Political economy analysis for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) service delivery.

Governance challenges in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) service delivery are common across countries, but the solutions are not. Political economy analysis (PEA) is a tool that can help sector specialists to identify appropriate responses in a given context, designing and implementing approaches that ‘best fit’ existing institutional structures and incentives, rather than imposing an external model of best practice. Informed by PEA, context-specific responses have the potential to be both more efficient and more effective in increasing access to WASH services. This project briefing provides a number of recommendations for practitioners using PEA in the WASH sector (see Box 1 for a summary), drawing on ODI research in Viet Nam and Sierra Leone.