Household surveys
Structured data collection on service levels, expenditure, reliability and coping behaviour, sampled to support statements about a population rather than anecdotes about a site.
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
Securing Sustainable Water Futures
Research on water security, sanitation services and hygiene behaviour across sub-Saharan Africa — and on the governance arrangements that decide whether those services still work years after they are built.
Why this matters
Access to water and sanitation is the foundation on which health, education and economic participation rest. It remains out of reach for billions.
According to the 2026 UN SDG 6 Synthesis Report, over 961 million people have gained access to safely managed drinking water and 1.2 billion to safely managed sanitation over the past decade. However, 2.2 billion people still lack safely managed drinking water, and meeting 2030 targets requires an 8-fold acceleration in the current rate of progress for drinking water and a 6-fold increase for sanitation.
The headline access figures also understate the problem, because access is not the same as service. A borehole that is dry for three months of the year, a piped scheme that fails eighteen months after handover, or a latrine whose contents are never safely treated all count as infrastructure delivered while leaving households without a reliable service.
That gap is why our WASH research concentrates as much on institutions as on infrastructure. Whether a water point still functions after the implementing programme has closed depends on tariff setting, spare-part supply chains, the clarity of the mandate held by the responsible authority, and whether the community managing it has the standing to enforce payment.
Climate variability now sits underneath all of it. Sources that were dependable within living memory are becoming seasonal, and rainfall patterns that infrastructure was designed around are shifting. Water security is increasingly a question of resilience rather than coverage.
961m
Gained safely managed drinking water access (SDG 6.1)
1.2bn
Gained safely managed sanitation access (SDG 6.2)
8x
Acceleration needed to meet 2030 drinking water target
What we work on
Four competencies within this thematic area.
01
Water Access, Security & Climate Resilience
Reliable access to safe water, and the resilience of supply systems to drought, flood and shifting rainfall patterns.
02
WASH Policy, Governance & Institutional Reform
The mandates, regulation and institutional arrangements that decide whether services are delivered and then sustained.
03
Circular Water Economy & Wastewater Management
Treatment, reuse and resource recovery — moving wastewater from a disposal problem to a recoverable input.
04
Sanitation Markets & Inclusive Service Delivery
Viable sanitation service chains and business models that reach low-income and underserved households.
How we work
Our WASH evidence is generated in the field and designed from the outset to be usable in policy processes.
Water point assessments
Direct inspection of functionality, yield, water quality and management arrangements, which is the only way to distinguish infrastructure that exists from infrastructure that works.
Mixed-methods evaluation
Quantitative measurement paired with interviews and focus groups, so that a result is accompanied by an explanation of the mechanism behind it.
Policy and regulatory analysis
Reading strategies, standards and regulations against one another to locate the contradictions, gaps and unfunded mandates that stall implementation.
Institutional assessment
Mapping who holds which mandate, how they are financed and to whom they answer — usually where the explanation for a stalled programme is found.
Geospatial analysis
Spatial data on settlement, water resources and infrastructure, used to examine coverage, distance to service and the equity of how provision is distributed.
Work with us on WASH
We collaborate with government agencies, utilities, academic partners and funders on research that is meant to be used.