28 August 2017: The World Bank released a report titled, ‘Reducing Inequalities in Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene in the Era of the Sustainable Development Goals.’ The report synthesizes research from 17 low and middle-income countries and the West Bank and Gaza, undertaken since 2015. The publication investigates context-specific constraints and realities to shed light on why certain populations lack access to WASH services. Based on its findings, it suggests how thinking needs to change to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially targets on clean water and sanitation (SDG 6).

The publication is a synthesis of the WASH Poverty Diagnostic Initiative, which offers data-based recommendations to improve equity, ubiquity and sustainability of WASH policy and implementation. The report illuminates the competing challenges and priorities faced by countries, highlighting the “silent emergency” that many vulnerable communities fight against preventable, water-borne diseases that cause nutritional deficiency and diarrheal disease. For instance, in Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, Mozambique, Niger and Yemen, the rate of stunting among children under five is over 40%. The report notes that, “in some pockets of both rural and urban areas, this burden poses a dire threat to basic health.”

The synthesis offers detailed information about inequalities with the goal of helping policymakers better allocate their resources and prioritize their actions. The report relays the how the disparities in WASH quality and access relate to differences in wealth, location, and other demographics, highlighting the variants between the poor and non-poor, between rural and urban areas, between large cities and small cities, and across and within geographic regions of the same country.

The failure to provide adequate WASH services to the poor and other marginalized groups results primarily from poor implementation rather than bad policy.

Combining reanalysis of existing data with new data, the synthesis “shares insights on SDG parameters that were previously invisible” and suggests reasons for disparities in WASH services, as well as ways policymakers can begin to address the issues. The publication concludes that the “failure to provide adequate WASH services to the poor and other marginalized groups results primarily from poor implementation rather than bad policy.” It cites Tanzania as an example where despite a quadrupling of its water budget between 2002 and 2014, by 2015, access to basic water services had stagnated at just over 50% of the population.

The report emphasizes the “importance of thinking (and working) differently,” not only on inequality in WASH services, but also on how investment in WASH can impact human development and overall SDG implementation. It suggests making three broad shifts to hasten implementation of the SDGs. They include: coordinating investments and interventions across sectors to improve human development outcomes; better targeting and efficiently allocating future investments, given the limited fiscal space of most countries; and gaining a better understanding of the broader governance context within which WASH services are delivered, to bridge gaps between policy and implementation.

The publication was produced with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), and in collaboration with its focus countries and entities. [Reducing Inequalities in Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene in the Era of the Sustainable Development Goals: Synthesis Report of the Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Poverty Diagnostic Initiative] [WASH Poverty Diagnostic- Key Facts in 18 Countries] [Infographic on Three Ways of Thinking and Working Differently] [Publication Landing Page] [World Bank Press Release]