House of Commons International Development Committee Sanitation and Water: Government Response to the Committee's Sixth Report of Session 2006-07 Seventh Special Report of Session 2006-07 Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 4 July 2007 HC 854 Published on 10 July 2007 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited International Development Committee The International Development Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Department for International Development and its associated public bodies. Current membership Malcolm Bruce MP (Liberal Democrat, Gordon) (Chairman) John Battle MP (Labour, Leeds West) Hugh Bayley MP (Labour, City of York) John Bercow MP (Conservative, Buckingham) Richard Burden MP (Labour, Birmingham Northfield) Mr Quentin Davies MP (Labour, Grantham and Stamford) James Duddridge MP (Conservative, Rochford and Southend East) Ann McKechin MP (Labour, Glasgow North) Joan Ruddock MP (Labour, Lewisham Deptford) Mr Marsha Singh MP (Labour, Bradford West) Sir Robert Smith MP (Liberal Democrat, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) John Barrett MP (Liberal Democrat, | Committee during this inquiry Powers The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk. Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at www.parliament.uk/indcom Committee staff The staff of the Committee are Carol Oxborough (Clerk), Matthew Hedges (Second Clerk), Anna Dickson (Committee Specialist), Chl6e Challender (Committee Specialist), lan Hook (Committee Assistant), Jennifer Steele (Secretary), Alex Paterson (Media Officer) and James Bowman (Senior Office Clerk). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the International Development Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 1223; the Committee's email address is [email protected] ev SEE ait HEENRTSPEDRS E fy oe { ™. é wea (5 , HiO A |iir ee. a ‘ ¥ i ‘ yw ri i# tRSS, 22503011406 Sanitation and Water: Government Response 1 Seventh Special Report On 26 April 2007 the International Development Committee published its Sixth Report of Session 2006-07, Sanitation and Water, HC 126. On 26 June 2007 we received the Government’s response to the Report. It is reproduced as an Appendix to this Special Report. In the Government Response, the Committee’s conclusions and recommendations are in bold text. The Government’s response is in plain text. Appendix: Government response DFID welcomes the International Development Committee’s important report on sanitation and water. We agree with the majority of the recommendations. The report’s focus on sanitation—one of the most off-track MDGs—is particularly timely given the big push we are preparing to make during 2008, the International Year of Sanitation. We also welcome a greater emphasis on the management of water resources—an issue which will become even more challenging because of population growth, urbanisation and climate change. We will continue to do more in both of these areas. Weare pleased that the report recognises the leading role DFID has played internationally on water, especially through the ‘five ones’ in the Call for Global Action (one report and one high-level meeting internationally, and, in countries, one national plan; one coordinating group and one lead UN body). We agree that more does need to be done on sanitation, not just by DFID but by the whole international community, developing country governments, civil society and the private sector. However, the Committee could have given greater recognition to the leading role DFID has already played on sanitation, both advocating internationally and through some excellent country programmes, such as in India and Bangladesh. These are already reaching tens of millions of people. We have committed to spending half of our direct aid on essential services, including sanitation, and to doubling our support for sanitation and water in Africa to £95 million per year by 2007/08 and to more than doubling it again to £200 million by 2010/11. We would also have welcomed more emphasis on the importance of working through others—particularly the multilaterals. In this response we highlight our extensive work with the World Bank and the European Union. The headcount restrictions noted by the Committee make our efforts to work more efficiently all the more important. Our policy update on sanitation and water is due by the end of 2007. This will build on many of the Committee’s recommendations. We will set up a multidisciplinary Sanitation Working Group in DFID to take forward the policy recommendations on sanitation. The group’s tasks will include setting out how DFID will increase the profile of sanitation at international, regional and national levels during 2008 in order to make progress. 