Third-party monitoring | Norwegian Church Aid WASH Response in Northern Syria

Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) has been responding to a crucial needs gap in Syria by providing a variety of WASH services, including rehabilitation of water stations and kit distribution.

Trust Consultancy & Development and its partner Investimate were contracted by NCA as a Third-party monitor to provide evidence-based recommendations for the program. The team conducted verification of activities, accessed both the intended and unintended results brought about during the course of the project and confirmed appropriate implementation and documented lessons learned. Trust and Investimate comprehensively followed the current guidelines in effect for the COVID-19 pandemic and have developed a COVID specific framework to enable safe data collection, risk mitigation strategy and proactively managed the fluctuating safety requirements.

A mixed-methods approach was used which involved an in-depth desk review and household surveys to assess the project against OECD-DAC criteria. Five different surveys were used to capture HH insights. Additionally, the team conducted Key Informant Interviews at different levels of project implementation. The team also maintained an observation checklist to record activities and compared them with the BoQ delivered by NCA’s partners to make sure that all items were completed according to the specifications identified in the BoQ. Finally, the team also conducted a Market Price analysis for the rehabilitation projects implemented by NCA partners. The results of the TPM exercise will inform NCA and partners to design evidence-based strategic collaborations moving forward and in particular provided insight into how changing contexts on the ground level has affected various aspects of the program’s success.