Accountability

At WasteAid, we are committed to being transparent in our work and accountable to our stakeholders.

We hold ourselves accountable to people in the communities where we work, to partner organisations, and to the general public as well as staff, volunteers, donors, and host governments. We do this in various ways including sharing information about our work.

Needs assessments

At WasteAid, we recognise the diversity in the communities we serve and do not believe in a one-size-fits-all approach. Although the materials in waste do not vary significantly from one place to another, there are many other factors (traditions, socio-demography, geography and transport links, natural resources and local markets) that determine the viability of an approach. We work with local partners in the public, private and community sectors to understand the needs of the local community, and to design interventions that are inclusive and that build local capacity. This helps ensure the long-term sustainability of our programmes.

Impact monitoring and evaluation

Impact comprises the primary and secondary long-term effects produced by an intervention. These can be positive and negative, direct and indirect, intended and unintended. We assess our impact both for individual projects and across our organisation as whole.

To understand our impact, we look at three dimensions of impact across all of our work, based on our Theory of Change:

Environmental impact: Reduced water, soil and air pollution preserves natural resources and reduces climate change emissions

Economic impact: People’s socio-economic conditions are improved

Human impact: Negative impacts from poorly managed waste on the most vulnerable and marginalised communities are eliminated.

Whether directly or indirectly, we also track the number of people that our work reaches.

To enable impact assessment, the three dimensions and reach are further broken down into measurable categories of data. We use a mix of monitoring, evaluation and research to capture data and complement this with beneficiary feedback, stories of change, case studies and testimonials to capture both quantitative and qualitative data to demonstrate our impact.

At a minimum we undertake mid-term and end-line internal reviews of all our projects. We also periodically commission independent evaluations of the results and effectiveness of our development policies and programmes, particularly in cases that involve large-scale investment of resources, have strategic implications for WasteAid and/or where we have piloted innovative approaches that could become standard good practice in our future work.

For evaluations, we use quality standards and principles developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development – Development Assistance Committee (OECD DAC), as well as learning questions:

Impact: what difference does the intervention make across our three dimensions of impact?

Relevance: is the intervention doing the right things?

Coherence: how well does the intervention fit?

Effectiveness: is the intervention achieving its objectives?

Efficiency: how well are resources being used?

Sustainability: will the benefits last?

WasteAid’s working practice: All WasteAid team members are held accountable to the organisation, our donors and the people we work with. The following policies help ensure best practice and integrity in our conduct:

• Anti-bribery
• Code of conduct
• Data protection
• Diversity and inclusion
• Health and safety
• Safeguarding
• Whistleblowing