Free course: Finance for sustainable WASH systems

February 2023

This free online course aims to equip learners with skills in sustainable WASH financing. Lack of financing is a key barrier to sustainable WASH services, leaving billions worldwide without access. Participants will learn skills for attracting more funding for water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services, also ensuring that available resources are optimized for better, sustainable outcomes and impact. The course covers financing as an essential part of sustainable WASH systems, the status of finance for universal WASH services as well as ways to strengthen finance towards high performing, inclusive and more sustainable WASH services.

Who is this for and why?

The course can be utilized by any WASH professional in government or international development. It is particularly useful for students studying WASH related courses or those who plan to work in the WASH sector. Given that financing is a more recent approach to WASH programming, seasoned practitioners can also benefit from the course to understand current WASH financing status and potential approaches.

Traditional WASH programming models that over-emphasize construction and infrastructure have been proven to achieve much less when the overall investment is compared to the eventual impact, especially regarding reach, sustainability, and ability to cover the socio-economically marginalized. Therefore, current thinking that utilizes newly proven approaches to achieving SDG 6 (WASH for all) are of great importance, of which sanitation financing has been identified as key. Through this course WASH practitioners gain insights in and get access to the tools they need to lead and participate in the creation of more resilient WASH systems through accelerated financing.

Website accessed 8th February 2023.

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