In November 2021, several members of the project team developed an online public engagement event as part of the UK Festival of Social Science to highlight the challenges of monitoring water and waste service delivery. With Dr. Mawuli Dzodzomenyo (Ghana School of Public Health) chairing the debate, Dr. Simon Damkjaer and Prof. Jim Wright (University of Southampton) argued for the relative merits of monitoring service provision from the consumer perspective (e.g. via household surveys) versus the service provider perspective (e.g. via international databases of utility statistics such as IBNET (https://www.ib-net.org/). Alongside members of the British public, students on the Masters in Public Health programme at University of Ghana joined the debate. After hearing from both sides and tackling a bitesize quiz with thought-provoking service delivery statistics, the audience voted for the consumer’s perspective as the most compelling monitoring approach. The team plan to reuse the interactive format in other settings, for example in delivering teaching, should the universities in the team once again have to teach online as a result of the pandemic. The event highlights the value of social science in supporting service delivery monitoring.
