Development organizations have long struggled to measure evidence of systems change, especially when contributions are incremental and contexts vary. In today’s world, where we face the converging crises of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss, ensuring access to safe and high-quality water and sanitation services is more challenging than ever. That’s why the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sector has embraced system strengthening to build resilient service delivery models that consider all relevant actors, institutions, incentives, and dynamics.
Read more: Are One-Size-Fits-All Metrics for Global WASH Really Appropriate?
No single organization will solve the global water crisis or achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 on its own. It will take innovation, collaboration and new ways of working. That’s the idea behind the One For All alliance, comprised of Water For People, IRC, and Water for Good, which developed a shared Destination 2030 (D30) strategy. This strategy is grounded in six outcomes for strong WASH systems:
- High level political will accelerates progress
- Key actors have adequate capacity
- Sector finance is secured
- Citizens demand higher levels of service
- Collective action drives transformative change
- Organizational change supports Destination 2030
If we can advance these outcomes, we believe we will contribute meaningfully to achieving sustainable water and sanitation services for all, including the over 2 billion people currently left behind.
To understand where we’re making progress, we recently used a participatory evaluation approach called Outcome Harvesting. Outcome Harvesting is more inclusive, system complexity-literate, and applicable to everyday work than evaluation approaches of the past. Measuring infrastructure is straightforward, but measuring how we have influenced policy, practice, and behavior change is much harder! In this type of evaluation, participants look backwards to reflect on pathways to change, unintended outcomes, and types of approaches and contributions that matter the most.
Findings
In our asynchronous Outcome Harvesting workshop, participants set out to gather examples of system strengthening to harvest with colleagues, then we came together to peer review, finalize, and interpret. The resulting 23 outcome statements harvested are by no means a complete picture of all contributions made by Alliance members last year, but all are tangible examples of systems change and adequately represent the different actors, approaches, and building blocks affected.
What we’ve learned
- Political will grows where it is cultivated
Policy and practice changes at government levels was the most common type of outcome, demonstrating that political will responds best to technical assistance provided alongside advocacy. For example, in 2024, heads of state in Indonesia, South Sudan, and Ghana launched national compacts on WASH—demonstrating that well-timed advocacy and coalition-building can lead to landmark commitments. Similarly, Uganda’s first-ever Presidential Dialogue on WASH, co-organized by One For All partners, marked a major milestone in aligning political leadership with sector goals.
Offering technical assistance has taught us a lot about where capacity gaps may be, but the most impacted outcome category was high-level political will, not actor capacity. This surprising result highlights how one high-level report, guidance document, or strategy can have far-reaching influence when done in response to a government request for technical assistance and expertise. One example is how IRC and Water For People contributed to several recent National WASH financing strategies released in Africa which have subsequently influenced planned World Bank projects and the African Union strategy. Based on the November 2024 outcome harvest, the three building blocks most strengthened by technical assistance were finance, monitoring, and planning.
- Local action builds credibility, while national policy drives scale
It’s something we’ve been saying for a while, but many changes at the global and national levels have roots in local demonstrations of systems approaches. Locally, NGOs can sometimes fill the gap temporarily where good national policy and regulation should be, but this should never be a permanent solution. An advantage seen in many of the outcomes harvested that describe the results of district-focused system strengthening work is that while we may have “less” power when working at smaller scales, the relationship building aspect leads to a stronger understanding of the dynamics of the system, and therefore it is easier to build alliances that can scale nationally.
In Ethiopia, IRC supported the development of the country’s first National WASH Finance Strategy, drawing on district master plan data built up since 2018. In Burkina Faso, strategic planning in the Commune of Tenkodogo, supported by IRC, helped local authorities launch consultation frameworks and budgeted WASH action plans that are now being used to influence regional and national priorities. This interplay is also visible in Guatemala, where Water For People and partners secured official endorsement of SIVASA—a national WASH monitoring system—after years of localized sector-building and advocacy. These stories affirm the reinforcing loop between strengthening local systems and national-level breakthrough.
