Sanitation, Wastewater Management and Hygiene Promotion

Meeting the sanitation goal calls for a wide range of measures, including policy reforms, hygiene promotion, capacity building, use of participatory processes, and adherence to demand-responsive approaches. It also calls for a massive scaling up of investments and sustainable service delivery. 

At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, the governments of the world pledged themselves to halve the fraction of the world’s population without access to basic sanitation by 2015. This commitment was made in recognition of the high costs of inadequate sanitation including:

The World Bank has for years been a leading external investor in sanitation and wastewater management in developing countries. Current World Bank lending for sanitation and wastewater management   is US$2.6 billion, which is 35 percent of the total World Bank water supply and sanitation lending portfolio.   Much of this investment continues to be in urban sewage and wastewater treatment in pursuit of environmental protection goals. Demand-responsive low-cost on-site sanitation in rural areas and small towns and wastewater management for the poor living in more densely populated urban informal areas are increasingly part of World Bank projects.

 In rural areas, these projects use an extended web of community-based organizations, local artisans, and contractors in partnership with local and national governments to provide sanitation services at scale.  In urban areas, the World Bank is becoming more active in basic sanitation by supporting both on-site sanitation (with septic systems) and and low-cost simplified sewerage in countries like Brazil, Ecuador, Peru India, Senegal, and Burkina Faso. World Bank financial support is focused mainly on sanitation and wastewater management related infrastructure.  To ensure the effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of these investments, they are complemented by capacity building, communications programs and policy advice focused on hygiene promotion and supportive institutional and sector environments.

The World Bank supports countries to scale up sanitation and hygiene services. Projects support policies that encourage and promote sanitation and hygiene, capable institutions with clearly defined roles and responsibilities, clear and effective financing  mechanisms and subsidy policies, and local community structures that take the responsibility for operating and maintaining local systems.

Sanitation access lags far behind access to safe water. The World Bank is making a concerted effort to increase the quantity and improve the impact of Bank-funded investments in basic sanitation and hygiene through the establishment of a technical assistance program to provide timely and qualified assistance on demand to client countries in the preparation of sanitation projects or components worldwide.