IWA Announces New Initiative & Webinar Series: Regulating for Citywide Inclusive Sanitation

The International Water Association (IWA) has launched a new IWA initiative: Regulating Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS). This initiative aims to identify the needs, opportunities, and tools for regulators to contribute to achieving inclusive sanitation, citywide, and key outcomes of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 6 and 11).

• IWA initiative and Task Force on Regulating for CWIS
• IWA webinar 13 October 2020 on Regulating for CWIS (live webinar and on-demand)

The IWA has developed an active Task Force of regulators, and service providers, and experts in the fields of both sewered and non-sewered sanitation. Within the next months, this Task Force will review and analyse effective and emerging regulatory approaches to implementing urban sanitation inclusively and evaluate the evidence and lessons. This intense work will include desktop review, interviews, specialised working groups and Task Force meetings. Additionally, the IWA will engage the broader public and interested audiences through blogs, interviews, videos and public webinars with possibilities of engagement.

The current COVID-19 pandemic underlines the urgency of sustainable and equitable citywide inclusive sanitation across the globe to protect societies and public health. With many countries and municipalities around the world already facing challenges in implementing Citywide Inclusive Sanitation this global health crisis creates the need for urgent actions and solutions is critical. In addition to this urgent crisis is the often inadequate clarity responsibility and ownership for ensuring safe, adequate and equitable access to sanitation in non-sewer connected areas, and services in peri-urban or informal settlements frequently lie outside the footprint of existing utilities.

This new IWA initiative highlights regulators as important drivers of Citywide Inclusive Sanitation who uniquely positioned to translate the broad intent of national policy into clear performance and accountability frameworks for service providers and are able to provide the necessary guidance and supervision.

As the first public activity of the new IWA Initiative on CWIS, the International Water Association hosts a webinar on Regulating for Citywide Inclusive Sanitation today, on 13 October 2020. Today, panelists from the Initiative’s Task Force share their experiences and lessons learnt from Latin America, Africa and Asia. They address the rapid strides that have been made in recent years with tools, technologies and service models that support inclusive sanitation approaches. Specifically, how as regulators they are using regulatory tools and instruments to incentivise investment and innovation in under-served areas as well as ensuring service providers expand sanitation services sustainably in line with government commitments.

Join the IWA in the first webinar of the Regulation for CWIS series which is taking place on 13 October at 3pm CEST and is available on-demand after this date.

Note: The concept of Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS) refers to a public service approach to planning and implementing urban sanitation systems to achieve safe, adequate and equitable sustainable sanitation for all, .