2 Sanitation and Water: Government Response [Paragraph 19] The links between sanitation and other social sectors, particularly water, health and education, are self-evident. We commend a multi-disciplinary approach to the sanitation sector. [Paragraph 146] For DFID’s multi-disciplinary approach to work effectively, closer links will need to be built between DFID advisers working on water and those working on health. We recommend that water and sanitation be mainstreamed across DFID’s new health strategy to be published later in 2007, underpinned by explicit strategies to promote co-working between advisers working on water and advisers working on health. [Paragraph 154] DFID’s multi-disciplinary approach should ensure that water, sanitation, gender and education issues are mainstreamed across DFID’s forthcoming health strategy. We agree. A multi-disciplinary approach to sanitation is vital: efforts need to be made in sectors such as health and education to achieve the MDG target. DFID already fosters close links between advisers working on water and other issues. We have multi-disciplinary teams working on policy formulation, and developing programmes with partner countries. Water and governance advisers are currently working together to improve understanding of governance issues in the sector. As set out in DFID’s memorandum to the Committee, some of DFID’s largest and most successful water and sanitation programmes have focused foremost on sanitation and hygiene behaviour change. DFID’s multi-disciplinary working group on sanitation will examine how DFID can work more effectively towards sanitation goals through our health and education programmes. DFID's new health strategy, published on June 5 2007, explicitly recognises the links between health, water and sanitation. It commits us to ensuring that investments in other sectors, including water and sanitation, lead to maximum health gains. It also recognises the importance of working with health ministries to address sanitation. [Paragraph 20] DFID needs to be proactive in tackling the stigma around sanitation and should draw on lessons from the successes in tackling the stigma around HIV and AIDS. We agree. DFID has invested considerable effort in raising awareness of HIV and AIDS and tackling the stigma attached to it. We agree that important lessons could be drawn from this work to break the silence around sanitation and initiate hygiene behaviour change. However, whilst there are similarities between the issues, there are also important differences. For example, AIDS is often associated with already stigmatised populations, such as sex workers, who experience multi-layered stigma which requires work to address different issues at the same time. Therefore approaches may not be fully transferable. We will establish what lessons are transferable through the sanitation policy update. Sanitation and Water: Government Response 3 [Paragraph 22] We recommend that DFID make its sanitation investments more transparent by disaggregating funding given to the sanitation and water sectors, and by encouraging the multilateral institutions to which it contributes funds to do the same. We will explore the usefulness of disaggregating funding to sanitation and water, as well as the feasibility of doing so, as part of our general update in 2008/09. Most projects and programmes combine sanitation with water, education and health and exploit the synergies to be gained from this approach. It is therefore difficult in many programmes to differentiate sanitation investments from other interventions. We would also need to consider the extra reporting burden this would impose on our partner governments. [Paragraph 23] A multi-disciplinary approach to sanitation and water will only work if the two sectors are given equal attention. Sanitation is currently neglected within DFID. The complex distinctive challenges inherent in reaching the sanitation Millennium Development Goal target require proactive measures on DFID’s behalf to raise the profile of sanitation within its work on sanitation and water, including the creation of a separate sanitation strategy. We agree that sanitation has been given insufficient attention by donors and developing country governments as a whole, but we do not agree that DFID neglects sanitation. DFID played a leading role in the development of the MDG target on sanitation in 2002 and has been a key supporter of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, the main international advocate for sanitation. DFID has also actively supported and promoted pioneering work on Community-Led Total Sanitation. DFID will continue to work with development partners to increase profile and coverage, especially during 2008—The International Year of Sanitation. DFID’s forthcoming policy update will place particular emphasis on sanitation and what should be done differently to increase the effectiveness of work in this field. We recognise that a global doubling in effort is required to reach the MDG target. The sanitation working group will ensure that important policy recommendations are taken forward. [Paragraph 29] DFID’s support for research into the replicability of the Community- Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) scheme is important and should continue along with support to other promising approaches such as social marketing. The widespread success of CLTS in Bangladesh and emerging lessons from uptake elsewhere suggest that there are huge potential gains from the scheme. [Paragraph 30] The growing uptake of the Community-Led Total Sanitation scheme and social marketing approaches will require DFID staff working on sanitation to be adequately trained in the techniques needed for these approaches, so that they can advise governments and other development partners on how to design and invest in such programmes. We agree. An increasing number of DFID staff do have knowledge and experience of Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS). At least three advisers in DFID have worked on the WaterAid programme in Bangladesh, totalling five person