Integrity Framework For Water Stewardship Initiatives

• When setting up a water stewardship initiative, as a means to find common ground, define partner roles and responsibilities, and avoid common integrity pitfalls.
• When a water stewardship partnership wants to assess its effectiveness and sustainability.
• When activities are stalled because of integrity issues or when effectiveness, partners, or reputation of a water stewardship initiative are called into question.

• Increased trust and improved communication among partners
• Increased integrity, improved systematic management of processes
• Structured processes and clarified objectives, roles and responsibilities of different partners/stakeholders, for a more resilient and effective partnership.

Users

Partners from different sectors, who are involved in or launching a water stewardship initiative.

Methodology

Water stewardship initiatives can face a range of integrity risks throughout their lifecycle. Generally these risks are related to how partners interact, how they understand the impact of their partners’ work on their own activities and reputation, or how the activities of the initiative relate to its stated objectives.
The Integrity Framework for Water Stewardship Initiatives is a set of resources to evaluate the practice and set up of a stewardship initiative in line with seven principles:

• Outcomes aligned with public policy goals
• Balanced interests
• Clarity and transparency of partner roles
• Ethos of trust
• Clear and transparent scope and boundaries
• Clear and transparent governance arrangements
• Outcomes tracked against stated objectives

This evaluation help initiative partners get a better understanding of integrity risks related to partners and partnership governance.

Partners also use the evaluation to jointly plan activities to improve integrity at each lifecycle phase. The Framework includes a set of templates and tools to support these activities.

How we support implementation

The Integrity, Quality, Compliance Framework for Project Management is a flexible approach that can be tailored to different groups and management models, and that can easily be adapted to different countries and contexts. It has a high potential for scale-up and replication.

WIN and its partners support adaptations and work with organizations to facilitate onsite Integrity, Quality, Compliance workshops, providing facilitators and mentoring. Contact us for help or information.

The Integrity Framework for Water Stewardship Initiatives is a project of the CEO Water Mandate and the Water Integrity Network in partnership with the Pacific Institute, Water Witness International, Partnerships in Practice, Pegasys, and the International Water Stewardship Programme fo GIZ. It was developed with the support of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the United Kingdom Government Department for International Development (DFID).

The Integrity Framework for Water Stewardship Initiatives is part of a set of tested water integrity tools to help water sector organizations around the world engage stakeholders, assess their needs and issues, and create action plans for better water management.

CASES & EXAMPLES