Water, sanitation and hygiene system building block assessment tool

Water, sanitation and hygiene systems are often simplified into ‘building blocks’. This assessment tool supports country teams and governments to assess the strength of these systems to identify weaknesses, design interventions and monitor changes in their strength over time.

We work to strengthen the systems required to reach everyone, everywhere with safe and sustainable water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). These systems are complex and made up of all the actors (people and institutions), factors (social, economic, political, environmental, technological) and the interactions between them that influence the achievement of universal, safe and sustainable WASH. 

We first developed a version of this WASH system building block assessment tool in 2015-2016. The tool has evolved since then, and we have expanded the number of building blocks from five to 12, and incorporated a series of guiding questions to facilitate discussions about the strength of each of the building blocks. 

The tool is used in workshops for national and sub-national stakeholders from government departments, ministries, civil society, the private sector and more. It can help stakeholders better understand the barriers to achieving universal, safe and sustainable WASH in communities, schools and healthcare facilities, and identify pathways to strengthen them. 

The tool can also be tailored to specific contexts, and complemented by other studies and analyses to understand and strengthen the more intangible elements of the system, recognising that these systems are much more than a set of isolated parts.

Learn more about how we have used the tool in practiceSee how the tool has been adapted to the context in CambodiaContact [email protected] for more information about the tool. 

Top image: Zo Andriamandimbison, 32, hospital staff member dedicated to waste management, at the newly built waste treatment site, Madagascar. January 2023.