Latest WASH news from WHO
No images? Click here
Issue No. 354 - 18 Nov 2022
With World Toilet Day 2022 as backdrop, WHO launches enhanced sanitation learning package
Now available: Updated Sanitation safety planning manual and online platform, sanitation research agenda, sanitation inspection forms and OpenWHO course
Sanitation action is urgent. The world is seriously off track to ensure safe sanitation for all by 2030. With only eight years left, the world needs to work four times faster to meet our promise. World Toilet Day and a new Countdown to 2030 provide timely reminders of the urgency of renewed efforts to achieve safely managed sanitation for everyone on the planet by 2030.
The important messaging on sanitation may grab the headlines, but the acceleration will be driven by the thousands of practitioners around the world working with sanitation every day. For them, WHO is pleased today to launch a series of new or updated resources. See below to learn more.
Sanitation safety planning manual – 2022 edition
Update includes simplified approaches, greater alignment with the Guidelines on sanitation and health, and deeper focus on climate risk and adaptation
As identified in WHO's Guidelines on sanitation and health, sanitation safety planning (SSP) is an absolutely vital step-by-step risk based approach to assist in the implementation of local level risk assessment and management for the sanitation service chain - from containment, conveyance, treatment and end use of disposal.
Reflecting much that has been learned in the sector since it was last published in 2015, this second edition of the Sanitation safety planning manual includes updates to simplify the SSP process, align with the Guidelines on sanitation and health for all systems with or without a safe end use step, and incorporate climate risks.
Welcome to Newtown!
How does sanitation safety planning work in practice? In the fictional community of 'Newtown', WHO takes you through a worked example of risk-based management for safely managed sanitation systems.
Start here: revamped Sanitation Learning Hub
Need to know where to get going with sanitation safety planning (SSP)? Trainers, facilitators and practitioners that are conducting SSP in their localities will find everything they need on the completely revamped Sanitation Safety Planning Information Hub.
Here, you can not only download the updated manual, plus a useful worked example of SSP, you can also find training materials, self-study videos, sanitary inspection forms and much more.
Just published: global research agenda for improving the health safety and dignity of sanitation workers
Growing and protecting the sanitation workforce is vital to improving sanitation globally. Yet there is a lack of research and evidence on sanitation workers particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
A new research agenda aims to address this evidence gap. The Global research agenda for improving the health safety and dignity of sanitation workers will focus research activities on topics of greatest relevance to understanding and addressing challenges faced by sanitation workers everywhere in the world. The research agenda was developed using a consultative process involving a wide range of stakeholders to focus research where it is most needed.
The agenda, intended for researchers, practitioners and funders, was developed as part of the Initiative for Sanitation Workers led by WHO, WaterAid, the World Bank, SNV and the International Labour Organization.
2019 report identified research as a priority
The landmark 2019 joint report Health, safety and dignity of sanitation workers: An initial assessment identified building the evidence bases on sanitation workers as one of four areas for action to improve conditions of sanitation workers. The report analyzes the problems, explores good practices, and sets out actions to improve the health, safety and dignity of sanitation workers.
Sanitation Workers Research Awards 2022 - Meet the awardees
Meet the awardees of the 2022 Sanitation Workers Research Awards. These awards, a collaboration between the Initiative for Sanitation Workers, and the Water and Health Institute at the UNC, aim to encourage research on sanitation workers' challenges and rights.
An emerging roadmap to regulating sanitation services
Upon the launch of the State of the World's Sanitation report in 2020, WHO along with UNICEF, ESAWAS and BMGF shared a blog entitled “Regulating sanitation services as a public good”. That post outlined the service failures inherent in a household-led retail-based approach to urban sanitation. It made the case that, if goals of inclusion and public health were to be achieved, governments needed to craft and apply regulatory and accountability tools to mandated sanitation authorities and associated service providers.
However, while the case for sanitation regulation is strong, in practice coherent regulation across the sanitation service chain is often absent or unenforced. In high-, middle- and low-income countries alike, regulators (where they exist) lack autonomy, a clear legal basis for their work, political will, budgets, and data systems required to perform their function effectively. This is particularly universal in non-sewered service contexts.
RegNet: driving best practice in drinking-water quality and sanitation regulation
In November, RegNet held its 12th meeting, with a significant focus of the meeting highlighting the need for professionally managed and regulated services and the need to clarify mandates and accountability mechanisms in regulation of sanitation and hygiene, as described above in the article on an emerging roadmap to regulating sanitation services.
Some 30 RegNet members participated, concentrating further on emerging regulatory challenges; experience and best practice in drinking-water and sanitation regulation; challenges and successes in water safety planning and water quality surveillance; and updates on key WHO activities related to regulation of drinking water and wastewater services, and related technical resources such as the recently published brief on Lead in drinking-water.
One exciting meeting moment was a field trip to the Wastewater Treatment Plant of Bois de Bay, Switzerland (photo, above). RegNet members were interested in understanding the energy recovery mechanisms in place at the plant, including heat and gas, enabling the facility to be nearly energy self-sufficient, highlighting among other things how well managed and regulated wastewater treatment can contribute to climate mitigation efforts.
