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Guarantee the monitoring of the five quality pillars in the response outputs, and take corrective actions when necessary
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Set up a quality and accountability assurance system for the response
Ensuring that the WASH partners provide to the affected populations a humanitarian response complying with minimum standards of quality is a priority for the humanitarian WASH community. 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;
- Impartial - the targeted communities of WASH programmes should be based on a sound vulnerability criteria ;
- 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;
- 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.
A WASH Humanitarian response can be defined by a combination of response inputs and outputs, as per the following diagram:
To ensure a high quality response, the WASH Coordination platforms should:
- Ensure response inputs are adequate
- Guarantee the monitoring of the five quality pillars (see diagram above) in the response outputs, and take corrective actions when necessary
A humanitarian WASH response Quality Assurance System consists in the set up of mechanisms during both preparedness and response phases to guaranty the achievement of these two responsibilities:
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Ensure response inputs are adequate
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The response must be coordinated not only to maximise outputs or beneficiary numbers, but also to make real progress towards objectives and ensure response is safe, inclusive, participatory and effective. Coordination platform can address this by setting up and following up a Quality Assurance and Accountability Systems (QAAS). A QAAS is a process implemented at national level that aims at ensuring standards for quality and accountability in humanitarian WASH responses are met and maintained, with continuous improvement. It provides a way to monitor a WASH response against a jointly agreed, contextually relevant quality and accountability framework. An effective QAAS is the joint responsibility of the Cluster Lead Agency, the Cluster Coordinator, Cluster partners at national and subnational level and donors. As humanitarian response will always face external constraints, the aim of a QAAS should be to provide the highest quality possible in the context by making improvements over time, rather than reaching an absolute level of quality. The QAAS comprises:
- A modular analytical framework that defines core standards, indicators and monitoring approaches that should be used to routinely monitor quality and accountability
- A quality assurance process that links this monitoring to operational decision making through joint analysis and planning. The process is summarised in the diagram on the right and the below table.
Figure 1: The QAAS process and Key Outputs
| STEP | DESCRIPTION | OUTPUT | TIMING |
|---|---|---|---|
1. DEFINE | The WCC convenes a TWiG. The TWiG choses the most appropriate modules of the modular analytical framework, set Key Quality Indicators (KQI) benchmark, agree on timing, approach and roles for data collection, reporting and analysis. | QAAS definition within the Strategic Operational Framework (SOF) validated by the SAG | Sudden onset: Day 14 - 30 Protracted: November-December |
2.MEASURE | KQIs are continuously monitored by cluster partners and third parties. Data is reported to the cluster IMO who produces Quality snapshots. | Quality snapshots | Continuous measurement, analysis and improvement through regular coordination meetings; ad-hoc alerting of priority gaps. |
3.ANALYSE | Quality Snapshot shared by IMO with cluster partners; quality gaps are prioritised; Action plans for addressing gaps are developed by the . | Action plan | |
4.IMPROVE | Action plans are implemented by partners and monitored by the TWiG; Information about issues identified and action plans is fed back to the affected population | Corrective actions Feedback to the affected population | |
| 5.LEARN | Trends, monitoring data and action plans are periodically reviewed by the TWiG; lessons learned are produced by partners including the CLA; SOF is revised accordingly by the SAG | Updated QAAS / SOF Lessons learned disseminated to GWC partners, decision makers and donors | Periodically Sudden onset: 3-9 months after onset Protracted: July-August |