Data sources
(Household) surveys
Household surveys—or surveys conducted among a specific group of professionals—are experience-based tools used to assess performance indicators, like the percentage of people with access to safe drinking water. For example, a survey related to corruption levels could use the amount of bribes paid to get or maintain access to certain goods, resources or services as an indicator, in turn providing an accurate and direct measure of petty corruption. However, this only measures the bribes paid by victims of extortion by officials. The bribes paid voluntarily by ‘clients’ to get illegal access will normally not surface in a household survey. As with all surveys, it is important to avoid bias based on class, gender, ethnicity or location.
Examples of surveys in the water sector:
The Water and Sanitation Governance Index (WSGI) is based on a household survey in Fayoum, Egypt, to capture household perceptions on water and sanitation service delivery. You can find project facts here.
For her study on corruption in South Asia’s water and sanitation sector Davis (2004) conducted interviews and focus group discussions with more than 1,400 staff, customers, and key informants.