What is WSUP?
WSUP (Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor) works to to create sustainable systems for pro-poor urban water and sanitation service delivery.
As part of this Scaling Snapshot, see also WSUP’s Getting Ready for Scale, Key Scaling Strategies, and Pearls of Scaling Wisdom. You can find the full snapshot PDF here.
Organizational Overview
The Audacious Goal: WSUP is driving toward a future in which all urban dwellers, even the poorest, enjoy affordable, high-quality water and sanitation services. WSUP aims to reach 25 million people by 2020 and is committed to enabling universal access for the over 100 million urban dwellers in the countries in which it operates.
The Problem: Nearly 900 million people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water and over two billion — nearly a third of the world’s population — lack safe sanitation. In many cities, both public and private actors fail to provide basic services to low- income communities, leading to disease and economic losses.
The Solution: Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) works alongside local water and sanitation providers (public and private)to enable them to develop services, build infrastructure, and unlock new capital, so they can reach low-income consumers within an inclusive citywide service provision.
The Impact: As of 2017, WSUP has contributed to new or improved access to Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) services for over 18 million low-income consumers. WSUP has also helped mobilize nearly $300 million of investment in WASH from development banks, the public sector, the private sector, and households.
The Model-in-Brief: Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) has a permanent presence in six core countries, testing and demonstrating models to improve water and sanitation coverage in low-income urban communities and citywide. To do so, WSUP brings together private and public sector approaches to help local governments, utilities, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) improve efficiency and deliver service offerings suitable for low-income consumers. WSUP identifies best practices and shares that knowledge widely to help advance policies and practices of other WASH stakeholders. In 2015, WSUP launched WSUP Advisory, a for-profit subsidiary that builds on WSUP’s in-depth field experience to provide technical assistance outside of its core countries.
The Core Innovation: Bringing together private and public sector approaches. WSUP combines consumer-facing, market-driven approaches from the private sector with public policy and institutional change to achieve more effective, sustainable, and inclusive citywide solutions.
Published March 2019. Find the full Scaling Snapshot PDF at https://rebrand.ly/wsupscaling.
Authored by Erin Worsham, Kimberly Langsam, and Ellen Martin.
