The vision of sustainability for certain interventions such as grant facilities may shift over time and in response to certain contextual factors. The Fundo de Água e Saneamento (FASA) infrastructure grant facility funded capital investments for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene utilities during the Compact. Near the end of the Compact, it was clear that a mechanism was still needed to continue providing capital funds to utilities in the sector and a revolving fund was envisioned as the structure to do this. At the interim evaluation, the future of the revolving fund was uncertain. By the time of the endline evaluation, the Government was not able to establish the revolving fund, but instead had incorporated some of the key principles of FASA into the Environmental Fund, now the primary vehicle for financing infrastructure projects. One of the MCC learning at the time of the interim report was to consider the sustainability of infrastructure grant facilities early on to build needed buy-in and gain financial support. While early planning is important where possible, the endline result suggests that sustainability for a grant facility may not be a fixed target encapsulated in a single approach; thus, it is important to have sustainability goals even if they evolve over time.
Lesson Learned