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In this blog to accompany the launch of the State of the World’s Sanitation report, Yvonne Magawa (ESAWAS), Batsirai Majuru (WHO), Bisi Agberemi (UNICEF), Jan-Willem Rosenboom and Alyse Schrecongost (BMGF) make the case for sanitation as a public good. For too long, the authors say, sanitation, specifically on-site sanitation systems such as septic tanks and pit latrines, has been left in the realm of household responsibility. The article explores how robust regulatory systems can address the market failures of urban sanitation to protect public health and incentivize delivery of safe, inclusive, and viable services for all.

Read the article here.

In this blog to accompany the launch of the State of the World’s Sanitation report, Kelly Ann Naylor and Bruce Gordon, Heads of WASH for UNICEF and WHO respectively, make the point that no country has achieved high income status without first investing in sanitation. So, what can we learn from countries that could be called ‘sanitation champions’? Read the article to see how sanitation success can be accelerated and how the economic benefits far outweigh the costs. 

This new report from WaterAid, Living in a fragile world: The impact of climate change on the sanitation crisis, explores the devastating intersection of poor sanitation and the fragility of health services, all impacted by the unpredictable nature of the world’s changing climate. The report contains country case studies, stats on global access to sanitation and climate vulnerability and recommendations for action.

• Living in a fragile world: the impact of climate change on the sanitation crisis
• Viver num mundo frágil: O impacto das alterações climáticas na crise de saneamento
• Vivre dans un monde fragile: L’impact du changement climatique sur la crise de l’assainissement

For the first time WHO and UNICEF bring together the data on sanitation coverage and investment, and how it impacts health, economies, and the environment. Citing evidence on what works from successful countries and global guidelines, WHO and UNICEF call for strong government leadership and investment in resilient sanitation services. The report charts an ambitious way forward following the SDG6 global acceleration framework themes of governance, financing, capacity development, data and information, and innovation to achieve universal access to safe sanitation.

The report State of the World’s Sanitation: An urgent call to transform sanitation for better health, environments, economies and societies, was launched on World Toilet Day and is available here.

Photo Credit: © UNICEF/UN0348942/Modola

There is a reoccurring challenge faced in cities around the world where, despite the immediate proximity of trunk sewerage infrastructure, too many households choose not to connect to the sewers for various social, economic or related reasons. In addition, service providers continue to focus their attention and their resources on the design and the construction of the trunk infrastructure, using approaches that don’t always meet the needs of burgeoning cities with their diverse socio-economic neighborhoods. The focus on infrastructure and not on connections affects access to sewerage services. So, even though progress has been made, challenges remain. For example, in Latin America and the Caribbean, even though about 170 million people were connected to sewerage systems in the last two decades, at least 28 percent of the region’s urban residents are still not connected to the sewer lines that run close to their houses.

The funds sunk into trunk sewerage infrastructure and the related wastewater treatment plants cannot realize the full public health and environmental benefits which they were designed to produce if all of the intended properties are not connected. And this means that the disease burden due to poor sanitation remains high and those not connected to sewerage or to another safely managed sanitation system are more likely to suffer from illnesses such as diarrhea and to lose days of work because of those illnesses.

A new World Bank report look at the reasons why so many households still get left behind and remain unconnected to existing or new sewer networks. Based on a review of good practices from around the world, the report outlines the considerations that should be made in developing a successful sewerage connection program. The report also provides an overview and lessons from global experiences in order to identify the elements that can help maximize connections to sewers, including for low-income households, while drawing on the principles of the Citywide Inclusive Sanitation approach.

The report CONNECTING THE UNCONNECTED: Approaches for Getting Households to Connect to Sewerage Networks, was launched on World Toilet Day.

In a new blog, Guy Hutton, Senior Adviser for water, sanitation and hygiene at UNICEF, explains that although, when summed together, the global costs of achieving universal safe sanitation seem like a gigantic amount, the price is in fact very reasonable, and indeed affordable.

Read the whole blog here.

Photo by UNICEF/Zishaan Akhbar Latif

Sewerage management is more than just ‘flushing it away’ – waste must be contained, treated and disposed of safely. In a blog by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Andreas Ulrich explains that in many countries ageing infrastructure and growing urban populations are creating mounting pressure on systems that in many cases were designed in the early twentieth century. In Sri Lanka a joint initiative between the Government, the World Bank and IWMI is aiming to formulate a pathway to sustainably improve wastewater treatment and subsequent resource recovery.

Read the full blog post here.

• Opportunities for sustainable sanitation in climate action – lessons from Africa, Asia and the Americas
• Groundwater resources and climate change
• The potential impact of water quality on the spread and control of COVID-19 in Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon
• Bottom-up efforts to enforce the EU sanitation standards in Bulgaria

An initiative in Ghana is focusing on sanitation processes ‘after the flush’ – turning human waste into an economic resource. The CapVal project is implementing several resource recovery and reuse solutions that have significant potential to incentivize more investments in sanitation planning and management in Ghana and beyond.

Read more here.