3.6.2 Reporting
The findings of the investigation and analysis need to be summarised and incorporated into a report. The report should always refer explicitly to the aims of the assessment that were agreed at the beginning and say how well these have been achieved. Depending on what the aims were, the report may identify the areas where action is necessary and make recommendations for a programme to implement the action plan (like the example shown in Table 3.4). The report will often make suggestions about any additional survey work that may be needed.
It is also useful to produce a brief factsheet that summarises the findings of the survey and to hold a meeting with the kebele administration at the end of the project and share the report’s findings with them.
The report will be distributed to the organisation that commissioned the work. They may ask that the report is also sent to other interested organisations. In any event, the report should only be sent to other organisations with the specific permission of the funding organisation.
Case Study 3.1 describes an assessment that was made of a town in Tigray region as part of a large WASH improvement project. Read the case study and then answer the question that follows.
Case Study 3.1 Baseline survey of Wukro, Tigray.
In 2014, a baseline survey of the town of Wukro and its surrounding villages was undertaken. The assessment was reported in the form of a six-page summary made up of text tables, charts and photographs. Like many good reports, it presented the main findings as a series of bullet points on the first page. These were that:
- coverage of the town water supply system was high – the majority of users accessed the piped system through household connections rather than public standposts
- reliability of water supplies was poor and most town residents used less than 20 litres per person per day
- household coverage with improved sanitation facilities was also reasonably high
- public standposts in the town were under high demand and queues were long, while poor functionality of water points was a concern in the satellite villages
- the majority of public institutions had improved sanitation facilities.
More detail was then presented on the assessment results in the areas of water services, sanitation and hygiene and institutional WASH. For example, the section on sanitation and hygiene included the data shown in Table 3.5.
| Type of sanitation | Total | Rural | Urban | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Improved sanitation | Flush toilet to piped sewer system Ventilated improved pit latrine Pit latrine with slab Composting toilet | 1% 4% 45% 4% | 0% 0% 12% 7% | 1% 6% 60% 3% |
| Unimproved sanitation | Public latrine Other unimproved sanitation facility Pit latrine without slab Bush/open defecation | 1% 1% 25% 15% | 0% 2% 29% 50% | 1% 0% 24% 4% |
The report ended with a plan for recommended WASH interventions in the area.
Based on the findings in Table 3.5, compare (a) the use of improved sanitation facilities and (b) open defecation in urban and rural parts of the Wukro study area.
The answers are as follows:
- a.In urban parts of the study area, the majority of households (70%) make use of improved sanitation but in rural areas only 19% have improved facilities.
- b.The proportion of households practising open defecation is much higher in rural areas (50%) than urban areas (4%).
3.6.1 Analysing the findings