Access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), remains one of the most pressing global sustainability and public health challenges.. While many regions take these services for granted, a significant share of the global population still lives without reliable WASH infrastructure, with serious consequences for public health, environmental quality, and economic wellbeing.
Poor WASH conditions are closely linked to inadequate waste management, environmental degradation, and water quality deterioration. Without access to clean water and sanitation, communities face compounding risks, from waterborne disease to ecosystem collapse.
During a recent webinar hosted by Inogen Alliance, experts from member organizations across Africa and Asia shared real-world solutions to these challenges. Speakers included Emanuele Agostoni (HPC Italy) and Sathya Baskar (Chola MS Risk Services Limited (CMSRS); Moderated by Beatrice Bizzaro (HPC Italy), Global Water Working Group Leader. The session examined both the scale of the problem and what effective, scalable interventions look like in practice. Below are the key takeaways.
Why WASH Remains a Critical Global Priority
Despite significant global progress over the past two decades, WASH gaps persist across both rural and urban contexts, and the consequences are far-reaching:
- Inadequate sanitation and hygiene infrastructure drives the spread of waterborne diseases and increases mortality, particularly among children.
- Plastic and solid waste accumulation in drainage systems causes urban flooding, further contaminating water sources and compounding health risks.
- Climate change is intensifying existing pressures. Droughts reduce drinking water availability, while floods damage sanitation infrastructure and contaminate groundwater.
- Communities without waste collection services are often left with no alternative but to dispose of waste in local waterways, creating a cycle of environmental and health harm.
- Plastic blocks drainage systems, contributing to urban flooding and the spread of pathogens.
- Microplastics contaminate food, water, and air, affecting both human health and local ecosystems.
- In Abidjan, the lagoon is so saturated with waste that local fisheries have been almost entirely abandoned, devastating the livelihoods of communities that once depended on them.
- Low-tech and locally maintainable: solutions that do not require specialist imported equipment, ensuring communities can operate and repair them independently.
- Flood-resistant: equipped with automatic release mechanisms to prevent overload during heavy rainfall events.
- Economically viable: combining physical infrastructure with on-site sorting facilities that allow recovered material to enter recycling streams.
- High-value plastics (PET, PE, HDPE) enter mechanical recycling streams and are sold as flakes or granules.
- Lower-quality plastics can be repurposed into construction materials such as tiles, bricks, and structural elements. This model is already in use in Ivory Coast, where recycled plastic has been used to build over 500 classrooms.
- Ocean-bound plastic credits, verified through third-party auditing and blockchain technology, allow companies to offset plastic production and help finance ongoing recovery operations.
- Behavioral change campaigns promoting consistent use of facilities
- Community awareness programs on the health risks of poor sanitation
- Strong local government leadership and accountability mechanisms
- Seawater desalination plants providing hundreds of millions of liters per day, independent of rainfall.
- Mandatory rainwater harvesting for all buildings, significantly improving groundwater recharge and reducing dependence on external supply.
- Treated wastewater reuse supplied to industries, reducing freshwater demand and supporting a circular water economy.
- Emergency water distribution systems including tanker-based supply mechanisms to ensure access for vulnerable communities during drought conditions.
- Governance and leadership are prerequisites: without policy support and institutional commitment, it is very difficult to attract investment in infrastructure or innovation.
- Solutions must involve communities from the outset: projects that exclude local stakeholders, including communities, authorities, waste operators, and civil society, are unlikely to succeed in the long term.
- Behavioral change requires sustained effort: education and awareness must be embedded in programs from the beginning, including at the school level, to create lasting shifts in practice.
- Economic viability enables sustainability: long-term WASH solutions need viable revenue models, whether through plastic credit markets, material recovery, community-managed water fees, or ESG-linked funding mechanisms.
Addressing WASH is therefore not only a humanitarian priority. It is an environmental, economic, and climate resilience imperative.
Intercepting Plastic Waste to Protect Water Quality
One of the most visible WASH challenges in rapidly urbanizing regions is the accumulation of plastic waste in waterways. Globally, an estimated 14 million tons of plastic enter the oceans every year, with the vast majority transported via rivers and urban drainage canals rather than deposited directly at sea.
In cities like Abidjan, Ivory Coast, this problem reaches a critical scale with a project example shared from HPC Italy. Waste collection rates vary dramatically between municipalities, and overall more than half of all waste goes uncollected through official channels. Much of this ends up in the city’s lagoon system, either through drainage canals or direct dumping, before flowing into the Atlantic Ocean. About 82% of waste reaching the lagoon is conveyed by urban canals during rainfall events.
The consequences extend well beyond pollution:
The Case for Upstream Interception
The most effective strategy for addressing this problem is to intercept waste before it reaches the lagoon, capturing it in canals while it is still concentrated, less contaminated, and more recyclable. Once waste enters the lagoon, it sinks within 48 hours and becomes significantly harder to recover.
Effective intervention systems of this kind are designed around three core principles:
On-site sorting stations serve a dual purpose: maintaining the quality of recyclable material and functioning as community waste drop-off points year-round, including during the dry season.
