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Client Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS)
Donor DFID through British Red Cross (BRC)
Country Kenya
Service Summative Evaluation
Sector Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)
Period October 2017 – November 2017
Consultants Donnelly Mwachi (Lead), Misheck Kirimi, Martha Mutoni, Kevin Otieno

Universal access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) is crucial for the elimination of poverty, and underpins all aspects of social, economic, and sustainable development. It is estimated that at least 783 million people still lack access to improved drinking water sources and, with 2.4 billion people still lacking access. In Kenya, it is estimated that there is only 61% for water and 29% for sanitation coverage5. This affects all sections of society. Women and girls are traditionally responsible for water collection; this is time-consuming: they have to walk for long walking distances to water points and this exposes them to threats and violence. Lack of sanitation facilities adds to this insecurity, strips them of their dignity and therefore they have no privacy to handle menstrual issues.

The potential of WASH interventions for disease prevention is enormous. This supports a health agenda that focuses on prevention as well as treatment. Unclean water, inadequate sanitation and lack of hygiene are associated with a plethora of deadly and/or debilitating diseases which have profound impact on the health, welfare, and productivity of developing country populations. They include diarrhoea, still one of the leading causes of under-five mortality. They also include, but are not limited to, pneumonia, cholera, typhoid, schistosomiasis, trachoma, guinea worm and rotavirus. Vulnerable population groups, such as those living with HIV/Aids and children with vulnerable immune systems are more susceptible to falling ill in the absence of adequate WASH services.

Access to WASH services also helps in improving education outcomes, both by reducing

the time spent on fetching water, meaning that children are able to attend school, and by reducing the incidence of WASH-related diseases which lead to missed school days. However, recent data from least-developed and low-income countries, Kenya included, show that, in 2011, only 51% of schools had an adequate water source and only 45% had adequate hygienic sanitation facilities. Nearly half of the girls who drop out of primary school in Kenya do so because of the lack of clean water and sanitation facilities. Once girls reach menstruation age, many more miss school days or drop out of school altogether because schools lack clean and private sanitation facilities that allow for menstrual hygiene management. This ultimately affects girls’ and women’s opportunities for economic prosperity and well-being and constitutes a severe impediment to gender equality.

The Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) has been implementing a three-year (2014-2017) Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) project in Chepalungu and Bomet Central sub counties in Bomet County. The project’s overarching aim was to improve hygiene and sanitation practices and access to improved water and sanitation services for 61,898 people in the county as at the end of the project. KRCS implemented the project in partnership with the County Government of Bomet (CGB). The project was funded by DFID (Aid Match) through British Red Cross with contribution from CGB. The project was implemented in two sub-counties (Chepalungu and Bomet Central). The target community include boys, girls, men and women including people differently-abled.

The main aim of the End Term Evaluation (ETE) was to document results of the project and approaches based on the five criteria (relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability) recommended by OECD-DAC. The specific objectives were to:

  •  Establish current WASH coverage as per the project log frame indicator
  •  Identify lessons learned, good practice and challenges encountered during the
    delivery of the Project
  • Determine the impacts – as far as possible – of the recent changes in strategy for
    behaviours change based on lessons identified during Mid Term Review.
  • Determine community and stakeholder’s engagement in the implementation of
    the project.
  • Review strategies applied by the project and provide recommendations to be
    adopted in future WASH projects