years of expertise in this 4 Sanitation and Water: Government Response field. DFID also recognises social marketing as an essential tool for generating demand for sanitation. We will ensure that sanitation marketing is included as a component of sanitation programmes wherever appropriate, and will hold a session on CLTS as part of this year’s infrastructure advisers retreat. [Paragraphs 36-37] Different skill sets are required for the sanitation and water sectors: the former requires people-based skills and health and social development expertise, as opposed to the more technical solutions needed for water supply. We welcome DFID’s decision to carry out a review of its sanitation policy. Under the review, we recommend that DFID reconfigure its sanitation expertise. Sanitation must become an integral part of health advisers’—and, where possible, social development advisers —work within country programmes. Within DFID’s Policy and Research Division, the Water, Sanitation, Energy & Transport Team should contain health and social development advisory capacity. We agree that sanitation and water must be tackled in different ways, and will assess our capacity in the policy update. However, DFID water advisers, and other staff, already have many of the skills needed for sanitation and have used them effectively in the water sector for some time. Their expertise has delivered successful sanitation projects in the education sector in Malawi, and programmes in Bangladesh and India. For example, in Bangladesh DFID is supporting a £36 million Sanitation, Hygiene Education and Water Supply Programme, implemented by the Government of Bangladesh and UNICEF. This has a particular focus in improving hygiene practices in water scarce areas. The programme has delivered improved sanitation to 7 million people in its first five year phase and will improve sanitation to a further 30 million and 7,500 schools in the second five year phase. Moreover, sanitation, particularly for the urban poor, can still present significant technical problems. Simple on-site solutions may not be appropriate in dense urban areas or where ground conditions do not make latrines appropriate. Without proper attention to disposal of waste products there is a risk of polluting water sources and of outbreaks of disease. We are strengthening the links between water and health advisers both in the UK and in overseas offices. The joint water, sanitation and health programme being developed in Sierra Leone is an excellent example of this, as has been the joint working on our sanitation policy. [Paragraph 41] Sanitation provision in slums is constrained by institutional fragmentation, insecure land tenure and residents’ lack of political influence. We recommend that DFID revisit its prioritisation of rural over urban support as the global urbanisation process continues. The Department needs to work with governments to raise the issue higher up the political agenda, seek solutions to provision in informal settlements that are appropriate to and designed in consultation with local communities and create an institutional home and effective co-ordinating mechanisms for urban sanitation provision. We agree that given the pace of urbanisation, climate change and population growth, urban service delivery is a growing challenge for governments. This challenge is directly Sanitation and Water: Government Response 5 linked to poverty reduction as the poorest usually live in the most vulnerable parts of informal settlements. However given that 2 billion out of the 2.6 billion people lacking adequate sanitation live in rural areas, DFID has focussed on bringing access to these people, to try and meet the MDG target by 2015. DFID will work through multilateral and bilateral channels to support governments to respond to the urban challenge. 37% of DFID’s water and sanitation spend in 2005-06 was through multilateral organisations including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. These have strong urban expertise and allocate considerable funding to urban issues. Through organisations such as the multi-donor Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP) we are already paying increasing attention to service delivery in informal settlements. For example, through the Domestic Private Sector Participation Initiative (DPSPI) DFID is supporting 23 projects in 15 countries to enable the domestic private sector to deliver affordable and sustainable services to the poor, such as introducing innovative management models through partnerships between utilities and informal/small providers in Kenya and Tanzania. Bilaterally, DFID has significant activity with large urban services programmes in India and Sierra Leone. [Paragraph 44] We recommend that DFID support the wide promotion of lesson- learning about successful low-cost urban sanitation schemes such as the Orangi Project in Pakistan. We agree that lesson learning about successful low-cost urban sanitation is important. We have done this in the past (e.g. through the WELL factsheet on urban sanitation) and will continue to do this through our new Environment and Water Resource Centre. The Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) in Karachi, Pakistan has long been recognised as an example of how communities can take action to alleviate their sanitation problems. Indeed, it was used as a case study in DFID’s Water Target Strategy Paper of 2001. However