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Sara Gabrielsson

Sara Gabrielsson

Senior Lecturer

Sara Gabrielsson

Assessing national wash targets through a water governance lens : A case study of the sanitation and water for all partnership commitments

Author

  • Leonie Schiedek
  • Sara Gabrielsson
  • Alejandro Jiménez
  • Ricard Giné
  • Virginia Roaf
  • Ashok Swain

Summary, in English

Dysfunctional water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) systems are mainly determined by poor water governance, exacerbating inequalities and poverty. Multi-stakeholder partnerships provide an approach to more flexible and adaptive governance to explore these problems. In this article, national commitments made to improve WaSH, made through the Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) partnership’s Mutual Accountability Mechanism, are examined through qualitative content analysis and guided by the SMART framework to assess the current target-setting. The analysis reveals that there are differences in the participation of the different constituencies regarding the number of stake-holders participating and their performance for measurable and time-bound commitments. This applies especially to research and learning and the private sector. Countries have prioritized commitments related to policy and strategy, efficiency and enabling conditions; further research should understand the linkages of the SWA commitments with other priority-setting processes at the national level. In sum, the commitments leave room for improvement to specify approaches to water governance in more detail and the chance to support the creation of sustainable and resilient systems with more diversified commitments from a wider range of partners.

Department/s

  • LUCSUS (Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies)

Publishing year

2021-09

Language

English

Pages

805-813

Publication/Series

Journal of Water Sanitation and Hygiene for Development

Volume

11

Issue

5

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

IWA Publishing

Topic

  • Water Engineering

Keywords

  • National commitments
  • SDGs
  • Target-setting
  • WaSH
  • Water governance

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2043-9083