Context
More than 2.4 billion people worldwide lack access to adequate sanitation. According to estimates by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), every day around 1,000 children under five years of age die as a result of diarrhoeal diseases caused by contaminated drinking water or insufficient sanitation and poor hygiene. The gravest health risks associated with unsatisfactory sanitation generally affect people living below the poverty line who reside in cramped quarters within the informal settlements found in rapidly growing cities around the world.
In order to provide these people with access to adequate sanitation services, the international community must implement inclusive, sustainable measures in this sector. Achieving this entails overcoming numerous political, social and economic barriers. The absence of pro-poor approaches within the sector strategies of many of the countries affected continues to prevent investments in the sanitation sector from benefiting all segments of the population. Despite significant advances to date, development cooperation work in this field must become more inclusive. The basic conditions needed to remedy this situation are still not fully in place in many partner countries or within German and international development cooperation.
Objective
The basic conditions for implementing sustainable sanitation strategies in an inclusive manner in partner countries and within both German and international development cooperation are improved.
Approach
This sector programme supports development cooperation projects in realising sustainable sanitation strategies in an inclusive manner. To this end, it makes relevant practical experience available to German and international development cooperation activities and also facilitates the transfer of innovations and flagship projects to local contexts.
With the aim of integrating sustainable sanitation within processes of urban development, the sector programme develops instruments and training formats to strengthen the skills and implementation capacities of municipal planners and officials. Additionally, it assists them in trying and testing appropriate strategies for urban development planning.
The programme translates expert knowledge into policy-oriented formats and contributes these to national and international policy-making processes. International exchange fostered by the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) allows stakeholders to discuss inclusive sanitation strategies on a cross-sectoral basis and to disseminate structured expert knowledge to specific target groups.
The sector programme works closely with German development cooperation projects concerned with sanitation and wastewater management as well as with other sector programmes, in particular the International Water Stewardship Programme (IWaSP). In addition, the programme serves as a secretariat for the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA), closely cooperating with the alliance’s partner organisations. These include the World Bank Water and Sanitation Program, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology of the ETH Domain (eawag) and the German Toilet Organization (GTO) .
Results
Both the global discourse and networking on the issue of sanitation have undergone positive developments. A number of aspects related to more sustainable and integrated sanitation management have been incorporated prominently within the goals set out in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Through numerous pilot projects, and in cooperation with development cooperation projects, new strategies for sustainable sanitation have been tested, evaluated and disseminated by way of knowledge networks.
The SuSanA network has established itself as an internationally recognised platform and community of practice for increased sustainability in the sanitation sector. As a result of advisory inputs geared to the inclusive implementation of sustainable sanitation strategies, lessons learned in German development cooperation projects in India, Kenya, Tanzania and the Philippines have been made accessible.