Monitoring performance or performing monitoring? Exploring the power and political dynamics underlying monitoring the MDG for rural water in Ethiopia

Abstract

Abstract Performance monitoring, most prominently exemplified in the Millennium Development Goals, is often perceived as providing objective results. Using the case of access to rural water supplies in Ethiopia, this article explores the power and political dynamics inherent in sector performance monitoring. It traces how the framing of access via employing different calculation methods led to divergent portrayals of water access in Ethiopia's Southern Region (23.7%–54%). While acknowledging that powerful actors can choose monitoring results to serve a particular end, such as a positive policy picture of access, this article illuminates the plural character of monitoring processes and their potential for a more reflective practice.

Résumé Les données issues de l’évaluation et du suivi des programmes et politiques de développement sont souvent considérées comme objectives, ce qui est particulièrement bien mis en évidence pour les Objectifs du Millénaire pour le développement. Cet article examine les dynamiques politiques et les rapports de pouvoir inhérents au suivi du rendement dans le secteur de l'approvisionnement en eau des régions rurales éthiopiennes. Il démontre comment la formulation des méthodes de calcul explique l'ampleur des variations dans les estimations de l'accès à l'eau dans la région sud du pays. Tout en reconnaissant que les décideurs ont pu manipuler les données pour des fins politiques, l'auteure met en relief les fins multiples des processus d’évaluation pour conclure sur la façon dont ils peuvent inspirer une pratique réflexive.

Keywords:

• performance monitoring
• water supply
• framing
• politics of knowledge production
• Ethiopia

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Morten Jerven and the independent reviewers for their thoughtful comments on this article, which helped to substantially improve the document. I am grateful to all my interview partners who provided me with rich insights in Ethiopia's water sector monitoring. Furthermore, I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Economic and Social Research Council to my PhD, on which this article's findings are based.

Biographical note

Katharina Welle specialises in the interface between research, policy and practice of development. Her key expertise is in water and sanitation in the South. Since 2003, she has carried out applied research on water supply, sanitation and hygiene as related to politics and governance, aid relationships in the sector and sector-related monitoring and evaluation. Katharina is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Social Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainibility (STEPS) Centre, University of Sussex. She has worked at the Overseas Development Institute and at the Water and Sanitation Program of the World Bank in Kenya, Yemen and Ethiopia.

Notes

1. A detailed discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the different methods can be found in Butterworth et al. (2013a, 2013b).

2. http://www.bigpushforward.net

3. The full name is Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Regional National State.

4. The UAP distinguishes between three statuses of schemes: functional, non-functional (but repairable) and abandoned. All non-functional, repairable schemes are included in this definition of access.

5. I am using the access figures for rural and urban water combined here, as I did not obtain a disaggregated figure for rural water access for Method 3.