The SDGs goals and targets will soon be incorporated into countries’ development agendas. The biggest challenge however will be the implementation of these goals on the ground as SDGs unlike MDGs are more comprehensive and have a strong emphasis on sustainability to solve development issues, not in isolation but through a collective social, economic and environmental lens.

While in 2010, the world celebrated the fulfillment of the water MDG target but the goal had some major shortcomings. Hence, Goal 6 of SDGs focuses more holistically towards ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. The targets under this goal focus not only on providing access to safe drinking and sanitation but due attention is provided on the hygiene component, improving water quality, enhancing water-use efficiency, integrated water resource management, protection and restoration of water-related ecosystems and strengthening the participation of local communities for improving water and sanitation management. For more information on these water targets, please refer:

The Development Alternatives Group through its intervention in both urban and rural India has attempted to provide sustainable access to safe drinking water and sanitation to the last mile population. The key learnings that can be incorporated while implementing the SDGs with respect to India are as follows:

Availability of Affordable and Appropriate Technological Options: The fast pace of research and technological developments have resulted in a number of new and emerging technologies which seem promising in providing access to water and sanitation for all. While a number of technologies are available today, the appropriateness of technology is a very important factor. It is essential for the technology to be appropriate in terms of objectives, setting the performance benchmark, environmental soundness, afford-ability, service life and sustainability.

Building Lab to Land Connect: Most of technologies which get developed in labs stay in prototype stage and never see the light of the day due to a number of problems such as operation and maintenance issues, sustainability, funds for piloting it on the ground etc. The current policy environment is very rigorous and only those innovations which have a huge financial backing can be brought to scale on the ground. There is a need to loosen up a little so that small innovations that can contribute in improving WASH services can reach people and facilitate universal access to water and sanitation.

Public Private Partnerships: PPPs need to be explored more when it comes to water and sanitation services. There are many private and international organisations which have developed innovative service delivery models such as Sarvajal, MVV Water Utility Pvt. Ltd and Samagra Sanitation. But these initiatives are majorly fund driven due to huge investment cost for implementing them. There is a need for collaborations and partnerships. Public-private models should be implemented by the government to create space for private players to create sustainable solutions so that the end users can have access to quality service.

Service Level Benchmarking: Accountability of the agencies involved in the whole process is really important for fulfillment of Goal 6 relating to ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. The Government of India has developed service level benchmarks for water supply, sewage water and sanitation coverage but majority of them are not followed by state governments responsible for implementation. There is a need to track the performance of state governments against service level benchmarks before releasing their grants.

ICT Tools for Behaviour Change Communication: Behaviour change is crucial when it comes to WASH. There is a need to motivate peoples’ behaviours so that they adopt water treatment technologies, safe storage methods, use sanitation facility, maintain hygienic conditions and avoid re-contamination of water. To influence all of these, there is a need to design targeted behaviour change interventions using ICT based tools so that a large number of communities can be mobilised to take action. However designing of communication tools should not just be a design room activity. There is a need to design hard hitting and provoking messages so that they influence people to think in the desired direction. It is important to understand the target community’s values, habits and norms to design effective communication tools.

Interconnectedness within Departments: Goal 6 of the SDGs talks about water and sanitation from a holistic point of view. But our current policy scenario looks on water and sanitation from a fragmented lens. Various ministries and departments are looking on specific components of water and sanitation. The supply of water in rural and urban areas is looked after by different ministries i.e. Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation and Ministry of Urban Development. Water resources are looked after by Central Water Commission and Central Ground Water Board. Wastewater pollution and water quality are looked after by Central Pollution Control Board and Bureau of Indian Standards.

Involvement of so many agencies in the process is one major bottleneck for effective implementation and measuring impacts. Each agency reports to their respective ministry and there is limited coordination among them. There is a need to develop cohesiveness among different departments and ministries for fulfillment of this SDG. A small body needs to be formed at the central level to monitor and track the progress of various departments and ministries with respect to various targets stated in Goal 6.

These key learnings show that in India for securing sustainable water and sanitation, there is a strong need for the following:

These facilitate systems and procedures for tying everything together. q