Discover the different routes of water, from the river to the home What does it take for a regulator to keep sanitation services honest, inclusive, and accountable? This manual breaks down the essentials of regulation in citywide inclusive sanitation — from what regulators do and why sewered and non-sewered services need oversight, to the integrity risks regulators face and the practical mechanisms (standards, monitoring, incentives, sanctions, and more) they can use to prevent corruption and champion the human right to sanitation. A clear, visual introduction for anyone working on sanitation governance, regulatory reform, or integrity in the WASH sector. --- DOWNLOAD

Discover the different routes of water, from the river to the home Water doesn't take a single path to reach a home in Lima — and the route it travels often determines its cost, quality, and reliability. This series of four illustrated posters traces water's journey through the city, following real stories that reveal how corruption and integrity failures shape access at every stage. 1. From the River to the City How is water sourced and distributed in Lima? This poster maps SEDAPAL's journey of water from the Rímac, Chillón, and Lurín rivers to the city. 2. From the Public Fountain to the Water Tank Through María's daily routine, this poster shows how public fountains supply unconnected settlements close to the network. 3. From the Water Truck to the Water Tank This poster follows Manuel, an independent water truck operator, through a single working day. 4. From the Water Tank to the Home Carla's story shows what happens once water reaches the home. --- DOWNLOAD Posters in English Posters in Spanish

"Climate finance can build [water] tanks, pipes, and treatment plants, but unless it also builds transparency, accountability, and trust, the people most vulnerable to climate change may remain vulnerable even after millions of dollars have been spent." - MD Abdul Malak, Jagannath University Integrity Talk 17 June 24, 2026, co-hosted with GIZ Climate finance is scaling fast, and a need for speed is exactly what our warming planet requires. But speed, combined with complex implementation chains and institutions that are often unprepared to securely handle a massive influx of new money is also exactly where corruption and poor integrity thrive. In this Integrity Talk, co-hosted by WIN and GIZ, panellists traced what happens when that money moves faster than the safeguards meant to protect it, and what that ultimately costs the people it was meant to reach. Go straight to recording > Get in touch about our work on climate finance > --- The challenge of managing increased finance well Martin Dersch (GIZ) framed the event with a problem that sits underneath everything else discussed: there is still no single, agreed definition of what counts as climate finance, or how to track and monitor it. Layered on top is the "race for adaptation finance", or large volumes of capital needed to move quickly under political and humanitarian pressure, through long, opaque procurement chains, toward institutions that often lack the accountability infrastructure to handle them. Karen Ernst (Green Climate Fund) described a similar dynamic in relation to growth from within the fund itself: the GCF went from seven approved projects in 2015 to 296 by the end of 2025, backed by USD 16.7 billion in commitments, delivered through a network of more than 200 accredited entities. "That is a very good result for the fund," she said, "but for any integrity function, that also means there is an expanding risk." GCF is, in her words, a "second-line institution" — headquartered outside Seoul, with no direct implementation role and, until its board approved new regional offices, no physical presence anywhere near the projects it funds — meaning that oversight remains tricky. When the chain breaks before the money reaches Faith Ngige (Kenya Platform for Climate Governance) walked participants through what oversight challenges can look like on the ground. Kenya's Financing Locally-Led Climate Action (FLLoCA) programme channels funding through the National Treasury to 45 counties and on to community projects — nearly KES 14 billion disbursed and almost half of it to water security. "As the funds proceed to the county level, visibility starts to diminish," she said. "And as the money goes to the project level, you are not even able to follow it all the way." Procurement documents that civil society organisations request are often simply not forthcoming. Her deeper concern was the disconnect between disbursement and outcome: "The challenge is not just money moving, but money should be able to move in a manner that is able to address the very challenge it was designed for." Ramon Alikpala (Future Water Asia) showed what that breakdown looks like at its most extreme. He opened with an old joke — two ministers compare houses, one built on 20% skimmed from a real bridge, the other on 100% skimmed from a bridge that was never built at all. "That joke describes, unfortunately, with precision what's actually happened in the Philippines." Between 2022 and 2025, roughly USD 11 billion was allocated to flood control (over USD 25 billion since 2011), much of it tied to "ghost projects" — infrastructure paid for in full but never built — across a portfolio of some 30,000 flood-control contracts. More, just 15 of more than 2,400 accredited contractors received about a fifth of the entire budget. "The failure of flood control is not just fiscal waste," he said. "It is fatal" — pointing to an estimated 900–1,000 flood-related deaths in the same period, many in communities where infrastructure had been recorded as complete but was never there. Md. Abdul Malak (Jagannath University) brought the same failure down to a single name. In a coastal adaptation project in Bangladesh, a widow was surveyed, assessed as eligible, and placed on the beneficiary list for a free rainwater-harvesting tank. Her name later disappeared from the final list with no explanation, while other households described paying informal costs for installations that were meant to be fully funded. "The water tank that was supposed to come in my name was taken by others," she told researchers. "If my name was on the list, why was I left out?" Audience Q&A - how can we fix some of these problems? Asked what share of project cost should reasonably go toward accountability, Ernst gave no figure: "Everybody always wants higher standards of integrity, and everybody wants accountability. But that requires resources — financial and human. That's a real commitment funders and partners need to understand." Pressed on balancing rigorous safeguards against the growing complexity of accessing climate finance, her answer was simplification rather than fewer safeguards — bringing standard conditions "down to the core minimum" so under-resourced recipients can actually meet them. Alikpala, drawing on his own experience preparing a GCF concept note, agreed that the safeguard burden is still worthwhile: "It might have been tedious and complicated, but it really provided us some insights on the process." On what structurally needs to change, Alikpala pointed to three things: procurement transparency, "structurally enforced, not left to administrative discretion"; routine physical verification — community monitoring, satellite checks, third-party audits — rather than reactive inspection; and separating political discretion from technical procurement decisions altogether. He noted the Philippines' e-procurement system covers goods and services but largely excludes large infrastructure, the exact gap the scandal exploited, and described work underway with the Asian Development Bank to benchmark utility costs so outlier pricing becomes harder to hide. Malak offered a smaller but telling illustration of the same weakness: a university tender, open to every registered bidder, that drew only one bid — priced almost exactly to the internal estimate. On civil society's role, Ngige raised a structural bind: many CSOs monitoring projects financed through the same system they are meant to check, leaving them in what she called "a grey line" that limits how freely they can speak. Her answer was for smaller organisations to pool resources into alliances, since accreditation thresholds for accessing climate finance directly are out of reach for any one of them alone. Alikpala noted a more basic gap in the Philippines: no independent consumer body exists at all to scrutinise water contracts, unlike in some other countries. What next? Three tensions ran through the session without being resolved. One: whether funders can genuinely simplify safeguards without weakening them. Two: whether accountability functions will ever be resourced in proportion to the money they are meant to protect. Three: if only a small number of organisations can meet the accreditation thresholds needed to access climate finance directly, how can communities still be the ones driving decisions about what gets built where they live? The underlying question of who gets a seat at the table before money is committed, rather than after, remains open. --- Panellist presentations: Martin Dersch (GIZ) set out why climate finance — adaptation finance especially — is structurally exposed to integrity risk, pointing to the lack of an agreed definition, the pressure to move funds quickly, and the concentration of financing in sectors like energy. He then connected these challenges for what this means for water security. Karen Ernst (Green Climate Fund) outlined the mandate of GCF's Independent Integrity Unit and the challenges of running accountability for a fast-growing, arm's-length fund working through 200+ accredited entities. Ramon Alikpala (Future Water Asia) presented the Philippines flood-control corruption scandal as a case study in systemic capture of procurement, auditing, and verification systems, with direct implications for water and sanitation. Faith Ngige (Kenya Platform for Climate Governance) traced Kenya's FLLoCA programme from National Treasury to county and ward level, identifying where financial visibility and civil society independence break down. Md. Abdul Malak (Jagannath University) presented field research from a coastal adaptation project in Bangladesh, using one beneficiary's experience to show how targeting and grievance failures play out at the household level. --- Recording

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Water Integrity Network (WIN) - Championing integrity for effective water and sanitation management. Join us and 65+ global partners committed to a just world with decent water access. Who we are By promoting integrity and addressing corruption in water and sanitation, together we can transform water and sanitation management and service delivery to reach everyone, including the most marginalised. We work as a global research and advocacy partnership, focusing on: awareness raising for integrity, training and knowledge sharing on clean water governance, technical assistance to water and sanitation organisations, to assess integrity risks and prevent corruption. Join and support us to ensure transparency, accountability, participation, and anti-corruption shake up the water and sanitation sectors for good. Global Network Over 65 partner organisations sharing knowledge and tools JOIN NEXT EVENTS Research and Advocacy Partnerships On WASH finance, rural and urban service delivery, regulation, water stewardship, sexual corruption... BROWSE PUBLICATIONS Country Programmes Local integrity networks for action in Bangladesh, Kenya, Mexico, and Uganda FIND OUT MORE Technical Advisory Working with water and sanitation utilities, water management committees, regulators, policy-makers, WASH and climate organisations GET IN TOUCH "The challenges facing the water sector are immense and no single actor can solve them alone. Only through concerted efforts by all stakeholders—including governments, public institutions, businesses, private organisations, and civil society—can these challenges be confronted. WIN invites you to join this journey, and to promote a culture of integrity in pursuit of a socially just world in which everyone has access to decent water and sanitation services." Barbara Schreiner, WIN Executive Director Strategy 2023-2033 READ OUR STRATEGY Water integrity partners We work with more than 65 partners from all over the world, including civil society organisations, international development organisations, sector funders, water and sanitation service providers, regulators, and associations. Becoming a partner is free and open to any organisation aligned with WIN’s values. Formal WIN partners publicly commit to launching integrity initiatives and are supported by the WIN team. WIN teamWIN team.WIN Put integrity at the heart of the water and sanitation sector, become a partner! JOIN US WIN team We are small, dedicated, international team based in Berlin, Germany and Nairobi, Kenya. Barbara Schreiner Executive Director Barbara has over 30 years’ experience in water management in developing countries with a focus on good governance and addressing poverty and inequality, including in relation to gender and other forms of social and economic marginalisation. Before joining WIN, she was Executive Director of the Pegasys Institute, and a Director at Pegasys Consulting. She worked for over a decade in senior management in the public sector, has been advisor to three Ministers, and is a member of the National Anti-Corruption Council of South Africa. Kelly Acuña Programme Lead Latin America, Regulation Kelly is responsible for the implementation of water integrity management programmes in Mexico and across Latin America. She is an economist with post-graduate degrees in Public Policy and Economics from Hertie School of Governance. Kelly is an expert on water and sanitation regulation with several years of professional experience in the regulation of water and sanitation services in Colombia focusing on fostering efficiency, innovation, sustainability, and good governance. Mary Galvin Programme Lead Bangladesh, Research Mary has worked on water, sanitation and climate issues as a researcher, development practitioner, consultant, and water justice activist in South Africa and globally since 1992. She has directed three non-profit organisations engaging in community organising, action research, and advocacy in these areas. From 2014 to 2023 she was Associate Professor in development studies at the University of Johannesburg. She obtained a MA from Yale University in 1992 and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 2006. Eliška Godiveau Finance and Administration Manager Eliška is responsible for financial management, human resources and administration at WIN. She is a certified accountant and holds a degree in Middle Eastern studies and Translation and Interpretation studies. Marcela López Programme Lead Capacity Development Marcela is in charge of Capacity Building and Knowledge Management programmes at WIN. She is geographer with an interdisciplinary background in urban and environmental studies. She has been working at the interface between corporatisation, water governance and infrastructures. She also works as a Senior Lecturer at the international Urban Management master's course at the Technische Universität Berlin and New York University, Berlin. George Osoro Programme Lead East Africa George is responsible for water integrity management programmes and advocates for integrity with partners across East Africa. He has a post-graduate degree in Water Engineering. George has several years of professional experience in the water and sanitation service sector, working on enhancing efficiency, innovation, sustainability, coordination and good governance amongst water service providers, state and non-state actors. George is specialised in water and climate governance, WASH, IWRM, and urban and rural water management, system strengthening. Rebecca Sands Programme Lead Tools, Climate, GESI Rebecca manages WIN's tools portfolio and leads the climate work stream. She also ensures that gender and social inclusion are integrated across WIN's areas of work. She has a Master's degree in Environmental Policy from Sciences Po Paris and has over 5 years' experience working in research and analysis, project management, and stakeholder engagement across INGOs, NGOs, and the private sector. Josefa Vergara Programme Officer Josefa supports the development of educational and training material at WIN. She is an Engineer in Natural Resources, with a Master's degree in Global Change Geography from the Humboldt Univeristät zu Berlin. With over five years of experience in Chile and Germany, her work has focused on ecosystem services, urban ecology research, and water governance. Ivan Zupan Programme Manager Ivan is heading WIN country programmes in Kenya, Mexico, Bangladesh, and Uganda. He also assists the Executive Director with management, planning and fundraising. Ivan has more than 10 years of working experience in the anti-corruption section with previous engagements with Transparency International and the International Anti-Corruption Academy Talented interns and work students regularly enrich the team and we are grateful for their contribution. Interested in joining us as well? Check our opportunities or get in touch directly. Contact us First name Last name Email Write a message SEND Thank you! Your message has been sent. Main Contact Us Anchor Governance The General Assembly of Members is the primary governance body of the WIN association. It decides on long-term strategy as well as annual planning, and is composed of up to 15 members, including organisations and individuals. Three to five WIN members are elected to form the Supervisory Board and provide oversight of the WIN Executive Director. The Board is currently composed of: Ede Ijjasz (Chair of the Board), Mai Flor, Juan Miranda, Alana Potter, and Jane Nabunnya, IRC Uganda Country Director as representative of IRC. The Supervisory Board appointed Barbara Schreiner as the Association’s Executive Director (Vorstand) in 2018. Current General Assembly Members Organisations Current General Assembly Members Individuals Aquafed AquaFed is the International Federation of Private Water Operators. End Water Poverty End Water Poverty is a global civil society coalition campaigning for governments to respect, protect and fulfil people’s human rights to safe water and sanitation. Global Water Operators' Partnerships Alliance (GWOPA) The Global Water Operators’ Partnerships Alliance (GWOPA) is an international network created to support water operators through Water Operator’s Partnerships (WOPs), peer support exchanges between two or more water operators, on a not-for-profit basis. IRC IRC is an international think tank actively building strong water, sanitation and hygiene systems – from the bottom up and the top down. International Water Management Institute (IWMI) The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) is a non-profit international water management research organisation under the CGIAR IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute is an independent research institute that conducts research and consultancy assignments on environmental and sustainability issues. World Youth Parliament for Water The World Youth Parliament for Water is a network of passionate young people making waves of change in the water sector in over 80 countries. Ede Ijjasz Ede Ijjász-Vásquez retired from the World Bank after a 23-year career. He is a nonresident senior fellow in the Africa Growth Initiative at Brooking and an advisor for sustainable development organisations. He led work in a wide range of development topics including global environmental issues, sustainable development, green infrastructure, smart cities, water resources, climate change, agriculture, blue economy, resilience and disaster risk management, fragility and conflict, resettlement, PPPs, ESG, and urban development. He worked in more than 90 developing and emerging countries in all regions of the world – from fragile and conflict-affected countries to high middle-income countries. He also has over 20 years of teaching experience at the graduate level in the US and China. Mai Flor Mai Flor is a Filipino water and sanitation sector leader with 30 years of experience spanning government, private enterprise, and international development. Mai is currently Executive Director of WaterLinks, a regional network promoting peer-to-peer learning among water and wastewater providers across Asia. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Waterwise, a Norwegian desalination technology company. Mai has held senior roles across the sector, including: Head of Business Development for the Suez Group in the Philippines and for Miya in Asia, where she led performance-based contracts in non-revenue water management; and Executive Director of the Presidential Task Force on Water Resources Development and Management. She has worked as a senior consultant for ADB, UNDP, UN-Habitat, USAID, and the Gates Foundation, supporting regulatory reform for water and sanitation services in Bangladesh, Nepal, and India. Mai has been recognized globally as a sector leader, having served on the Nominating Committee of the Stockholm Water Prize and the Steering Committee of the Global Water Partnership. She holds degrees in Law and Economics from the University of the Philippines. Dick van Ginhoven Dick van Ginhoven is a consultant for the Water Finance Facility (WFF) and UNICEF in the East Asia Regional WASH Programme. He previously was a diplomat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. From 2004 to 2017, he was responsible for the formulation and implementation of the DGIS development policy for drinking water and sanitation. In this period, Dick was member of the Governing Council of the WSP/World Bank, the WSSCC and SWA. He held several positions at the Ministry, in southern Africa, in the Gulf region and in North Africa. He joined the WIN Supervisory Board in 2017. Vasudha Pangare Vasudha Pangare has been working as a gender equality and social inclusion specialist in the areas of land and water management, environment conservation, climate change, water for agriculture, water supply, rural livelihoods, policy and governance for almost four decades. She has extensive field experience across Asia and Africa. She has contributed to global, thematic, national and programme evaluations of FAO's work in gender, water, and agriculture. She is a Gender Advisor to UNESCO's World Water Assessment Programme, and is an author of the UNESCO WWAP toolkit on sex-disaggregated water data, assessment and monitoring. Juan Miranda Juan is as a Senior Advisor to the CEO of the Multilateral Cooperation Center for Development Finance. With over 36 years of experience in the infrastructure sector in emerging markets, he has held senior posts in leading commercial, investment and multilateral banks. Prior to MCDF, Juan was the Managing Director General at the Asian Development Bank where he led work on strategy, operations, reforms, fundraising and results, a founding partner of Nmas1/Alantra, a senior executive at Morgan Stanley, and a Managing Director at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Juan has a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Economics from University of Reading, and a Diploma in Business Studies from West London University. Alana Potter Alana Potter is the Head of Research and Advocacy at the Equality Collective, a community-based law clinic in the Eastern Cape. Alana has extensive water sector experience, starting at the Mvula Trust in South Africa, and continuing as lead of IRC’s Africa Regional programme, working with public, private, and civil society actors in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. Alana was Director of Research and Advocacy at the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI), and then coordinator of End Water Poverty (hosted by WaterAid), a global civil society coalition of more than 150 civil society organisations in 80 countries focusing on the realisation of their rights to safe water and sanitation and a safe environment. She has and is advising Human Rights Watch; the AMCOW International Task Force; the UN Water Expert Group; the Africa Water Justice Network’s interim steering committee; the Water Integrity Network’s Supervisory Board; Accountability for Water’s global advisory group; Sanitation and Water for All’s grants committee; the steering committee for the Public Interest Law Gathering (2017-2020), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) CSO Coalition, among others. Fermin Reygadas Fermin Reygadas has 20 years of experience working towards the fulfillment of the human rights to water and sanitation and the equitable management of water resources. He is co-founder and Executive Director of Cantaro Azul and a board member of the first public-community municipal water institution in Mexico. Fermin has served as an advisor to the Water Resources Committees in the Congress of Chiapas and the Chamber of Deputies of Mexico. For his track record of innovation and systemic change, Fermín has been elected as an Ashoka Fellow. Oriana Romano Oriana Romano heads the OECD Water Governance Initiative and coordinates the programme on the Economics and Governance of Circular economy In Cities at the Cities, Urban Policies, and Sustainable Development Division of the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities. Before joining OECD in 2013, she was research assistant and university lecturer in Environmental Economics at the Centre for International Business and Sustainability in London Metropolitan University and at the Department of Social Science of the University "L'Orientale" in Naples. (Naples, Italy). Funders and supporters WIN’s work is possible thanks to the contributions and ideas of our partners and members who implement programmes with us on water integrity worldwide and thanks to the funding of GIZ, the Hewlett Foundation, the Inter-American Development Bank, NVF, and the governments of the Netherlands (via DGIS), Sweden (via Sida) and Switzerland (via SDC). Thank you! Opportunities Announcements of vacancies, internships, volunteer opportunities, and calls for proposals for services, for WIN and our close partners are posted here. Office space for rent at Water Integrity Network main office in Berlin Jul 14, 2025

Join us to achieve SDGs through transparency and collective action. 65+ global partners committed to a just world with decent water access. Become a WIN partner Application form A global network for integrity action WIN is a global, open network of individuals and organisations. We bring people together with integrity as a guiding principle, to improve water management and service delivery. We work with more than 65 partners from all over the world, including civil society organisations, international development organisations, sector funders, water and sanitation service providers, regulators, and associations. Formal WIN partners publicly commit to launching integrity initiatives and are supported by the WIN team. Partnership is a voluntary process to strengthen collaboration and exchange. Funding is not guaranteed. READ WIN PARTNERSHIP POLICY READ CODE OF CONDUCT FOR WIN PARTNERS Please tell us about your organisation and how we can contact you Organisation* First name of contact person Last name of contact person Email* Address of organisation Organisation website Where do you work? (Geographical scope) What do you do? Please tell us more about why you want to join WIN and about your work on integrity Why does your organisation wish to join the Water Integrity Network?* How does your organisation wish to engage with the network? Joint advocacy Joint research Knowledge sharing, discussions, working groups Using or promoting integrity tools Other Which areas of work are you most keen to explore? Climate adaptation Urban water Sanitation and CWIS Rural WASH and community-based water and sanitation Water and sanitation finance Water allocation and resource management Other Does your organisation already promote integrity in the water and sanitation sectors, and if so, how (specific examples are appreciated)?* I have read and agree to the WIN partnership policy I have read and will respect the WIN partner code of conduct I affirm that my organisation does not discriminate or exclude groups or individuals and is not convicted for human rights violations or corruption. Yes, please subscribe me to the WIN mailing list to receive newsletters and event invitations Submit