- Capacity building is a strength – but we need to measure outcomes instead of outputs
Training and technical assistance are scaling, and their effects are real. The WASH Systems Academy, now offered in 126 countries, has influenced how sector professionals plan and budget WASH programs. As of November 2024, 94% of users reported improved professional practice six months after completing a course. Additionally, IRC’s partnerships with UNICEF have resulted in over 580 systems strengthening certificates awarded and new courses tailored for large agencies like UNICEF and WFP. These widespread efforts to grow actor capacity are promising—but they also point to a need for better tracking of outcomes from training, coaching, and peer exchange to understand what’s changing in behavior and decision-making. More frequent evaluation and reflection using Outcome Harvesting will help learn more about who we are reaching how, and what behavior and practice changes build sustained capacity improvements.
- Advocacy and collective action are gaining momentum
Advocacy and influencing refer to meetings, workshops, exchanges, evidence-sharing, and campaigns designed to push for specific policy or practice changes from stakeholders, mostly government and donors. These initiatives contributed to a growing drive towards collective action co-led by One For All Alliance members.
Globally, IRC’s advocacy contributed to the launch of FCDO’s WASH Systems for Health program which Water For People implements in Malawi and the Netherlands’ renewed systems-strengthening commitments through UNICEF’s ASWA3. These investments are rooted in the idea that fragmented, siloed approaches won’t solve systemic challenges—an insight echoed in WHO’s 2024 guidance and sector dialogues. It’s a reminder for donors and implementers to see ourselves as part of the system, with incentives that need to be aligned with others in a collective action process.
- Don’t forget the innovations from five years ago
While attention has recently shifted to high-profile innovations like Presidential Compacts, earlier tools like District-Based Master Plans remain essential for local progress. They are our most direct instruments to improve service levels locally, by funding professional service providers, and are key to increasing citizen demand for those services. Additional work is needed to investigate accountability, inclusion, and ownership as district master plans mature and some of the excitement wears off, and to keep innovating approaches to technical assistance for planning.
- Finance commitments are promising – but delivery lags
While financing remains a top priority, few outcomes from the harvest directly linked to closing the finance gap. This may reflect how new many of the commitments discussed still are, such as Ethiopia’s WASH Finance Strategy or high-level pledges from multilaterals. OFA-supported national finance strategies have influenced World Bank project design and the African Union’s $30B/year WASH financing strategy, launched in 2023. But fulfilling some of those pledges has been a challenge due to low resources and awareness at the local level. Presidential compacts and national strategies carry enormous promise but often require multi-year commitment and reinforcement. As one evaluation participant put it, “It’s a marathon – which continues and becomes a triathlon after signing the compact and supporting the government to make it happen.”
- Learning and adaptation are first in importance and last in execution
Adaptive learning was the most activated building block in our outcome harvest. From the WASH FIT rollout in health care facilities in Niger to systems-oriented course development by IRC, UNICEF, and WFP, learning tools have been used not just to build capacity, but to influence practice and accelerate uptake. Events like the All Systems Connect Symposium and All Systems Go Africa conference continue to serve as catalysts for peer influence and uptake of systems thinking at scale.
Over the past year, we learned together with communities, governments, donors, healthcare workers, and the whole WASH sector. We note the advantages especially of “just in time learning” where responsive influencing campaigns relied on learning publications to encourage evidence-based decision-making and adaptation. Learning exchanges and trips were also inspirations, as in the case of Mr. Alassan Tsahirou, a mayor in Niger who launched a solid waste management plan after a site visit to a solid and liquid waste collection, management and processing site in Accra, Ghana as part of the All Systems Go Africa conference.
There are more than these seven pathways through the forest of systems change, and we’re only beginning to map them. Harvesting and reflecting deeply on what intended and unintended outcomes, large and small, in One for All partner areas have been achieved so far provided us with many insights to take home. Hopefully these serve as a guide for what you might uncover if you focus on seeing the forest through the trees too.
About the Author
Dr. Anna Libey is the Manager of Evaluation and Learning at Water For People. She is also a former Fellow at Engineering for Change.
This article is republished with permission from IRC. Read the original: Pathways Through the Forest of Systems Change.
Photo credit (the carousel on News & Insights): Kyoukan Airwayz on Unsplash
