Refining Water and Sanitation Performance Indicators for Municipalities

National Treasury (NT) is driving a local government financial and budgeting reform process, and as part of this process, the City Support Programme (CSP) of National Treasury initiated the Reporting Reforms Project for Cities, particularly in relation to built environment functions. This was to: (1) review and rationalize the multitude of uncoordinated indicators and requests for data by national departments to metros, and (2) further develop indicators at the output and outcome level.

The process began in late 2015 and has included several consultative bilateral engagements with both sectoral departments and cities including technical review and refinement of indicators and associated descriptors. The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), as sector leader, has been a proactive custodian of the process, and the SALGA/WRC Municipal Benchmarking Initiative has provided valuable inputs in defining appropriate indicators and ensuring sector alignment. Emanti has assisted the process through reviewing and refining the water and sanitation related Performance Indicators, facilitating discussions with key sector role-players, stakeholders, and metropolitan municipalities and developing detailed technical indicator descriptions for each indicator and associated data elements.
The process has aimed to find a balance between international alignment and strategic prioritisation (e.g. to SDGs, AMCOW, ISO, MTSF, etc.), while acknowledging data system realities, stakeholder inputs and current capabilities. The process has initially focussed on cities (metros) due to their strategic significance, but the intention is to more broadly implement these reporting reforms at all municipalities.

A final water & sanitation sector engagement occurred in Pretoria on 23rd Aug 2017 and included representation from all 8 metros. During subsequent NT interactions with StatsSA and COGTA, and at the Steering Committee meeting held on 5th Oct 2017, finalised PIs were accepted (excluding Governance). It is hoped that these PIs will shortly be finalised and accepted for implementation in the 2018/2019 municipal financial cycle.

In addition to the water and sanitation indicators, indicators have been developed for the following sectors:

1. Environment & Waste
2. Roads & Transport
3. Energy & Electricity
4. Housing & Community Facilities

In order to assist with the above process, it is anticipated that the MBI Cities Working Groups (CWGs) will be used as a platform to test municipal response to the proposed water and sanitation indicators.
The main objectives of these CWG meetings will be to determine if: (1) there are any misunderstandings / hiccups with the indicators, and (2) determine if metros are ready for the 2018/2019 reporting cycle?

The findings from the CWG meetings will be used to: (1) further refine the indicators (if required), and (2) assess the applicability of indicator roll-out to all NT 17 WSAs and then to all WSAs.
To find out more about the NT Reporting Reforms Project water and sanitation indicators, please contact us.