Knowledge Management

One of the primary goals of the Global WASH Cluster (GWC) is to provide humanitarian water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) actors with timely access to appropriate and accurate knowledge on coordination and response. Knowledge management is one of the key outcomes in the GWC’s Strategic Plan 2022–2025 and focuses on strengthening the knowledge and practice of effective and accountable coordination of timely, predictable and high-quality WASH outcomes across the phases of the humanitarian programme cycle. This embeds cross-cutting themes to ensure inclusive and equitable WASH outcomes and is defined through the application of evidence-based lessons learned, best practices and effective advocacy.

To support this, the GWC has developed and manages a range of tools and resources. The GWC’s main knowledge-exchange platforms are the Coordination Toolkit for National Cluster Platforms (NCPs) and the GWC’s Resource Center, which contains publications and documents extracted from existing databases or specific agency websites, such as peer-reviewed and grey literature success stories, lessons learned, and technical guidance.

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Coordination resources – the GWC Coordination Toolkit
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The WASH Coordination Toolkit is a collection of resources to support humanitarian WASH coordinators, information management officers, partners or other interested groups in achieving effective coordination during an emergency response. 

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Technical resources – the GWC Resource Centre
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The Global WASH Cluster (GWC), in partnership with Tufts University has established this Resource Centre for emergency water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) responders and national humanitarian WASH coordination platforms. 

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Realtime assessment of WASH coordination Research - Tufts University
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To understand how water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) coordination leads to humanitarian response outcomes, we conducted a nine-month mixed-method evaluation in three humanitarian contexts (Cox’s Bazar Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Yemen) varying in terms of humanitarian and WASH response and coordination. We completed 93 key informant interviews, 157 online surveys, and monthly activity reports with National Coordination Platform (NCP) staff and partners. We identified a key set of NCP tools, activities, and products that assisted partners in consistently reaching humanitarian WASH outcomes of “making strategic decisions” and “identifying/reducing gaps in the response”, and partially reaching “defining metrics for Monitoring and Evaluation”, “completing Monitoring and Evaluation and evaluating quality”, and “obtaining funding”. Key contextual factors enabling outcomes were stable staff; cooperation with partners; context-specific tools; and, incorporating the humanitarian-development nexus. One activity, three outcomes (“building capacity”, “strengthening relationships”, and “long-term planning”), and two enabling conditions were added into a pre-existing Theory of Change. This revised Theory of Change is being used to improve NCP strategies, including the Minimum Requirements, and ultimately, benefit affected populations.

Evidence summary of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) coordination in humanitarian response
 

Key links:

https://journals.plos.org/water/article?id=10.1371/journal.pwat.0000047
https://reliefweb.int/report/bangladesh/realtime-assessment-wash-coordination-humanitarian-emergencies-annex-results-cox-s
https://reliefweb.int/report/world/wash-coordination-humanitarian-response-evidence-summary-october-2019

 

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Other platforms
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Here is a collection of humanitarian WASH partner resource websites and useful links.

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GWC knowledge management initiatives and key links
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Contacts: [email protected]

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© UNICEF/UN0354663/Frisone
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