replicating the OPP model has not proved easy. The OPP model depends on strong independent community efforts with limited engagement from government. This approach does not tap into the resources that governments can, and should, make available to enable programmes to deliver at scale. For long term sustainable results governments need to work with communities, as in the case of the Faisalbad Area Upgrading Project (FAUP) which DFID has supported. The FAUP helps communities to build their own social and physical infrastructure while maintaining links to government and receiving government funding for service provision along with their own contributions. [Paragraph 45] Sanitation needs international champions to reverse decades of neglect—and, with some reprioritisation and staff reconfiguration, DFID could and should be one of these champions. We recommend that DFID act now to push sanitation far higher up the global political agenda. If progress towards the sanitation Millennium Development Goal target is not rapidly stepped up, the attainment of all the other MDGs will be compromised. We agree that sanitation needs international champions. DFID has already played a major role in advocating sanitation and will continue to do so. 6 Sanitation and Water: Government Response DFID’s call for global action on water and sanitation calls for one high level annual meeting and one annual report. In 2008, the International Year of Sanitation, the annual report will prioritise sanitation which will be the focus of the first annual meeting. This will push sanitation up the global political agenda and help accelerate international action. DFID’s policy paper on sanitation will set out further ways to increase the focus within the international community and developing countries. We will set up a sanitation working group to take forward the recommendations from the IDC and the sanitation policy paper. [Paragraph 51] DFID deserves credit for the leadership it has demonstrated through its proposed Global Action Plan for water and sanitation. We were pleased to hear that some progress has been made on securing international agreement to the Plan. We exhort DFID to continue with urgency its high-level engagement on the Plan to ensure that the five objectives are agreed and launched by the end of 2007, to ensure sufficient progress is made towards meeting the MDG targets by 2015. We welcome this recognition. Real progress was made towards reforming the way the sector is organised internationally at a World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings Side Event. This progress was in line with the Secretary of State's ‘five ones’ in the call for global action. This is a priority for DFID and we will continue our high-level engagement. The Secretary of State and officials are working with those countries and agencies that attended the Spring Meetings to emphasise the role of each party in taking forward the call for global action. This will continue with the same level of urgency as before. DFID officials are working with UN-Water and others to take forward the one annual meeting and one annual report for 2008. The next significant milestone will be Stockholm Water Week in August 2007, at which the outline and sample sections for the 2008 annual report will be presented and the best opportunity for the first annual meeting in 2008 will be identified. [Paragraph 52] Whilst pursuing global progress on the effectiveness of financing for sanitation and water, DFID must at the same time ensure that its own house is in order when it comes to providing long-term, predictable and co-ordinated financing to the sectors. Predictability of financing is particularly important for the water sector, where a reliable source of funds is needed to build and maintain infrastructure. [Paragraph 56] Where decisions to withdraw planned aid are made, DFID needs to ensure it is accountable to poor people by being fully transparent_about decisions and by publicly announcing to parliamentarians and civil society the reasons for changes in policy and the planned remedial course of action. We recommend that DFID ensure that its aid to sanitation and water is predictable. Any rapid scaling-back of aid should be a last resort, but where it is unavoidable—for example following political events that are beyond its control—DFID should publicly communicate changes to its policies to civil society and parliamentarians to ensure proper accountability. We reiterate the recommendation we made in our report on DFID’s Departmental Report 2006 that DFID should examine the long-term viability of Poverty Reduction Budget Support before it is introduced and put contingency plans in place prior to PRBS being withdrawn. Sanitation and Water: Government Response 7 We agree. DFID has in place mechanisms to ensure transparency and predictability of aid allocation. We are continuing to improve this. DFID does not impose policy conditions through its aid. All aid agreements with partner governments are made in writing and their details are published on our external website. To ensure the predictability of our bilateral aid, we aim to disburse Poverty Reduction Budget Support to partner countries within the first 6 months of their fiscal year. Payments to non-governmental partners are made as scheduled, subject to satisfactory progress. We use 3-year rolling programmes of financial support, and have signed 10-year