The Challenge

Today, more than 1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and more than 2 billion people live without access to adequate sanitation. These shortcomings have a dramatic effect on public health around the world – diarrhea alone kills nearly 2 million people worldwide each year, the vast majority of whom are children under the age of five. Furthermore, in many parts of the world, populations who nominally have “improved service” suffer problems of both water quality and service reliability.

Sanitation is likewise deficient, with huge global shortfalls in basic access to a hygienic toilet, and deficient household standards and service provision. Wastewater service, for example, is limited by a focus only on collection of domestic liquid waste, with next to no investment made in treatment of waste before discharge into water courses. The poor suffer disproportionately from this low quality of service.

We should promote  investment in water supply and sanitation because the present scenario reflects the urgent need to safeguard water resources for the well-being of both people and the environment throughout the developing world. To make  these goals success  multi-pronged approach in the water and sanitation sector is needed , which includes the following:

• Building Capacity of Small-scale Service Providers
• Strengthening Water and Sanitation Utilities
• Mobilizing Domestic Capital for Infrastructure Development
• Improving Household and Community-level Hygiene and Sanitation
• Exploiting Synergies Between Disaster Relief Efforts and Water and Sanitation Projects.

We have to  respond aggressively to these challenges, making water supply and sanitation projects the highest funded category of water-related activities . For all aspects of water supply and sanitation access and improved quality of services, there are very different challenges and opportunities presented in the urban, peri-urban and rural contexts. Private -public partnership   interventions is required as alone government cannot do this and we have lot osf examples of failure of government systems.

The  Project needed

The project  should create supportive environments for healthy households and communities by delivering high-impact interventions in water supply, sanitation, and hygiene . The project should be to reduce diarrheal diseases and acute respiratory infections, the two top killers of children under five years of age globally. Expertise are required to integrate  activities into existing education, HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, and nutrition programs. 

Goals

• Reduce diarrheal diseases and acute respiratory infections
• Promote innovation
• Foster strong in-country partnerships
• Integrate WASH and IAP interventions into education, HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, and nutrition programs

Services

• High-impact at-scale program implementation
• Creative and effective program design that builds on existing programs
• Targeted short term technical assistance
• Research design and evaluation of a range of environmental health activities

Approach

Working at Scale: Working at scale from the beginning—rather than scaling up—and engaging the multiples –sectors and organizations- to address gaps in access, policy, institutional strength, and supply.

Innovation: Bringing together academics, local research institutions, public and private sectors and implementation partners to test behavioral, programmatic, and technological innovations .

Partnerships: Bringing together common and uncommon partners through creative partnerships to enhance funding, advocacy, and impact for  improvement.

Integration: Integration with other health and non-health programs to provide win-win contexts that expand uptake and sustainability of such projects.