The concept of Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS) is increasingly used by sanitation practitioners. It refers to a public service approach to planning and implementing urban sanitation systems to achieve the outcomes summarised in the Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6). This dedicated water goal refers to safe, adequate and equitable sustainable sanitation for all in an urban area regardless of where people are located in the city and what technology is used to deliver this service.

Many countries and municipalities around the world face various issues in implementing Citywide Inclusive Sanitation. The main complexity lies in the lack of understanding who is responsible and accountable for ensuring safe, adequate and equitable access to this service. It is therefore that IWA – through the IWA Regulation for Citywide Inclusive Sanitation Initiative – wants to capture what role can regulators play in ensuring everyone has access to good quality sanitation services, in both, server and under-served areas of a city.

In this webinar, panellists from the Initiative’s Taskforce share their experiences and lessons learnt from Latin America, Africa and Asia. They address how they are using regulatory tools and instruments to incentivise investment and innovation in under-served areas, and showcase how to ensure that service providers expand sanitation services sustainably in line with government commitments. They describe how regulators’ mandates are expanding beyond sewered sanitation to ensure all areas enjoy good quality services, with fit-for-purpose technologies and business models, robust data-based decision-making and compliance monitoring.

Participants should ideally have familiarity with SDG 6, some knowledge of the challenges of ensuring inclusive sanitation services for all.