Watch the session
Hybrid
Sanitation
W11

Why and how can water utilities better support global wastewater monitoring?

Monday, 22 May 2023
15:45 — 17:15
Bonn Room
Spanish
English
German
French
Arabic
Co-convener/s:
UN-Habitat, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)

In most countries, sanitation and wastewater management, treatment, and monitoring are invisible and neglected services that are less attractive to investors than water supply. Global monitoring of SDG 6.3.1 on the proportion of wastewater that is safely treated has highlighted the scarcity of national wastewater statistics. In reality, a large amount of data is collected on the ground by various stakeholders, including water and sanitation utilities, for day-to-day operations such as wastewater compliance.

This session aims to encourage data collection by water utilities for reporting on SDG indicator 6.3.1, and to collectively develop an approach that complements current global wastewater monitoring efforts. Such an approach should be tailored to the context and needs of water utilities as the main contributors and beneficiaries of data collection and monitoring. The implementation of such a complementary approach would allow the assessment of different aspects of wastewater management that are commonly monitored in the field and ultimately strengthen national data collection, monitoring, and reporting in the sector.

The session will present case studies from different countries and a comparative analysis of their respective approaches to sanitation monitoring. UN-Habitat and GIZ will then present the first draft of the so-called “sanitation monitoring ladder,” followed by a guided discussion with a panel of speakers and session participants. Through this participatory process, UN-Habitat and GIZ aim to adapt and refine the monitoring ladder approach based on feedback from water utilities and other sector stakeholders. The overall objective of this initiative is, therefore, to strengthen the utilities’ ownership of the approach to ensure greater implementation success, which is necessary to improve knowledge of wastewater quantity and quality for water management and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

— Session Programme
- General audience survey (5min) Moderator 1 - Dewi Rimayani Hanoum (UN-Habitat) - Opening remarks (5min) Graham Alabaster (UN-Habitat) - Introduction of SDG 6.3.1 (5min) Florian Thevenon (UN-Habitat) - Country case examples: Zambia, Nepal, Peru, Ghana (40min) Prit Salian (i-san on behalf of GIZ) ; Jerry Asumbere (Environmental Protection Agency, Ghana) ; Gustavo Pablo Olivas Aranda (SUNASS, Peru) ; Mr. Tiresh Kathri (Joint Secretary MoWS Nepal) - Presentation of the monitoring ladder (5min) Florian Thevenon (UN-Habitat) - Panel discussion + Q&A with the audience (25min) Moderator 2 - Alexandra Dubois (GIZ) ; Graham Alabaster (UN-Habitat) ; Anke Peine (GIZ-Zambia) ; Mr. Tiresh Kathri (Joint Secretary MoWS Nepal) ; Maria Eugenia (OLAS-IADB) ; Jerry (EPA-Ghana) - Closing remarks (5min) Mr. Tiresh Kathri (Joint Secretary MoWS Nepal)