Expenditure Direct Support (ExpDS)
Direct support is structured support to service providers and users or user groups related to the operation and management of a water, sanitation and hygiene services. Expenditure on direct support is the costs of providing such support. Direct support includes the following types of activities:
- performance monitoring
- technical advice and information
- administrative support (e.g. help with tariff setting)
- organisational support (e.g. to achieve legal status)
- conflict resolution
- identifying capital maintenance needs (including advice on financing)
- training and refresher courses.
The costs of support before and during the construction of a water or sanitation system are not included. They are considered to be capital expenditure software. Most community-based water service providers seek and receive some degree of direct support (Whittington et al., 2009), though often in an ad hoc manner, typically when they encounter a problem.
Direct support is often used synonymously with institutional support, post-construction support and follow-up support.
Difference between direct and indirect support
Direct support is always related to a particular project, programme or geographical area. Expenditure on indirect support is about creating and regulating the enabling environment for water, sanitation and hygiene services and is not particular to a programme or project.
Examples
Institutional arrangements for direct support
There are different institutional arrangements for the provision of direct support. Which model is most appropriate or cost-effective depends on the country context (Smits, 2012). Table 1 shows the main 5 types of arrangements.
Table 1. Institutional arrangements for direct support
| Direct support by local government | Local government is formally mandated to support external service providers and fulfills the support agent function internally, for example through local government technicians. |
| Local government subcontracting a specialised agency or individuals | Local governments contract an urban utility, a private company or an NGO to provide support. They may also contract individual entrepreneurs, such as handpump mechanics who provide a mix of direct support and operation and maintenance activities. |
| Central government of parastatal agencies | National government provides direct support from a national level, or via deconcentrated offices, or subcontracts a specialised agency to provide support. |
| Association of community-based service providers | Community-based service providers establish an association and then provide support to each other or hire a technician to support members of the association. |
| NGOs | In many cases, support provided by NGOs is ad hoc. Still there are a few examples where NOGs still have specific, direct support programmes. |
Source: Smits, 2012, 3
Benchmarks expenditure direct support
Based on research from the WASHCost project, the minimum expenditure on direct support to provide a basic level of water service (at 2011 prices) ranges from US$ 1 per person to just over US$ 3 per person (see table 2).
Table 2. Cost ranges for expenditure on direct support [min-max] in US$ 2011 per person, per year
Links
- WASHCost was five-year action research programme, running from 2008 to 2012. The WASHCost team gathered information related to the costs of providing water, sanitation, and hygiene services for an entire life-cycle of a service - from implementation all the way to post-construction. The WASHCost programme was led by IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre with several partners to collect data in the rural and peri-urban areas of Burkina Faso, Ghana, India, and Mozambique. For more information see www.washcost.info
- The Costing Sustainable Services online course was developed to assist governments, NGOs, donors and individuals to plan and budget for sustainable and equitable WASH services, using a life-cycle cost approach. The Life-cycle cost approach is a methodology for costing sustainable water, sanitation and hygiene service delivery and comparing the costs to the level of service received by users. For more information see http://www.washcost.info/page/2448
- Triple-S (Sustainable Services at Scale) is a six-year, multi-country learning initiative to improve water supply to the rural poor. It is led by IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. The initiative is currently operating in Ghana and Uganda. Lessons learned from work in countries feeds up to the international level where Triple-S is promoting a re-appraisal of how development assistance to the rural water supply sector is designed and implemented. For more information see http://www.waterservicesthatlast.org/
