Expenditure Indirect Support (ExpIDS)

Indirect support is about creating and regulating the enabling environment for water, sanitation and hygiene services. It includes the costs for macro-level policy formulation, planning, regulation, sector-level monitoring, developing IT systems, maintaining frameworks and institutional arrangements, etc.

Indirect support includes capacity support to service authorities. Service authorities are those bodies, often district local government or an equivalent, with legal responsibility for guaranteeing water, sanitation and hygiene services in a defined area, fulfilling functions such as planning, coordination, oversight of service delivery. It may be the legal owner of water and sanitation assets but not necessarily so. In some cases, service authorities may also have delegated functions of regulation. They may also be responsible for technical assistance, but can contract this out to an association of community-based providers, an NGO or the private sector.

Indirect support includes costs on support to increase capacities, for example capacity building for professionals and technicians and capacity support to local government as service authorities, to adhere to national norms, standards and guidelines.

In comparison to [Expenditure Direct Support (ExpDS)|direct support], expenditure on indirect support is not particular to a programme or project.

Examples

Institutional arrangements
Institutional arrangements for indirect support are assigned to national level entities (Smits et.al, 2011). Specific arrangements differ from country to country for examples see table 1 (below). If there is no independent regulator, government ministries and agencies are tasked with responsibilities such as planning and policy formulation or even regulation. Donors, NGOs, research institutes and other entities at a national level may also contribute.

Table 1. Institutional arrangements for indirect support for different countries

Country	Capacity support arrangements to service authorities
Benin	Deconcentrated offices of the Water Ministry at departmental level are responsible for capacity support in areas such as tendering, contracting, management, and improved monitoring.
Burkina Faso	Regional level deconcentrated offices of the Water Department are supposed to support communes, but until very recently there has been no representation of the Water Department at this level. In addition, there is an institute dedicated to the training of water technicians and professionals.
Colombia	There is no clearly articulated national strategy for capacity support. Ad hoc and de facto support is provided at departmental level through some large departmental water supply programmes.
Ethiopia	Zonal and regional offices of the Ministry of Water are supposed to provide support to woreda staff, but in practice this is also very ad hoc.
Ghana	The deconcentrated offices of the line agency, CWSA (Community Water and Sanitation Agency), is mandated to support District Water and Sanitation Teams with capacity building and training. In practice, while well-resourced in terms of human capacity, the regional CWSA offices only operate effectively when there are projects ongoing in their region to which they provide operational and logistical support. In addition, universities and NGOs support districts on a project basis.
Honduras	Capacity support to municipalities is largely done on an ad hoc or project basis and not as part of a sector-wide, systematic programme. In addition, municipalities support each other and seek capacity through association in mancomunidades, associations of municipalities in a specific geographical area.
India	There are block-level, mother Gram Panchayats (local government unit) that used to support Gram Panchayats in need. This is also done via capacity building and exposure visits. Strong Gram Panchayat in each district act as key resource centres for other Gram Panchayats" in the district.
Mozambique	At a provincial level, the Department of Public Works and Housing is responsible for the capacity support role as well as coordination and supply chains, but it has limited capacity.
South Africa	Provincial (deconcentrated) offices of the Department of Water Affairs play a technical capcity support role to water service authorities through a One-stop Shop, covering a range of technical, managerial, and administrative issues. It is well structured and systematic, with dedicated funding, to support local government.
Thailand	Capacity support is given to the service authority by different government agencies at a national and regional level.
Uganda	Ministry of Water and the Environment has deconcentrated representation at a regional level through Technical Support Units which provide support to district staff. These units have a regular programme of support, but with so many districts, this supply-driven approach mainly addresses the most underperforming districts.

Source: Smits et.al, 2011, 12