There is a consensus on the need for decisions to be evidence-based to improve the delivery of equitable, universal, and sustainable water and sanitation services and to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.

In response to this recognition, the sector has made great progress in developing indicators, frameworks, and processes for tracking sector achievements. These are largely led by WHO and UNICEF and are continuously refined and enriched to fill data gaps and reflect our sector’s evolution (particularly around WASH funding flows, WASH system strengthening, climate resilience, hygiene, gender, etc.).

Increasing volumes of data are being produced, often using new data solutions and technologies, with the expectation that better data will produce better decision outcomes. However, multiple examples of monitoring information not being used by decision-makers suggest that these efforts do not always yield the expected transformative change and can simply be extractive.

At Aguaconsult, we support global and national efforts to strengthen sector monitoring indicators and methods, analysis, knowledge production, and use in decision-making. We use data daily to advocate for evidence-based decision-making in all the assignments we undertake. We work with data producers and data funders, to emphasize the importance of placing context-specific data use and decision-making first (and over technology and increasing volumes of data). Our experience in this area includes: