Twenty years of water integrity: What we've built, why the work has never been more urgent, and why we need your support now
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by Barbara Schreiner, Executive Director, Water Integrity Network
In 2006, a small group of people came together to do something that had never been done before: to name corruption as a water and sanitation crisis, and to do something about it. Founded by IRC, SIWI, Swedish Water House, Transparency International, and the World Bank Water and Sanitation Programme, the Water Integrity Network was born out of growing concerns among water and anti-corruption stakeholders that integrity failures were undermining the sector's ability to serve people, especially the poorest.
“Globally, the water sector is riddled with corruption that often negates the impact of development and hits the poor most severely. Corruption reduces water supply, quantitatively and qualitatively, and increases scarcity and pollution. It distorts decision-making for new projects and misallocation of existing schemes. Corruption also skews democratic principles, reduces the domain of public action and ultimately undermines the rule of civil society. Corruption stunts water development and makes it harder and costlier to reach the Millennium Development Goals on poverty, water supply and sanitation services and environmental sustainability.”
(WIN 2007)
Twenty years on, the mission is the same, but the world around us has changed and demands an innovative response.
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What two decades of work has built
For a long time corruption in the sector was widely acknowledged in hushed tones and rarely addressed head-on. WIN helped change that. Today, WIN works with over 65 network partners and allies, running country programmes in Bangladesh, Kenya and Uganda as well as projects across Southern and Eastern Africa and Latin America. WIN develops practical integrity risk mitigation strategies with civil society, utilities, small service providers, regulators, and local governments. We train more than 200 water professionals on integrity topics every year and contribute extensively to global and national research and integrity advocacy.
Together with partners, we have made it clear that the sector benefits from integrity: not just accepting the status quo and the losses from corruption. We have also shown there are many ways sector stakeholders can promote change, starting from within the sector.Utilities serving over 13 million users in Bangladesh, Kenya, Bolivia, Peru, Mexico and Uganda have used integrity tools to diagnoses internal risks and work on procedural changes for field operations, improved accounting systems, as well as stronger grievance mechanisms, public hearings and user communications. This means they lose less and account for more, and in the process, they reduced non-revenue water levels, improved reputation and position in regulatory rankings, improved response time for connections and repairs, and closed off easy opportunities for fraud.
In Kenya, Mexico, Bangladesh, and Nepal, integrity management improvements among community groups—often starting small, with posting tariffs publicly or setting up user communication channels, recording expenses, or building links to local officials—rebuilt trust between users and providers and improved their financial position enough to pay off bills and expand their systems.
We expanded accountability mechanisms in multiple programmes: with regulatory reforms towards formalisation in Honduras and Kenya and especially with support to social accountability campaigns and groups. In Kenya, youth parliaments developed tools to monitor whether politicians delivered on their campaign promises for water and sanitation. In Nepal, WIN facilitated the creation of a WASH Media Forum. In Mexico, civil society partners co-created the Chiapas Water Agenda, securing written commitments from 14 deputies and 9 electoral candidates on water governance reform.
Integrity-informed advocacy has also reshaped how budgets are allocated, how contracts are set up, and how bills are paid: schools increased budgets for school WASH in Bangladesh based on results of integrity assessments. Local municipalities did the same in Guatemala for local WASH services. In Mozambique, integrity-focused advocacy protected the sector from major budget cuts. In Zambia, government responded to integrity advocacy by making sure overdue utility bills of public institutions were paid.
Perhaps the least visible but most foundational part of WIN's contribution has been to break the silence. We do this with research and networking, for example around the publications of the Water Integrity Global Outlook and with more specific groundbreaking research on sexual corruption or water services in informal settlements. We make problems likes corruption something we can do something about, rather than just suffer through.
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Why this work cannot stop
None of this means the work is done. Far from it. Ensuring universal access to clean water and sanitation requires a three-fold increase in investments. Without integrity at the heart of that investment surge and the systems that manage it, more money will simply mean more waste, more capture by vested interests, and more broken promises to the communities waiting for safe water.
With climate change, and as floods and droughts compound existing fragilities, the risk of rushed spending and misallocation, bypassed procurement rules, and emergency funds diverted from those most in need will only grow. WIN's work on water integrity and climate adaptation may be its most consequential yet.
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The crisis we cannot ignore
Yet today, the space for integrity work is shrinking in ways we could not have imagined a few years ago. Across the world, civic space is closing: civil society organisations face increasing restrictions, watchdog groups are silenced, and environmental defenders — including those fighting for water justice — are imprisoned or killed. The rise of autocratic and populist movements has brought with it a systematic dismantling of transparency mechanisms, independent media, and accountability institutions. For the poorest and most marginalised communities, who depend on these safeguards to have any voice at all, this is a direct assault on their ability to claim their right to safe water and decent sanitation.
And precisely at the moment of greatest need, the funding environment for this work has turned hostile. For the WIN network, which has relied on the support of governments committed to development, this is not an abstract trend. It is an existential pressure. The work that has taken twenty years to build — the country coalitions, the training programmes, the research, the tools — is now at risk of being dismantled not because it has failed, but because the political will to fund it is faltering.
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Twenty years and still needed
The case for integrity work is stronger now than it has ever been. When budgets are squeezed and every aid dollar must stretch further, the last thing the sector can afford is to lose a portion of every dollar to corruption and mismanagement. Integrity work is not a luxury for good times — it is precisely what is needed when resources are scarce. Integrity is the mechanism by which every available dollar reaches the people it was meant for. It is how the poor secure a voice, a seat at the table, and a claim to the water that keeps them alive.
WIN's twentieth anniversary is not a moment to rest. It is a moment to think creatively about what comes next and how to overcome the constraints we are operating within. Success will require new kinds of funding, courage, and a new level of collaboration. Relationships, not capital alone, will define who can sustain this work. Networks like WIN exist precisely for this moment: to connect the people and organisations who share this mission and help them achieve more together than any could alone.
Twenty years ago, a small group of organisations came together because they believed that corruption in water and sanitation was both a cause and a consequence of poverty, and that naming it honestly was the first step to changing it. That belief is as true today as it was in 2006. The work continues: mark this moment and help us carry it forward, with transparency, accountability, participation, and anti-corruption.
If this work matters to you — if you believe that every dollar invested in water should reach the people it was meant for and who need it most — then make that visible. Share this piece. Bring up transparency, accountability, participation, and anti-corruption at your next meeting. Connect us with others who share this mission.
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