Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership End of Project Report

This end of project report captures work across the USAID Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership (SWS) as applied to rural water and small town sanitation services. The document shares approaches and findings generated through the partnership’s study of how systems understanding and engagement can help service providers navigate the complex challenges to service sustainability, how incentivizing preventive maintenance and fast repair times can improve rural water services, and how collective action platforms can bring about policy change.

Throughout its work in Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda, SWS partners faced challenges balancing systems strengthening and scaling their approaches with the need to collect evidence for learning and research, turnover of actors, and the length of time required to increase sustainability of service delivery. In addition to presenting findings and recommendations, this report includes a summary of these challenges as well as lessons and achievements. It also links to some of the many SWS studies and journal articles that delve more deeply into the details of the evidence generated through the partnership’s exploration of locally driven, systems-based approaches.

A companion End of Project Annex and Annotated Bibliography are also available to download. The annex contains comprehensive information on how SWS partners addressed their learning questions and includes a summary of SWS Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning.