The SG on Sanitation and Water Management in Developing Countries encompasses water supply and sanitation services and their interrelation with river basin management. The Group has a bottom-up approach and identifies regional focal points. Inefficient water management and lack of sanitation services are well known to be major challenges in most developing countries across Latin America, Africa and Asia. Despite immense efforts over the last decade to improve the access to sustainable wastewater management and sanitation solutions in developing countries the situation is still grim and has hardly improved.

In 2014 the group has organised its “1st Specialist Conference on Municipal Water Management and Sanitation in Developing Countries” in Bangkok to provide a platform for discussing these important issues.

Recently, the Specialist Group has engaged intensively with the topic of decentralized versus centralized sanitation and wastewater management systems with a focus on low and middle income countries which continues to be a major activity in 2016.