Does WASH need a global leader?

BARCELONA — With the arrival of COVID-19 came renewed attention and efforts to improve access to water, sanitation, and hygiene in places where this may have been lacking. That attention in turn highlighted gaps, some say — a lack of coordination within the sector and a shortage of financing, for example. “Without leadership, water is everywhere but nowhere.” --— John Oldfield, principal, Global Water 2020 While the health sector has the World Health Organization, migration has the United Nations Refugee Agency, and education has UNICEF, the WASH sector currently lacks a global organizing body, as UN-Water acts only as a coordination group for the United Nations’ water efforts and not for the wider sector. Could such a body fill those gaps and help carry the momentum for WASH beyond the pandemic? “If we’re serious about the SDGs, we need global leadership now,” said John Oldfield, principal of Global Water 2020, an initiative focused on water access and security. A global WASH leader should encompass the public and private sectors, academia, nonprofits, domestic resources in low-income countries, and overseas development assistance, Oldfield said. “We need it to coordinate, integrate, to make sure this isn’t just the WASH sector sitting in a circle talking to each other. … Without leadership, water is everywhere but nowhere,” he said. More than a third of the world’s population lacks access to basic hand-washing facilities and about half lacks safe sanitation services, which are critical in preventing the spread of the coronavirus, meaning the world is far off track from meeting Sustainable Development Goal 6 on clean water and sanitation for all. The cause has gained some momentum in recent months due to its centrality in tackling COVID-19. The European Union, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the U.K. Department for International Development are among the donors that made commitments following the coronavirus outbreak to support improved WASH access — but many are worried this momentum will not last. Monica Ramos, a WASH consultant who has worked with both UNICEF and the U.S. Agency for International Development, said a key body is needed to convene and make decisions on how to engage donors beyond an initial emergency response to COVID-19. “No one is bringing this together to say, ‘Listen, we need to keep our eye on this or the momentum will be lost,’” Ramos said. “We do need [a global leader]. There are a lot of great players out there, but there’s not a one-stop shop.” Oldfield recommended creating a global leadership council or committee composed of senior development leaders while also looking at various funding models to garner more investment. “There’s no Global Fund [to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria] for WASH, there’s no Gavi for WASH,” he said. Yet the latest “Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water” report identified a funding gap of 61% in reaching WASH targets, based on reports from 20 countries. Next year, the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council — a U.N.-hosted membership organization — will transition into the Sanitation and Hygiene Fund. Building on the organization’s Global Sanitation Fund, it aims to be a more scalable global fund for the sector, filling “a void in the international response to the sanitation, hygiene, and menstrual health crisis.” According to WSSCC, the fund will focus on community-based solutions, providing grants to low-income countries, which will accompany domestic financing to “support national and household efforts to provide toilet and hygiene facilities for millions of families, ensure sanitation and hygiene in schools and health care facilities, support menstrual health management, and foster innovative solutions.” “It’s early days, but the fund appears to be pulling together the right mix of skills — leaders with expertise in both finance and WASH,” Oldfield said, adding that it has great potential in helping fill the sector’s funding gap. While tackling the financing component, the fund would potentially still leave gaps in WASH coordination and leadership. Not everyone is convinced there is room for another body. For Neil Dhot, executive director of AquaFed — an advocacy group aimed at connecting organizations with private water and wastewater service providers — the WASH space has enough leaders already. “UNICEF, WHO etc, are all involved in the various international water partnerships, as are the external support agencies [and] donors,” he said in an email. But Oldfield said the current model is not yielding the gains needed to achieve SDG 6. “Show me how that’s working, show me how that is significantly accelerating progress to SDG 6,” he challenged. He said that UN-Water has the potential to provide the broader sector leadership needed but that it is currently not adequately staffed, resourced, or empowered to do so. Empowerment must come from the leaders of global south countries themselves who voice their need for improved water access to the U.N., he said, saying that, in turn, the U.N. should go “overboard in responding” by pulling together an initial tranche of funding for a financing facility. Civil society and other sectors also need to demand this kind of leadership, Oldfield said. “It’s missing because you’ve got a lot of rich, urban men asking for investments in roads, telecoms, etc. You’ve got poor, rural women asking for WASH. … The poor, rural women's voices are often not heard,” he said. For Dhot, water users should themselves be the leaders, rather than the politicians, donors, or organizations fulfilling their own agendas. “They need to be properly involved in developing the options for their water and sanitation services and what is right for them. Their opinions on how they value water need to be properly listened to and understood,” he added. On a practical level, this could involve formalizing the consultation of water users by law or regulation or having donors offer an incentive to implementing partners that can show they have done this, Dhot said. This would make nongovernmental organizations formally accountable for how they allocate their funds and deliver their projects and for having a user representative on water organization’s boards, he said. “None of the above are new ideas. But, in my view, if these were actually put in place they could make a massive difference,” he said.