From June 2014 to December 2016, Results for Development (R4D) convened a group of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) innovators from India and East Africa into a network called the WASH Impact Network. In partnership with Dasra and the Millennium Water Alliance (MWA), over 120 innovative country-based organizations across India and East Africa were identified, interviewed, and profiled on our web platform. In the 18 months of engaging with these organizations, R4D, Dasra and MWA provided learning opportunities and resources to organizations based on the challenges that they identified in an in-depth, network-wide survey. The resources and services we provided included monthly newsletters that shared online tools and highlighted organizations in the network, blog posts on topics relevant to the challenges faced by organizations in the WASH Impact Network, and in-person learning events.
There were two primary goals to this work: 1) to provide learning resources and opportunities to help implementing organizations overcome the challenges they identified; and 2) to better understand how the
learning process works, from the birth of or exposure to an idea to the implementation of that idea, and to share lessons and recommendations to improve the way all stakeholders participate in this process. To accomplish this second goal, we integrated an action research methodology into our activities. Over the course of our engagement with the WASH Impact Network, we conducted 60 individual interviews, five focus group discussions and one survey. Responses from all sources were recorded, categorized, coded, and common themes were then extracted to draw the conclusions laid out in this report. We present those findings in the pages that follow and offer recommendations for funders, partners and implementing organizations
