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SYSTEM
STRENGTHENING

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.

Osprey Foundation; 2023

Accelerating WASH Systems Strengthening. Design and co-facilitation of a two-day workshop to bring together representatives from 22 leading organisations and 11 countries to hold open and frank discussions about how to accelerate systems strengthening efforts in the WASH sector.


IRC WASH; 2019 and 2023

All Systems Go and All systems Connect global symposia. Co-drafting of background paper for the 2019 All Systems Go event and leading conference themes and contributing to individual sessions at both the 2019 and 2023 symposia.


Agenda for Change, 2017 and 2021

Roadmap Process for Developing District WASH Master Plans. Collaboration with NGOs to outline the main steps of developing district WASH plans, including institutional strengthening, planning, implementation and monitoring. In 2021, we followed up this work by supporting the development of a district-level roadmap for universal access to sustainable sanitation services.


USAID; 2019-2021

Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership. Long-term technical assistance to the University of Colorado at Boulder as part of USAID-funded project generating  evidence on how systems-based approaches can improve sustainability, with a focus on the maintenance of rural water services.


Welthungerhilfe, 2017 – ongoing

Systems Strengthening Support. Long-term technical assistance (e.g., capacity building, designing and strengthening internal processes and tools, and ongoing mentoring) to the German NGO Welthungerhilfe to adopt and implement systems-based approaches to WASH programming in 11 countries.

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OUR FOCAL AREAS

CITYWIDE INCLUSIVE
SANITATION

DATA FOR
DECISION MAKING

POLICY, INSTITUTIONS
AND REGULATIONS

SYSTEM
STRENGTHENING

CLIMATE
RESILIENCE

FINANCE

PROFESSIONALISING
MANAGEMENT ARRANGEMENTS

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