Endline Evaluation of ‘UNICEF Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Response to COVID-19’ Project in Kenya

Background Information

At the onset of the global pandemic associated with the Coronavirus disease, The Kenyan Ministry of Health (MoH) launched the National Emergency Response Committee (NERC) to steer the country's prevention, containment, and mitigation measures. Kenya adopted several public health measures to prevent or slow down the transmission of the disease, which the NERC has been implementing and promoting. These included case identification and follow-up of contacts, environmental disinfection, and use of personal protective equipment, social distancing, and regular handwashing with soap or disinfection with hand sanitizer. With the detection of the first case of COVID-19 on March 13, 2020, the Government of Kenya also banned international flights entering and leaving Kenya on March 26, and closed schools and banned large social gatherings (Kabale, 2020). Banning these events, including specific cultural and faith practices such as mass prayer gatherings, large weddings and funerals, was critical to prevent super-spreading events that could accelerate transmission of the virus (Wong et al., 2015).

As part of the COVID-19 WASH response, UNICEF implemented the ‘UNICEF Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Response to COVID-19 project’ with financial support from the Embassy of Sweden in Kenya where priority was given to the densely populated informal settlements of Nairobi and Nakuru from July 2020 to December 2021. This helped in reducing the rate of transmissions in the informal settlements that are characterized by overcrowding, poor infrastructure, little or no water or sanitation and inadequate social amenities. The project targeted the most vulnerable and marginalized population groups with the specific purpose of addressing inequalities in access to WASH services. The project objective was to contribute to IPC of COVID-19 through a set of integrated interventions covering water supply, sanitation and hygiene services in communities and health care facilities, combined with the promotion of behaviour change. In addition, the project was aiming at building more resilient service provision that can withstand the shocks of emergency conditions, whether resulting from natural disaster, disease outbreak or other disruption to regular services delivery.

The project design was based on the Humanitarian-Development Nexus approach,2 which recognizes that humanitarian and development efforts need to be more effectively connected, working towards achieving collective outcomes that reduce risk and vulnerability, and are designed for long-term sustainability. The project sought to strengthen systems sector coordination, engage community participation, foster partnerships and mobilize domestic resources. It included a learning objective to enable successes to be replicated and pitfalls to be avoided. This was the basis for conducting an independent evaluation to document achievements, failures and lessons learned.

Purpose and Objectives of the Evaluation
The main purpose of the evaluation was to generate substantive evidence on the results achieved, promote accountability on WASH COVID-19 response, and to provide evidence to UNICEF and UNICEF’s partners on the performance around the implementation of the project. The evaluation findings also contribute to learning at national, regional, and global level in terms of WASH COVID-19 response and how they can be adjusted going forward. 1.2.2. Objectives

The evaluation was guided by the following specific objectives:
i. To establish end line statistics against the project outcome and output indicators at community level to provide levels of achievement/non-achievement for the project.
ii. To assess the outcomes and results of the project by evaluating information, services and products generated from the project in terms of the OECD/DAC criteria of evaluating development assistance.
iii. To evaluate the effectiveness in the overall mainstreaming of cross cutting issues such as urban sanitation, Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM), gender equality, and children.
iv. To identify key lessons and potential practices for learning to inform similar future programs for COVID-19 prevention and response in informal settlements as well as building community resilience.

Scope of Work Undertaken
The scope of work undertaken entailed the following: gathering statistics for key indicators as per the terms of reference at the community level through collection of primary and secondary data; and document additional ones as guided by the UNICEF WASH team and implementing partners. The evaluation will run for6 months, that is from 11th November, 2021 to 30th April , 2022.
Geographically, the study covered Nairobi and Nakuru Counties of Kenya. In Nairobi County, the study covered project’s interventions in Mukuru and Mathare informal settlements including the 20 project-targeted health facilities (See Annex 5.4). In Nakuru County, the study covered the 10 informal settlements or villages of Kiratina, Free Area, Nyamaroto, Engachura- (Rurie), Viwanda, Wamagata, London, Kapkures, Gilani, and Ndege; including the 13 project-targeted health facilities. 

Key findings and report available here >>>