The Sustainable Development Goals set ambitious water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) targets. Persistent failure to sustain services has plagued the WASH sector for decades, and there is an ever-growing recognition that for services to be sustainable and operate at scale, the wider WASH 'system' needs to be sufficiently robust to enable, support and sustain such services. This requires a progressive shift in development partners and NGOs’ focus in the WASH sector: from largely isolated ‘project’ approaches, often focusing only at the community level, to progressively understanding the wider WASH ‘system’, and collaborating to strengthen the ‘actors and factors’ within such a system at different ‘levels’ (see Topic 0102: Introducing WASH System Concepts).
This toolkit has been developed by the Sustainable Services Initiative (SSI) , which is an undertaking of Welthungerhilfe (WHH) to improve the sustainability of its WASH programming. System Strengthening is a core focus. The SSI also seeks to add value to the wider sector in terms of WASH systems thinking, through participation in collaborative efforts such as Agenda for Change.
WHH, Aguaconsult, German Toilet Organization (2020). Strengthening WASH Systems: Tools for Practitioners Deutsche Welthungerhilfe
PractitionersEnglish