WSUP’s 2025–2030 Strategic Plan sets out five core themes and three interconnected ‘big initiatives’ that build on our theory of change and define where we can have the greatest impact. A strong thread of evidence-based programming runs through the Plan, supported by research completed over the past year. During this time, the Evaluation, Research & Learning team worked closely with WSUP country teams and partners to finalise studies that form the foundation of these themes and further reinforce our evidence base.
Connecting the public and private sectors
Across Eastern and Southern Africa, sanitation mandates are shifting from split responsibilities to fully integrated sewered and non-sewered services under utilities. While this transition brings clear benefits, it also demands long-term institutional change, new resources, and adjustments in policy, regulation, and private sector roles.
These issues were central to a recent Africa Sanitation Dialogue co-convened by WSUP, IWA, and UN-Habitat, and underpin new WSUP–ESAWAS Regulators Association guidance outlining the steps utilities can take to adopt their expanded mandates, especially through the formalisation of manual pit emptiers.
Responsibilities and regulation
The Roadmap for Advancing Sanitation Regulation, a major sector initiative conceived by WHO and developed with WSUP, UNICEF and ESAWAS Regulators Association, draws on consultations with regulatory authorities across Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America, including WSUP partners in Kenya, Mozambique and Zambia. It sets out key principles, milestones, and guidance for strengthening sanitation regulation.
Over the past year, finalising and promoting the Roadmap has been a major focus. Sam Drabble, WSUP’s Director of Research & Evaluation and lead author of the Roadmap, presented its core messages at the 2024 UNC Water & Health Conference, emphasising the critical role of ‘active regulating’ in moving from policy to implementation—insights later captured in a PLOS Water opinion piece. Following the Roadmap’s launch in a WHO-led global webinar, WSUP is now focusing on putting its guidance into practice through the RORA big initiative.
Supporting the next generation
There are important results from the 60-month MapSan follow-up and their implications, now detailed in two newly published pre-print articles.
Effects of urban sanitation upgrades on child growth: cross-sectional analysis of long-term growth outcomes following a non-randomised controlled trial. This article outlines how WSUP’s shared sanitation intervention in Maputo was found to significantly reduce stunting among children born into compounds with improved sanitation. It concludes, “Children served by high-quality, shared sanitation from birth experienced improved growth compared with children lacking adequate sanitation in this low-income urban setting.”
Effects of urban sanitation upgrades on enteric pathogen exposure: cross-sectional analysis of stool pathogen detection following a non-randomised controlled trial. This article outlines how the intervention significantly reduced exposure to enteric pathogens, which are known to contribute to stunting. The article concludes, “Children living continuously from birth in compounds served by sanitation upgrades had fewer enteric pathogens in their stool at follow-up, compared with similar controls. Results suggest that this intervention effectively reduced exposure to enteric pathogens in this setting.”
Climate
Over the past year, WSUP has continued to play a central role in the Climate-Resilient Sanitation (CRS) Coalition, delivering new research and strengthening the evidence base in this critical area. WSUP edited new technical guidelines, published by the Green Climate Fund (GCF), offering countries practical guidance for designing climate-resilient sanitation projects.
In partnership with UNICEF, we developed training materials to support CRS proposals for GCF and other climate funders. These materials were piloted at the 2025 World Water Week as part of the seminar series “Mitigating and Adapting to Climate Impacts Through Sanitation Systems,” co-convened by WSUP, WaterAid, and CAF – Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Citywide inclusive WASH
A major research achievement under the 2020–25 Business Plan was WSUP’s leadership of the consortium producing the UN-Habitat Global Report on Sanitation and Wastewater Management in Cities and Human Settlements. Drawing on analysis from 18 cities across Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America, the report provides a global overview of current service levels and the enabling functions required for scaling sanitation service provision.
WSUP also led the design, coordination and delivery of the subsequent webinar series, which shared practical recommendations from the report and attracted strong engagement throughout. The series benefited from contributions by expert speakers across global, regional, national and city-level partners.
Strengthening monitoring, evaluation and learning
Alongside our external research, WSUP has made significant progress in strengthening our internal monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) systems. Key achievements include:
- Finalising a new MEL framework that underpins the 2030 Strategic Plan and enables real-time visualisation of progress against key project metrics. WSUP’s core indicators have also been expanded to include water saved and faecal waste safely managed, both of which are now tracked at the organisational level for the first time.
- Reinforcing cross-country learning through our Webinar Wednesday series and programme reviews focused on assessing the sustainability and long-term outcomes of previous interventions.
Find out how our Evaluation, Research & Learning team generates evidence, strengthens impact, and informs policy—and how you can support or partner with us—by emailing sdrabble@wsup.com.