Devex: A tale of clean cities: How to solve the urban sanitation challenge
Andrés Hueso, senior policy analyst for sanitation at WaterAid

“…Providing urban sanitation services to [cities’ entire populations], including those who are very poor and often have no ownership of their land and few if any legal rights, is a complex challenge, but a vital one. … To be effective, planning must be adapted to the specific context and phase of sanitation development, be linked to financing opportunities, and become a continual learning process. … Unless all city dwellers have adequate sanitation services, there will always be a health risk to the entire population. This is a message that those involved in urban sanitation should promote, as it will prompt authorities to include and prioritize reaching slums and poorer households in their efforts. That will be the only way to realize the ambitions to eradicating extreme poverty by 2030, and reaching everyone everywhere with clean water and sanitation” (9/12).