The long-term failure to provide high-quality and sustainable water supply and sanitation services is not a failure of technology or management arrangements at the point of delivery, nor even a lack of financing. It is a systems failure. Achieving sustained improvements in services will ultimately only come about by strengthening all of the elements of the local and national systems that are needed to support and enable reliable and equitable service delivery.

At Aguaconsult, we believe systems thinking and systems-based approaches are essential foundations for addressing the scale and ambition of the SDGs and we approach our work on the explicit understanding that the WASH sector is a complex system. As one of Agenda for Change’s four founding members, and through developing resources and guidance materials on WASH systems strengthening over many years, we have been at the forefront of systems thinking in the WASH sector. Our systems strengthening work spans a diverse set of services, including:

• ·Assessing the strengths and weaknesses of WASH systems and identifying potential entry points.

• Designing WASH programmes that apply a systems-based approach and employ systems tools.

• Developing and operationalising strategies for systems strengthening, including district-wide planning processes, asset management and monitoring frameworks, and systems strengthening approaches in fragile and humanitarian contexts

• Conducting systems-based analysis for the development of improved sector policy and regulatory approaches.

• Supporting the institutionalisation of systems thinking and systems-based approaches within development partner organisations.

• Designing and facilitating global and national workshops and learning events focused on strengthening WASH systems.