Partnership feedback surveys

in
Monitoring and accountability

We work in partnership with other organisations to strengthen institutions and systems, to deliver sustainable water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. We recognise the importance of working with the right partners and supporting them in their role to effectively contribute to the WASH sector.

In 2019, we commissioned Keystone Accountability to conduct a survey of our country programme partnerships, to invite feedback from our partners on how we are working with and supporting them. This is a key tool in ensuring that we are taking partners’ perspectives into account as we develop our business processes, and to demonstrate our accountability to partners.

This follows similar partnership surveys conducted in 2014 and 2016, also facilitated by Keystone Accountability. You can download the reports from all three surveys from below and left.

Highlights from the 2019 report include:

  • We received 109 responses to the survey, which is approximately 45% of our partners across East, West and Southern Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. Of these, 68% would strongly recommend working with WaterAid to a friend or colleague.
  • Partners believe WaterAid staff are helpful, learn from their mistakes and respond positively to partners’ concerns. Most also felt their joint work with WaterAid promoted sustainability through system strengthening, integration into other areas of work, equality and inclusion, and hygiene.
  • An area in which we did not perform strongly was that partners did not feel engaged with some of WaterAid’s internal policies and procedures. This is an example of where we will look to take immediate action.
  • Overall, the average score from all questions has marginally increased over time. We have continued to invest in strengthening partnership practice, which may take time to make a difference in terms of impact on partners.

The responses from our partners have highlighted weaknesses as well as strengths in our approach, and we welcome the feedback to continue to improve our partnerships in future. This is supported by ongoing training in partnership practice, and the partnership framework and toolkit.