Corporate report

DFID Annual Report and Accounts 2014 to 2015 Results: Water, sanitation and hygiene sector

Published 16 July 2015

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Sustained utilisation of safe drinking water and hygienic latrines together with habitual hand washing with water and soap is effective in reducing diarrhoea and could prevent almost 1,000 unnecessary child deaths every day[footnote 1]. The MDGs include a target to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. The target has been met for water but an estimated 748 million people still did not use an improved source of drinking water in 2012. The world is off track on the sanitation target and by the end of 2012, 2.5 billion people lacked access to an improved sanitation facility[footnote 2].

1. DFID commitment

DFID has a commitment to reach 60 million people through its water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programmes by December 2015. This commitment was made at the Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) High Level Meeting in 2012. This superseded 3 separate targets for our water, sanitation and hygiene programmes, which were included in DFID’s ‘UK aid: Changing lives, delivering results’ publication[footnote 3].

2. Indicators used to measure progress

There are 4 WASH indicators included in the DFID Results Framework to measure progress on the number of people reached with these basic services through DFID support:

  • number of unique people reached with one or more water, sanitation or hygiene promotion intervention
  • number of people with sustainable access to clean drinking water sources through DFID support
  • number of people with sustainable access to an improved sanitation facility through DFID support
  • number of people reached with access to improved hygiene through DFID support to hygiene promotion

The first of these indicators tracks progress on DFID’s commitment to reach 60 million through our WASH programmes by December 2015[footnote 4]. This provides a measure of the number of people reached through DFID’s WASH programmes. Each person may be reached with one, two or all three of water, sanitation or hygiene interventions. The indicator methodology ensures that each person is only counted once.

3. Results achieved

By 2014-15, DFID had achieved the following:

  • supported over 62 million people to access clean water, better sanitation or improved hygiene conditions through DFID’s WASH programmes

The number of people reached with each of the 3 separate types of intervention by 2014-15 through DFID support were:

  • 20.9 million people with sustainable access to clean drinking water sources
  • 26.2 million people with sustainable access to an improved sanitation facility
  • 44.6 million people with access to improved hygiene

The majority of these results contributing to DFID’s commitment (around 85%) have been delivered through DFID’s bilateral programmes but some results are delivered through core funding to multilaterals (around 15%), primarily the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), but also through the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Asian Development Bank (AsDB) and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).

4. Progress towards DFID results commitments

Results achieved up to 2014-15 inclusive

Indicator Indicator type Results Commitment Male Female Not identified Total
Number of unique people reached with one or more water, sanitation or hygiene promotion intervention* Cumulative 60,000,000 22,440,000 22,200,000 18,310,000 62,960,000
Number of people with sustainable access to clean drinking water sources through DFID support** Cumulative No specific target 8,100,000 7,980,000 4,850,000 20,940,000
Number of people with sustainable access to an improved sanitation facility through DFID support** Cumulative No specific target 11,450,000 11,410,000 3,340,000 26,200,000
Number of people with access to improved hygiene through DFID support to hygiene promotion** Cumulative No specific target 18,600,000 18,520,000 7,530,000 44,660,000

*Results achieved through both multilateral and bilateral channels

**These results reflect bilateral results only. In addition the three sub-indicators do not sum to the headline indicator because the same person may be counted under more than one sub-indicator, but only once in the main indicator.

5. Results achieved by country/department

The highest numbers of people reached with one or more water, sanitation or hygiene promotion interventions were in Bangladesh (9.9 million), Zambia (6.2 million), Nigeria (5.0 million), Ethiopia (4.8 million), Pakistan (3.5 million), Sierra Leone (3.2 million), India (2.5 million) and Tanzania (2.0 million). Most of these larger programmes are delivered through UNICEF and partner governments. The other 11 country programmes, in addition to 2 regional programmes and 4 centrally managed programmes from DFID HQ, each account for around 3% or less of the overall 62 million figure.

5.1 Number of unique people reached with one or more water, sanitation or hygiene promotion intervention by country/department

Pie chart showing the number of unique people reached with one of more water, sanitation or hygiene promotion intervention by country/department

6. Results achieved by multilateral organisations

The following results are delivered by multilateral organisations, and fall broadly within the water, sanitation and hygiene sector. The results presented here are based on all funding that the multilateral receives, not just funding from DFID or the UK. These results are presented alongside DFID’s share of core funding to the multilateral organisations, in order to illustrate that DFID contributes a share of those results. Multilateral abbreviations and results sources can be found in the results technical notes.

Indicator Multilateral Reporting period Latest Results DFID’s contribution as a % of total core funding[footnote 5]
Number of people with new or improved access to water and sanitation AfDB[footnote 6] 2012-2014 4,235,000 12
Number of new households served with water supply AsDB[footnote 6] 2014 735,000 5
Number of households with access to water supply and sanitation CDB[footnote 6] 2014 7,400 22
Number of households with new or upgraded sanitary connections IADB[footnote 6] 2014 161,000 2
Number of people with access to improved water sources IDA FY 2013-14 27,800,000 11
Number of people with access to improved sanitation facilities IDA FY 2013-14 7,300,000 11

  1. WHO (2014), Preventing diarrhoea through better water, sanitation and hygiene: exposures and impacts in low- and middle-income countries ↩

  2. WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme 2014 Update ↩

  3. http://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-aid-changing-lives-delivering-results ↩

  4. For this indicator, DFID will report total results achieved by December 2015, including 9 months from end-March to end-December 2015. ↩

  5. The DFID burden share presented here are not suitable to calculate a DFID results attribution of multilateral results. The results presented in this table are achieved through all funding streams that the multilateral receive, not just limited to core funding. ↩

  6. Burden share relates to the concessionary fund only. The results presented are achieved through concessionary and non-concessionary funds of the Bank. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

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