RegNet, formally known as the International Network of Drinking-water and Sanitation Regulators, is a network hosted by WHO that aims to promote public health protection by increasing access to safely managed drinking water and sanitation through the continual improvement of regulatory systems.
New online course: For a healthier world: Safely managed sanitation (SMS)
Available from today at 3 pm CET
A safely managed sanitation (SMS) service chain – from toilets, to containment, to transport, treatment, and finally safe use or disposal of wastewater and faecal by-products – is essential to protecting the health of individuals and communities and the environment.
Now, for the first time, in a compact four-module online format which can be completed in two to three hours, WHO offers sanitation and health practitioners a course on its well-known OpenWHO educational platform. For a healthier world: safely managed sanitation (SMS) examines the current status of progress toward Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 6.2 on sanitation and hygiene and, within that broader context, presents specific methods and supporting tools that accelerate SMS service approaches at national and local levels. The course includes self-assessment quizzes and a Certificate of Accomplishment upon completion.
Sanitary inspection packages provide useful checklists to assess risk and protect health
Sanitary inspections for sanitation systems are short, standardized observation checklists that can be used to assess risk factors at or near sanitation facilities and identify appropriate actions to safeguard public health.
Sanitary inspections support the implementation of the WHO Guidelines on sanitation and health, in particular Chapter 3 on safe sanitation systems and the associated sanitation system fact sheets. Sanitary inspections may be used by community representatives, government officers such as environmental health inspectors, or field officers from national and international organizations. Click the links below to download PDF or access electronic versions of the updated Sanitary Inspection Packages.
Building climate resilience in sanitation systems
WHO supports Call to Action on Climate-resilient Sanitation launched at COP27 - watch and read more below
Climate change is drastically changing the world we live in and is directly impacting sanitation systems. Households, especially those in low lying, drought or flood prone areas, risk losing safe sanitation services unless systems can adapt. These non-climate resilient sanitation services pose a substantial public health hazard.
As with many others in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector, WHO has in recent years strengthened normative guidelines and other guidance, implementation tools and special initiatives in pursuit of climate-resilient sanitation. Here we present some new initiatives and resources by WHO and partners:
Published in conjunction with COP27 in Egypt, Ensuring access to climate-resilient sanitation services for 3.6 billion people by 2030: A call to action for acceleration Action was jointly developed by UNICEF, WHO and a number of other partners. Collectively, they are calling on all stakeholders to work collectively to ensure the resilience of sanitation systems to maximize the public health outcome and explore the opportunities of reducing emissions along the sanitation service chain.
WHO's Guidelines for sanitation and hygiene presents, among other aspects of climate resilience, climate adaptation options for specific sanitation systems. Climate risks are a key component of the updated Sanitation safety planning manual released today.
In addition, WHO is developing a new Addenda to the WHO WASH strategy 2018-2023: WASH and climate change adaptation and mitigation for health, 2023-2030. The document takes stock of WHO’s work at the interface of WASH, climate change and health and provides a roadmap for 60 future actions in eight critical focus areas, including integrating climate resilience into sanitation risk management. An advance copy of the Addenda is available for viewing here.
WHO, UNICEF and SWA hosted a day-long Climate, Water and Sanitation Solutions for Health and Sustainable Development session at COP27 in Egypt, which you can watch in the video above. If you'd like to watch the launching of the Call to Action on Climate-resilient Sanitation, scroll forward to the 3:46.00 mark (three hours and 46 minutes).
Safe sanitation in the pan-European region
The WHO Regional Office for Europe has published a number of publications with global relevance and focusing on sanitation as part of a broader package of WASH interventions or recommendations.
These include:
- Delivering safe sanitation for all: areas for action to improve the situation in the pan-European region, which supports implementation of the provisions on sanitation under the Protocol on Water and Health, as well as national and international goals and targets on sanitation.
- Water, sanitation and hygiene in health-care facilities: a practical tool for health authorities and other stakeholders to support the design and implementation of assessments, including for sanitation, at the national and subnational levels.
- Making water and sanitation affordable for all, a policy brief that raises the profile of affordability issues among policymakers, including how affordability concerns can be addressed, and what actions will help ensure affordable water and sanitation services.
Two key points of departure on sanitation and hygiene for all
Congratulations! You've made it this far in the WASH Newsletter specially themed edition for World Toilet Day. Above, we've introduced you to a large number of new and updated resources in WHO's sanitation and hygiene offering. Want to to start instead with some indispensable core resources on sanitation hygiene? If so, then check out:
For practitioners
WHO's Guidelines on sanitation and health provide comprehensive advice on maximizing the health impact of sanitation interventions.
For general audiences
State of the world's sanitation cites evidence on what works in sanitation and charts an ambitious way forward. Summary version also available.
Sanitation Video Vault
Strengthening evidence on sanitation workers’ rights to health, safety and dignity
Mobilizing actions for accelerating universal access to safely managed sanitation
If you value water, value sanitation
Who’s responsible? Sorting out mandates for regulation of sanitation services
Taking the poop out of water: from global to local, strengthening capacity to test and regulate water treatment technologies
Technical solutions for prevention and control of antimicrobial resistance in the environment
Sources, drivers and impacts on antimicrobial resistance in the environment
Understanding the basics of environmental antimicrobial resistance for national action
