Water supply and sanitation is a priority sector for Danish financial support in seven countries: Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ghana, Uganda, and Vietnam. The first-generation sector programmes neared completion and Danida wished to undertake an evaluation with a view to gathering experience, learning lessons and documenting results prior to the planning of the second-generation programmes.

An extensive review of relevant documentation was carried out (both on policy and programme issues) and seven countries were visited to obtain stakeholder views on the implemented programmes and - where possible - to gather primary data on the effects and expected impact of the programmes. In addition, the country missions gathered information which allowed the evaluation to reach a balanced opinion on the relevance, efficiency, and complementarity of the operations. Based on these finding, recommendations and lessons learnt were developed.