WASH endeavours regularly fail. Sometimes this means that entire programmes do not achieve their stated aims, sometimes these failures are setbacks which can be rectified with sufficient reflection and action.
This research aimed to develop an evidence base of how and why field-based WASH professionals in four sub-Saharan African countries believe failures occur, their experiences when sharing and discussing them within their organisations, and how they believe a culture conducive to publicly sharing and learning from failures could be nurtured.
108 field-based WASH professionals from Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe were interviewed. Individuals were recruited through purposive sampling and represented local private, public, non-governmental, and academic stakeholders in WASH.
You can read about the results of our project in our peer-reviewed journal article, published in BMJ Global Health, our short Research Brief, and in Issue 21 of Frontiers of Sanitation: Learning From and Preventing Failure in WASH. We’ve also prepared short briefs on the results specifically relevant to South Africa (accessible version here), Malawi (accessible version here) and Zimbabwe (accessible version here).
You can even read the transcripts of the interviews.
You can download all of the research materials (ethics applications, workshop outlines, data collection tools) via our page of the Open Science Framework.
Acknowledgements:
We wish to thank all of the WASH professionals who kindly provided their time and expertise to this project, as well as our data collectors (Tendai Barnaba, Faida Chikwezga, Naha Lelesio, MacDonald Nazimera, Tinashe Shumba, Revocatus Wambura) and project mentors (Prof Barbara Evans, Dr Safari M. Kinung’hi, Dr Teckla Angelo).
Team Members:
Principal Investigator: Dani Barrington
Principal Investigator/South Africa Coordinator: Rebecca Sindall
Malawi Coordinator: Tracy Morse
Tanzania Coordinator: May Sule
Zimbabwe Coordinator: Annatoria Chinyama
Co-investigators: Joanne Beale, Tendai Kativhu, Sneha Krishnan, Kondwani Luwe, Rosannie Malolo, Onike Mcharo, Anthony Odili, Kristin Ravndal, Jo Rose, Esther Shaylor and Eleanor Wozei
Funded by:
