with minimum standards of quality has become a priority for the humanitarian WASH community. WASH Coordination platforms therefore should as much as possible ensure that the enabling environment is conducive for partners to monitor the quality of the WASH response (as a sector) in countries.
Partners implementing the WASH response must ensure that it:
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The GWC defines a good quality response as follows:
- Appropriate and relevant - communities and people affected by the crisis should have access to water and sanitation infrastructure and services, as well as receive key hygiene messages and items that meet their needs and be culturally appropriate;
- Is impartial Impartial - the targeted communities of WASH programmes should be based on a sound vulnerability criteria ;
- Is as As participatory as possible - communities and people affected by crisis should know their rights and entitlements, have access to information, participate in decisions that affect them, and have the possibility to provide feedback to WASH partners;
- Is effective Effective and timely - the WASH response should be realistically designed, sized and phased so that it is delivered in a timely manner, in line with the capacity of the sector;
- Strengthens local capacities and avoids negative effects - WASH partners, should to the maximum extent possible, build their response on local capacities and work towards improving the resilience of communities and people affected by crisis.
Quality can be measured in the field through the measurement of 5 response outputs, in orange in the below diagram.
WASH Coordination platforms should:
- Ensure response inputs are adequate
- Ensure overall response quality monitoring, by monitoring the five above mentioned response outputs
- Ensure that quality issues are reported, and addressed adequately through improvement of the response inputs.
A humanitarian WASH response accountability and quality assurance system consists in the set up of mechanisms to guaranty a certain level of quality in the response, the monitoring of these mechanism and ensure issues are addressed when necessary. Response quality is defined by the GWC as the results of 5 elements, as per the below diagram:
WASH coordination platform plays an instrumental role to guide the partners and help them to take into consideration these focus areas, as well as to organize their monitoring.the achievement of these three responsibilities.