Benjamin Burkomen: I loved the Monitoring session!

My name is Benjamin Burkomen. I work at the WASH Monitoring and Evaluation Unit within the Kenyan Ministry for Public Health and Sanitation.

I have been particularly excited at this SWA partnership meeting. In the first place it is the first experience for us all as it is the very first of its kind.

But this morning, I was particularly excited at the M&E group meeting, where I learned a lot from other participants. We were all trying to find a place for SWA in global monitoring affairs and the exchanges were all interesting. On one hand it would have been appropriate for SWA to stay away from monitoring affairs. But on the other hand we realized that SWA itself is an advocacy oriented partnership and as effective advocacy dwells on reliable data and information, there was no way SWA was going to stay out of monitoring.
In the end there seemed to be a consensus on SWA playing a facilitating role in developing shared standards and norms for monitoring across the globe. I also personally think that SWA can facilitate linkages between countries and the global level especially in terms of data flow.

Personally I hope to champion the idea of harmonization of M&E standards back home in Kenya as it is a major WASH sector issue.