World Vision's Water, Sanitation & Hygiene team transitions to digital monitoring

On GIS  (Geographic Information System) Day, Zach Torres shares guidance on how to unlock the benefits of digital monitoring and elevate performance in any sector

World Vision’s Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Program is in the midst of a catalytic global transition toward fully digital monitoring. This transition has flipped the current paradigm and revolutionised monitoring and evaluation, delivering significant benefits. 

Robust capacities of mWater revolutionize monitoring

In 2020, World Vision WASH staff globally identified strengthening monitoring practices, approaches, and capacities as a strategic initiative within its five-year goals. To address this, in 2021 our WASH programme adopted mWater, a free open-access digital monitoring platform. mWater has integrated spatial analysis functionalities, robust data visualization capabilities, and offline data collection options. Within mWater, we developed global and country-level data dashboards that reflect global and national learning, reporting, and drive decision making.

Adopted by 43 countries, our mWater Hub tracks when and where outputs serve households, communities, schools, and healthcare facilities as well as contribute to government policies and promote watershed health. It also provides a photo archive for our work, analysis at various geographic scales, and automated global indicator calculation aligned with World Vision and WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) standards. 

Benefits of digital monitoring

These capabilities flip the current paradigm in Monitoring and Evaluation, delivering multidimensional digital data with significant benefits:

Key learnings from a global shift to digital monitoring

Key learnings thus far include:

• Resolving integration challenges with non-WASH teams, data collectors, and Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) staff
• The value of a geographic approach to monitoring (especially when linked to the location of project communities)
• Change management strategies are needed to influence ownership and workflow adjustments among field staff and senior leadership teams alike. 

If your programme is interested in transitioning to digital monitoring, here are some things to keep in mind:

• Feedback from multiple areas: Incorporate feedback from country offices to design adaptable systems that address diverse contexts, staff structures, software, and data disaggregation needs. 

• Cross sector collaboration: Collaboration with World Vision’s Re-greening Communities/Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration team led to a standardized monitoring framework in Solstice, mWater’s sister app (for environmental monitoring). 

• Data quality: Data quality is vital to our Global WASH Business Plan, enabling effective monitoring and investment decisions. To foster accountability and promote transparency, we utilize regular, decentralised reviews of data collected in the field.

Our commitment to local decision-making, accountability, and data-driven impact

The more than 40 countries participating in our 2026-2030 Global WASH Business Plan are targeting to make the full transition to digital monitoring by October 2025. They will do so by expanding use of the Output Monitoring Survey–a digital mWater survey that enables automated calculation and attribution of indicators.

World Vision leverages progressive technologies and approaches in pursuit of water and sanitation for all (Sustainable Development Goal 6). We leverage digital monitoring and geospatial mapping to track the reach, quality, and sustainability of our work. Our WASH programs are anchored by local decision-makers who use data-led insights to set priorities, allocate funding, and ensure sustainability. We believe that by stepping into a new era of fully digital monitoring across all initiatives of the WASH Global Business Plan, we are embracing our values and commitment to accountability with both donors and the communities we serve in the name of Jesus.

Learn more about the benefits of GIS data in WASH programming here and here 
And watch the video below

Zach Torres is Digital Monitoring & Mapping Project Manager World Vision US's WASH programme.