USAID's Impact: Ex-Post Evaluation Series
The positive impacts of USAID’s water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) activities are often hard to dispute, especially during the immediate time period after projects come to a close. But how sustainable are these outcomes several years later?
The USAID Water Team, through its Water Communications and Knowledge Management project (Water CKM), conducted a series of six independent ex-post evaluations to better understand the long-term impact and sustainability of its WASH-related interventions. This evaluation series helped USAID understand whether and how its activity results have been sustained years after WASH projects close and inform future USAID investments in the sector.
Related: USAID water sector evaluations
Ex-Post Evaluation Synthesis
This synthesis summarizes key findings from a series of six independent ex-post evaluations that assessed the extent to which USAID–funded WASH activities sustained outcomes three to 10 years after closure and which factors drove those outcomes. The findings are meant to foster learning and improve evidence-based sustainable development assistance at USAID and across stakeholders in the WASH sector.
Read MoreUSAID Conducted Ex-Post Evaluations In Six Countries
Criteria
- All activities included in the series must have been closed for a minimum of three years and could not be recipients of Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance or Food for Peace funding.
- Preference is given to USAID missions that are at a point in their design cycle to incorporate learnings into upcoming WASH programs.
This evaluation series builds upon USAID and Rotary International’s WASH Sustainability Index Tool, which is a framework to assess a WASH activity’s likelihood to be sustainable according to the following factors: availability of finance for sanitation; local capacity for construction and maintenance of latrines; the influence of social norms; and governance.