It’s about strengthening WASH systems

Why do we need a WASH systems strengthening approach?

Here is the challenge: Around the world, 2.1 billion people lack access to safe water and 4.5 billion are without safe sanitation. This animation (1.5 min) highlights the key issues in the WASH sector and how the WASH system strengthening approach can address these complex issues.

It has been developed as part of the WASH Systems Academy. The Academy will help you understand the WASH systems strengthening approach:

• What is it?
• How and why was it developed?
• How to start applying it

If you are at the start of your career or are a senior WASH expert that wants to understand what a systems strengthening approach entails and how you can integrate it in your work, this free online course is for you. The WASH Systems Academy will be available from September 2019.

The WASH Systems Academy is an initiative of IRC.

For more information see: https://www.ircwash.org/wash-systems-academy

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Here is the challenge: Around the world, 2.1 billion people lack access to safe water and 4.5 billion are without safe sanitation.

As many as 40% of services do not function as they should, delivering insufficient or unsafe water supplies, even breaking down completely, a few years after construction.

Climate change, population growth and increased water demand only add to the problem.

Securing the right to safe water and sanitation is thus an issue of access, but also of sustainability.

Everything breaks down eventually: cars, phones, airplanes and yes, even toilets and taps.
But the failure of a hand pump should never mean the failure of service.

World leaders have made the commitment secure universal access to clean water and sanitation by 2030. But how do we move from political aspiration to real change in the lives of real people, now?

To achieve universal access and then sustain it, we must look beyond just infrastructure and work on everything else that contributes to safe and reliable WASH.

Let's understand the challenges faced by those who deliver these vital services and actively support efforts to make processes more robust and sustainable.

It's time for lasting change.

It's time to build strong WASH systems.