SAWRP: Payment by Results

DELIVERING EFFECTIVE PROGRAMMES AND SUSTAINED OUTCOMES

The South Asia WASH Results Programme (SAWRP) is funded by the Department of International Development (DFID) under a Payment by Results (PbR) contract.

Differing from a traditional grant, Payment by Results is a relatively new form of financing in the WASH sector, where risk is shared between the donor and implementing organisations by tying payment to the achievement and verification of agreed targets – meaning the programme received full payment if the SAWRP consortium delivered agreed delivery (outputs) and sustainability (outcomes) results.

For the first phase of SAWRP in Pakistan and Bangladesh, the outputs and associated outcomes were linked to:

providing WASH services to 6.6 million people in Bangladesh and Pakistan by December 2015
ensuring continued access to and use of water and sanitation facilities, and continued safe hygiene practices, at least until the end of the programme in March 2018 and hopefully far beyond.

For the second phase of SAWRP, in Bangladesh only, the outputs and associated outcomes are linked to:

providing WASH services to an additional 650,000 people in Bangladesh by June 2019
ensuring continued access to and use of water and sanitation facilities, and continued safe hygiene practices, at least until the end of the programme in March 2021 and hopefully far beyond.

In early 2016, SAWRP’s external verification agency, e-Pact, confirmed that we over-achieved on our output delivery targets for the initial December 2015 deadline. This was a huge achievement, down to the excellent work of our staff, in-country partners and local implementing partners.

Phase 1: our impact

We committed to improving water access for 227,750 people

We reached 279,417 (123%)

We committed to reaching 1,664,175 people with improved sanitation

We reached 1,940,987 (118%)

We committed to improving access to handwashing soap for 6,609,389 people

We reached 7,121,559 (108%)

During the sustainability phase of the programme in Bangladesh and Pakistan, from January 2016 to March 2018, we worked with the people we reached during the output phase to ensure they continued to access and use their water and sanitation facilities, and continued to practice positive hygiene behaviour such as handwashing with soap at key times.

Our priorities during this phase were to:

Ensure the continued use and maintenance of sanitation and water supply facilities installed during the delivery phase, and the continued practice of hand washing with soap at critical times.
Strengthen local and national governments to continue using approaches that have been seen to be effective on the programme in support of national goals.

Our ‘pillars of sustainability’ include quality assurance, so that community-led total sanitation (CLTS) is applied effectively to create demand for improved sanitation, which sanitation marketing approaches build on, facilitating the ongoing promotion and supply of skills and materials by the private sector.

For schools, the focus of attention shifted from direct implementation to securing ongoing hand washing promotion within the curriculum, as well as supporting selected schools in accessing increased funding for WASH, through the work of our implementing partner WSUP.

The second phase of SAWRP in Bangladesh is following a similar approach, with delivery of outputs due by June 2019 before we move into the outcome – or sustainability – phase of the programme.