Indirect support is about creating and regulating the enabling environment for water, sanitation and hygiene services. It includes the costs for macro-level policy formulation, planning, regulation, sector-level monitoring, developing IT systems, maintaining frameworks and institutional arrangements, etc.
Indirect support includes capacity support to service authorities. Service authorities are those bodies, often district local government or an equivalent, with legal responsibility for guaranteeing water, sanitation and hygiene services in a defined area, fulfilling functions such as planning, coordination, oversight of service delivery. It may be the legal owner of water and sanitation assets but not necessarily so. In some cases, service authorities may also have delegated functions of regulation. They may also be responsible for technical assistance, but can contract this out to an association of community-based providers, an NGO , or the private sector.
Indirect support includes costs on support to increase capacities, for example capacity building for professionals and technicians and capacity support to local government as service authorities, to adhere to national norms, standards and guidelines.