Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership (SWS)

Applying, researching, and learning about systems-based approaches to improve the sustainability of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene services.

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Analyzing and Improving Collaboration Among WASH Stakeholders in Ethiopia

The Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership (SWS) team in Ethiopia – led by IRC, working with TetraTech and LINC – employed Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) to assess the relationships...

Understanding Factors and Actors to Achieve Sustainable Drinking Water Systems in...

“Water and food security” is designated as one of five strategic priorities by Kenya’s Kitui County Government. Providing sustainable drinking water services in the area remains challenging...

Water Currents: WASH and the Systems Approach

Water Currents is produced biweekly by USAID’s E3 Water Office. Each issue contains recent news and articles on water sector issues, partner and donor updates, latest sector research, and a...

Webinar: Using Network Analysis to Understand and Strengthen WASH Systems

On February 21, 2018, the Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership (SWS) conducted a webinar that provides an introduction to network analysis and early lessons learned from analyses...

SWS held a webinar on August 23 to present recent learning about preventive maintenance, and how it can help local governments, communities, and the local private sector to shift the paradigm from paying pump mechanics, to fix broken pumps to paying them to keep water services running.

View the slides and handouts from the webinar.
Learn more about the event

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Overview

Sustainable services remain a daunting challenge in the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sector. Traditionally, national and local governments, WASH service providers, and development partners have focused on the construction of WASH facilities and the expansion of service coverage. Less emphasis has been placed on sustaining and maintaining existing WASH services. As a result, failure rates of water supply and sanitation systems continue to be high.

Universal access cannot be achieved without addressing the sustainability of WASH services. This requires taking a comprehensive, long-term view of service delivery and changing local systems. While the sector recognizes this shift in programming is necessary, there has been limited exploration of what approaches work, what benefit they bring to sustainability, and how they can be applied effectively.

The Sustainable WASH Systems (SWS) Learning Partnership tests new ideas, approaches, and tools to overcome barriers for improving WASH service sustainability. The partnership seeks to:

Influence USAID to apply evidence on how systems approaches can help improve the sustainability of future USAID WASH programs
Catalyze national and international uptake of successful systems change approaches

WHAT IS A SYSTEMS APPROACH?

USAID has recognized that to achieve sustainability, local systems need to be engaged and strengthened. According to the 2017 U.S. Government Global Water Strategy, one of the primary goals of USAID is to “increase the availability and sustainable management of safe water and sanitation for the unserved and most vulnerable.” Through the innovative SWS Learning Partnership, USAID seeks to learn how to improve the sustainability of WASH services by using systems approaches.

SWS defines a systems approach as one that:

Seeks to understand the complexity, interactions, and interdependencies between actors and factors in a deliberate, rigorous manner
Acts based on this understanding
Regularly adapts to feedback and changing conditions

COUNTRIES

Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda

More Information

Acronym:

SWS

Activity Status:

Active

Start Year:

2016

End Year:

2021

Award or Grant Number:

AID-OAA-A-16-00075

Prime Implementing Partner:

CU Boulder

Implementing Partners:

Environmental Incentives, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, Tetra Tech, LINC, WaterSHED, Whave, Oxford University

Resource Partner:

USAID

Funding Level:

$15,300,000

SWS Concept Map

SWS Photo

Partners

Consortium

University of Colorado Boulder leads a consortium of partners who are developing, demonstrating, learning about, and sharing evidence on systems-based approaches for improving the sustainability of WASH services. With implementation of systems-based approaches in Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda, USAID—and the broader WASH sector—will gain an understanding of how, and under what conditions, these approaches can be effectively applied in future programs.