IWA’s recent report on CWIS highlights importance of GSGS in CWIS promotion and knowledge sharing
Urban sanitation remains a challenge globally, and the Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS) approach is increasingly being adopted to facilitate progress of safely managed sanitation services that reach all urban residents. The International Water Association’s (IWA) Inclusive Urban Sanitation (IUS) initiative conducted this study to explore the status of CWIS implementation globally and to inform its future role in the post-Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) sanitation agenda. Building from the IWA literature review paper Citywide Inclusive Sanitation: Reviewing the State of the Art, this report synthesizes insights from interviews with 68 sanitation stakeholders including representatives from utilities, governments, networks, research centers, development partners and funders, across global, regional and country levels. This report provides evidence-based reflections to refine CWIS as a practical and adaptable framework to accelerate urban sanitation progress in the coming decade.
“KNOWLEDGE PARTNERS SHOULD EXPAND UNIVERSITY TRAINING TO
RECOMMENDATION 3: Increase capacity to implement CWIS (pg. 53 in the Report)
INCORPORATE CWIS: Building from existing initiatives such as Global Sanitation Graduate School, continue to increase teaching and research on CWIS across countries, including on onsite sanitation and non-conventional sewerage, which are commonly missing from engineering curricula, and on the integration of mixed technologies and service models as promoted by CWIS.”
“Academic institutions are incorporating CWIS into existing sanitation curricula, including the Global Sanitation Graduate School, which has educated over 600 masters program graduates that completed research on CWIS topics as well as introducing CWIS into masters programs across regional universities.”
BOX 3. CWIS PROMOTION APPROACHES (pg. 22 in the Report)
Introduced in 2016, CWIS is a public service approach to planning and implementing urban
sanitation systems to achieve outcomes summarised in Sustainable Development Goal
6: safe, equitable and sustainable sanitation for all, irrespective of where people live
within the city or what technologies are used to serve them. CWIS prioritizes inclusion
and equity of access to services, public and environmental health outcomes and a mix of
technologies including both non-sewered and sewered systems. CWIS is a holistic approach
that includes dedicated efforts to address the enabling environment such as leadership,
financing, policy, regulation and institutional development, putting in place key public
service functions of responsibility, accountability, planning and management.