Turning Waste Into a Resource
A well-designed interception system at a single canal pilot site can capture approximately 3,800 tons of waste per year, of which around 55% is plastic, amounting to more than 2,000 tons annually. Rather than simply removing this material from the environment, the goal is to redirect it into productive use:
Initial investment costs are in the range of 400,000 to 430,000 euros for collection infrastructure and sorting equipment. Operational costs, covering a small full-time team, run in the tens of thousands of euros per year. With material recovery revenue and ESG-linked funding, operations can become self-sustaining over time.
A Replicable Approach
While pilot projects focus on individual canals, the methodology is designed to scale. Cities across Africa, Asia, and Latin America face comparable challenges, and the system can be adapted to different flow conditions and local contexts. The broader ambition is not to solve a single site but to develop a replicable model for reducing plastic leakage into waterways globally.
Scaling WASH Access: Lessons from India
“India’s experience demonstrates how large-scale national programs can rapidly expand access to sanitation and drinking water services.” India’s experience delivering WASH services to a population of 1.4 billion people offers some of the most instructive lessons available anywhere in the world. Over the past decade, the country has achieved extraordinary progress while also confronting the limits of infrastructure-only approaches. Chola MS Risk shared some specific stats and examples.
Progress at Scale
| Metric |
Progress |
| Rural sanitation coverage |
39% (2014) to 95%+ (today) |
| Toilets constructed |
Over 100 million |
| Villages declared open defecation free |
Over 600,000 |
| Rural households with tap water connections |
Over 140 million |
Despite these gains, significant challenges remain. Around 160 million people still lack basic sanitation. Rapid urbanization is straining wastewater treatment capacity. And contamination from heavy metals and microbial sources continues to affect water quality across multiple regions.
Infrastructure Alone Is Not Enough
The most important lesson from India’s sanitation programs is that infrastructure investment must be accompanied by behavioral and social change to have lasting impact.
The Swachh Bharat Mission (Clean India Mission), launched in 2014, constructed over 100 million household toilets, making it one of the largest sanitation programs in history. “Infrastructure development alone did not guarantee sustained usage, however. The program’s effectiveness depended equally on:
The program has since evolved into ODF Plus (Open Defecation Free Plus), which focuses on sustaining outcomes through solid and liquid waste management, grey water treatment, and long-term facility maintenance.
Community Ownership as the Foundation of Sustainability
The Jal Jeevan Mission, launched in 2019, has rapidly expanded rural tap water access, connecting over 140 million households and growing coverage from around 17% to over 75% of rural homes. A defining feature of this program is its emphasis on decentralized, community-led governance.
The program also emphasizes source sustainability through groundwater recharge and local water resource management.Village water committees, with strong participation from women, are responsible for maintaining infrastructure and ensuring water quality. This model of local ownership has been central to the long-term functionality of the program and is a key reason why systems continue to operate effectively after initial implementation.
Building Urban Resilience: The Chennai Example
Chennai illustrates how cities can respond to water scarcity through a combination of infrastructure innovation and strong policy. Facing recurring drought, variable monsoon rainfall, rapid population growth, and a 2019 “day zero” crisis in which major reservoirs nearly ran dry, the city implemented a range of measures:
Chennai’s experience shows that urban water resilience is not achieved through any single solution. It requires a portfolio of infrastructure investments, policy reforms, and adaptive management working together.
Five Lessons for Global WASH Programs
India’s experience points to principles that apply across geographies and contexts:
1. Strong policy leadership enables rapid scaling of sanitation and water programs.
2. Behavioral change is essential: facilities must be used consistently, not just built.
3. Community participation improves long-term sustainability, accountability, and system performance.
4. Infrastructure innovation, from desalination to wastewater reuse to rainwater harvesting, is critical for managing growing demand under climate pressure.
5. Climate-resilient strategies, including watershed restoration and groundwater recharge, are increasingly essential as variability intensifies.
Common Themes
Although the two case studies addressed different regions and different aspects of the WASH challenge, the same core themes emerged from both:
Practical Steps for Organizations
For companies and organizations active in regions facing WASH challenges, the following priorities stand out:
1. Assess WASH-related risks in your operations and supply chains, particularly regarding water quality, flooding vulnerability, and sanitation infrastructure gaps.
2. Explore funding mechanisms such as ocean-bound plastic credits as both a sustainability commitment and a tool for financing environmental recovery.
3. Support community-led WASH initiatives, as co-design and local ownership are the strongest predictors of long-term project success.
4. Invest in education and behavioral change alongside physical infrastructure, as they are equally important for lasting impact.
5. Engage with global knowledge-sharing networks to access local expertise and replicate proven approaches across geographies.
The Bottom Line
The WASH challenge is vast, but the solutions exist. What is needed is the investment, governance, and community engagement to scale them.
From intercepting plastic in urban waterways to delivering tap water to millions of rural households, meaningful progress is achievable when technical innovation is paired with strong leadership and local ownership.
If you would like to learn more about WASH-related initiatives or explore how Inogen Alliance can support your organization’s sustainability goals, our global network of experts is ready to help.
Inogen Alliance is a global network made up of over 70 of independent local businesses and over 6,000 consultants around the world who can help make your project a success. Our Associates collaborate closely to serve multinational corporations, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations, and we share knowledge and industry experience to provide the highest quality service to our clients. If you want to learn more about how you can work with Inogen Alliance, you can explore our Associates or Contact Us. Watch for more News & Blog updates, listen to our podcast and follow us on LinkedIn.