development partnership arrangements with 5 countries, with a further 6 due to be signed in 2007/08. A significant amount of DFID support is delivered through the multilateral system and this is due to expand. DFID is encouraging the World Bank and regional development banks to improve the predictability and transparency of their instruments. [Paragraph 60] For budget support to work effectively as an aid mechanism for the sanitation and water sectors, DFID needs to assist the ‘voice’ of the sectors by helping to strengthen the ‘institutional homes’ for sanitation and water and support the building of capacity at local government level. This is especially true for countries with decentralised government where spending decisions are made by regional and local officials. We recommend that DFID support a complementary strategy to strengthen the role of parliamentarians and civil society in scrutinising budgets and policies and articulating demand for sanitation and water services effectively. We agree that, in many countries, more needs to be done to ensure that the importance given to sanitation and water services by poor people is prioritised in government budgets, policies and practice. DFID is putting the spotlight on this at the international level through our call for global action, and nationally through initiatives such as the EU Water Initiative country dialogues, as well as through our core work on good governance. For states to work effectively for poor people, good governance needs to extend to local government. DFID is providing significant support for local government capacity-building through multilateral programmes such as the World Bank's $2 billion community-driven development approach. Our bilateral efforts include the Protection of Basic Services programme in Ethiopia. A recent review showed that government spending on basic services has grown substantially, service provision has increased and information about budgets is being made publicly available. [Paragraph 63] The UK’s recognition of the human right to water is a positive first step. However, DFID should encourage developing countries to go beyond recognition to quantify and legislate for the right to water. Only then can citizens hold their providers accountable for their entitlement to water. This should include a complementary strategy of increasing demand for water services by helping to raise public knowledge of existing entitlements, as well as of gaps in legislation and policies. 8 Sanitation and Water: Government Response We are committed to supporting partner countries to ensure that people enjoy their human right to water. How we do this will depend on the country context. Where appropriate, we will work with partner governments to define people’s right to water, support efforts to increase people’s knowledge of their entitlements, promote greater accountability in water services and strengthen the mechanisms by which people can claim their right to water. [Paragraph 71] DFID needs to engage with other donors to ensure that the Commission for Africa’s recommended donor spending on infrastructure of US$10 billion a year up to 2010 (and, subject to review, a further increase to US$20 billion a year in the following five years) is secured. We agree. In response to the Commission for Africa recommendation to increase investment in infrastructure for development, DFID led the establishment of the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa (ICA). The Consortium will increase the level of investment in sustainable infrastructure and address issues that are hampering progress. [Paragraph 72] We recommend that DFID prioritise engaging with the EU Water Initiative’s Africa Working Group so that gaps and overlaps in funding for sanitation and water in Africa can be addressed. [Paragraph 73] DFID has shown leadership on the EU Water Initiative from the outset. It now needs to use this position to seek more active participation from other donors so that improved co-ordination of EU member states’ aid to sanitation and water can be facilitated. [Paragraph 75] DFID has played an essential role in the first successful EU Water Initiative (EUWI) Country Dialogue in Ethiopia. It should proactively share lessons learned with other pilot countries so that the effective factors within the Ethiopian Dialogue can be emulated elsewhere. The Department should encourage other donors within the EUWI Africa Working Group to increase their involvement in Country Dialogues. We agree. DFID has already increased its engagement with the EU Water Initiative’s (EUWI) Africa Working Group (AWG). We participated in the group’s April meeting in Ouagadougou with the African Ministers Council on Water. DFID is active in the group of three Member States who lead the AWG, and will chair this group in 2008. DFID will also lead for Member States at the Africa Regional Meeting on Water, which we expect will take place at the Commission for Sustainable Development in April 2008. DFID has played a leading role in the EUWI from the start, and recently, along with Germany, funded a comprehensive review to make it more transparent and effective. We will finalise the recommendations with other stakeholders in August 2007. A DFID seconded expert at the European Commission has been instrumental in galvanising support from Member States for the EUWI and has provided strategic direction to its implementation and reform.