It also considers the potential for social protection to support gender-sensitive improvements in water security, including by enhancing women’s and girls’ access to water and by increasing their capacity to manage water-related risks.

The paper argues that the linkages between social protection, water and gender concerns are more substantial than previously recognised, and that they will only become stronger as the effects of climate change and urbanisation intensify.

Failure to explicitly acknowledge and address these linkages could hinder progress across the board, while better cross-sectoral understanding and action promises to generate more sustainable improvements in each sector and help lay the foundations for broader empowerment gains.

An infographic is also available, highlighting how social protection can promote improvements in water security.

By considering a range of contextual factors, including population densities, availability of skilled technicians and spare parts, commercial viability of markets, the degree of private sector participation and other issues, the resource walks the user through a number of decision-making steps – one of the most important principles is to align with, and support, government-sanctioned models or pilots and to ensure pro-poor inclusive services for all.

The WASH programme provides up to £164.8 million over a seven-year period (2013 – 2020) to increase the availability of sustainable WASH services in the DRC. The programme consists of four pillars that together aim to deliver quality, scale and sustainability of WASH sector results in DRC:

1. Creating community incentives to deliver individual lasting behaviour change;
2. Increasing affordable access to WASH education;
3. Strengthening systems of empowerment and accountability between the communities, service providers and local and provincial government structures; and
4. Improving the capacity of service providers, institutions, and communities to monitor, operate, maintain, and deliver WASH services, and improving the capacity of national government to coordinate, monitor, and set appropriate priorities in the WASH sector.

Based on the overall progress summarised in the main report, the details described in the subsequent sections and the project score calculator, the overall score for this annual review is an “A”.

A lot of available evidence focuses on water treatment plants, pre-assembled Mobile Water Treatment Equipment (MWTE), or modular water treatment kits (to be assembled in the field) which are used to clean water for drinking in emergency systems, which is not within the scope of this review. The WWTP findings listed are based on peer reviewed journals, global funding agency reports, as well as grey literature. Model information is taken from global manufacturers specialising in WWTP production, however, there is a paucity of information describing models used in specific settlements/refugee camps in low-income/slum areas.

Senior experts consulted for this review confirm that there are very little published evaluations on affordable wastewater treatment plants used in emergency settings. Although there are reports of camp areas specifically for women and children, most wastewater treatment plants are in settlements and sites to be used by both genders, therefore the data included in this review is gender-blind. No specific data searches were made for disabled WWTP users.

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) remove contaminants from wastewater. The treatment to remove these contaminants includes physical, chemical, and biological processes to produce environmentally safe treated wastewater (Grange / HIF – Humanitarian Innovation Fund, 2016:10). Adequate sanitation provision is vital to promote health and prevent the spread of disease from wastewater in long-term temporary settlements such as refugee camps. As sites tend to be overcrowded, facilities can be far from adequate.

To achieve this objective, WaterAid Nicaragua is strengthening the service delivery, strategic planning, financing, monitoring, coordination, accountability mechanisms and post-implementation support functions of permanent institutions. Barriers to sustainability and WaterAid’s approaches to addressing them are described in the proceeding sections.

When completed, the tool will improve data collection, planning and budgeting for water projects, making information easily available and comparable for UNHCR staff, partners and donors, and lead to more efficient water service delivery to refugees and other displaced people across UNHCR operations.

Looking at the scale of the needs and the constraints of urban settings, achieving universal access to basic sanitation by 2030 – let alone increasing access to safely managed services – seems overly optimistic. Unless certain basic requirements fall into place quickly, some countries will find themselves still trailing behind. The scoping studies commissioned by WSUP have highlighted a number of gaps related to the policy environment as well as institutional and financing arrangements for the urban sanitation sector, which need to be addressed if fast-track progress towards the SDG is to be achieved.

The added value of this assessment lies in the development of a comprehensive analytical framework to analyze and operationalize a more sustainable service delivery approach for rural water supply. The assessment also documents a rich set of cases and good practices informing the global body of sector knowledge and identifies a set of policy recommendations to improve the sustainability of services depending on sector development stage and rural service delivery context.

Recognizing the limitations of the Demand Responsive Approach, the emergence of various management models, the identified need for ongoing support to rural service providers, and the critical role of enabling institutions and policies beyond the community-level, the added value of this assessment lies in: i)the development of a comprehensive analytical framework that can be used to analyze and operationalize a more sustainable service delivery approach for rural water supply; ii) the rich set of cases and good practices from the 16 countries informing the global body of “knowledge in implementation,” and iii) the formulation of recommendations and policy directions to improve the sustainability of services depending on sector development stage. Policy recommendations are centered around five areas: institutional capacity, financing, asset management, water resources management, and monitoring and regulatory oversight.