The lure of the French bean: what’s in it for women?

Government leadership at both the national and sub-national levels is an essential step towards ensuring safely managed sanitation services for all. Though the importance of sub-national government leadership for water, sanitation and hygiene is widely acknowledged, to date much of the focus has been on the delivery of water services.

Following widespread decentralisation reforms, including across Africa, responsibility for sanitation & hygiene (S&H) often sits with sub-national governments.

This edition presents a range of promising initiatives for addressing the challenges involved in securing universal access to safely managed sanitation, showcasing ideas that can inspire and be adapted to different country contexts.

Around the world, the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated differences that already existed. Health outcomes and the economic impacts of resulting lockdowns have not been evenly distributed and inequalities have deepened.

This is an executive summary of the full report that documents the experiences and challenges of scaling up the response to COVID-19 in the first three months of the outbreak – March to May 2020 – in five countries: Bangladesh, Kenya, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, and Uganda.