Search this site

ONLINE COURSE Introductory level. Self paced (3 modules, 12 hours) Coming soon More details coming soon Who is this course for? Political decision-makers, professionals, civil society advocates, regulatory entities, and water and sanitation utility staff. Students and researchers in social and technical disciplines. Urban planners, engineers, and architects. Language English and Spanish Free Access Access to the course content and activities is completely free. Optional paid certification Participants who successfully complete and pass the course can obtain a certificate of completion upon payment of a fee.

Integrity indicators and reporting frameworks for regulators to supervise service providers. WHEN TO USE IT To raise awareness on integrity risks and their negative impact on the performance of service providers and show paths for building integrity To incentivise water and sanitation service providers for integrity To benchmark and set standards for crucial integrity measures that can benefit service providers HOW IT WORKS The indicator framework can be used by regulators with input from water service providers under their purview. HOW IT WAS DEVELOPED The indicator framework has been developed by the Consortium for Integrity in Latin America (WIN, IVL, and cewas) with support from the Inter-American Development Bank.

by Savithri Sellapperumage; Barbara Schreiner, Executive Director, Water Integrity Network; Aaron Salzburg, CEO, The American Water Resources Association; Nick Hepworth, Strategic Advisor, Water Witness International; Nchedi Moripe Photo credit: David Yarasca / Salud con lupa. Aerial view of the Ica region of Peru shows agro-export agricultural fields irrigated through extensive groundwater pumping, juxtaposed with neighbourhood communities facing scarce and contaminated water supplies. In a previous blog titled Unequal Waters: Why water poverty is a problem of power, not governance failure, it was emphasised that the water crisis goes beyond a crisis of political will, technical and fiscal capacity, or governance. It is rather the result of structural and systemically reinforced inequalities, driven by unequal access to power and a failure of accountability. Six mechanisms, namely; political exclusion, resource capture, rights denial, knowledge suppression, process capture and social reproduction, form a self-reinforcing loop that traps communities in water insecurity across generations. While these mechanisms help diagnose the underlying conditions, what could be the treatment? The three-part seminar series at Stockholm Water Week 2026 attempted to address these reinforcing mechanisms by setting out principles for just water transformations. These principles moving beyond proposing improved efficiency in the continuation of current systems, urging us to rather address the existing power structures. The principles address the need to change who holds power, where resources flow, whose knowledge counts, and who is accountable to whom. These ideas are capture in eight principles; six directly address the mechanisms of the Inequality Trap, while the remaining two look beyond the water sector and push us to reflect on our own roles, assumptions, and responsibilities in shaping just water futures. The eight principles: Shift power. Put people experiencing water insecurity at the centre of decisions that affect them. Move beyond consultation towards meaningful representation, shared power, community leadership and accountability. Allocate fairly. Direct water, finance and infrastructure toward people and places with the greatest need, not those with the greatest influence. Today, unconnected households often pay multiple folds more for water than wealthier, networked communities. Make rights real. Indigenous communities, and those in informal housing are rendered invisible and often have no legal standing to challenge utilisation and allocation of their own water. We need to strengthen equitable enforcement, and accountability is what turns a right on paper into a right in practice. Democratise knowledge. Hydrological monitoring gaps leave the most vulnerable communities invisible in the data that shapes investment decisions. In order to close that gap, we must validate lived experiences and Indigenous knowledge alongside technical expertise, and enable these invisible data to be accessible. Make participation count. Multi-stakeholder platforms often legitimise decisions that have already been made, while barriers of class and language exclude the communities most affected. Participation has to be judged by ability to influence, not attendance. Break the cycle. Water insecurity follows gender, class and caste systems, and geography affecting marginalised communities through generations. As a result, women in marginalised communities are mainly responsible for collecting water and may even be denied access to public water systems such as the Dalit communities in India. Breaking that cycle means connecting water policies and action, to health, social protection, land rights and historical legacies. Turn the lens on ourselves. Inequalities are embedded and maintained in institutions and systems. This does not exempt us from reflecting on our own ways of working. Who gets funded? Who leads? Whose expertise counts, and in which language? The water sector’s funding strcutures, conferences, research and networks can reproduce the very inequalities we are trying to solve. Align with other struggles. Water insecurity is shaped by forces outside the water sector. Historical dispossession, concentration of power, lack of accountablity, and an unequal global political economy in which trade, tax, and debt regulations favour profits over water rights. These issues cannot be fixed with tools within the water sector alone. Solving them requires us to build alliances and cross-sectoral commitments on, for example, tax justice, trade rules, land, and labour rights. How does this look like in practice? Applying these principles looks different depending on different actors. For governments, it means reforming trax, trade regulations and subsidies that produce water insecurities, while protecting and expanding civic space and platforms that allow communities to hold those in power accountable. For donors and finance institutions, it means supporting governments' ability to realise the human rights to water and sanitation, recognising that these burdens are often linked to past development financing models. For business and corporations, it means adopting water justice not as an act of philanthropy or corporate social responsibility but a condition of legitimate business, and paying the full social and ecological costs of water use, rather than externalising the costs onto communities, the environment or future generations. For civil society and NGO’s it means, building collective power and investing in community agency to claim rights that exist on paper. For researchers, it means protecting scientific independence, academic freedom and recognising lived knowledge as evidence in its own. And for those working in the water sector, it means accepting where own instituions concentrate power rather than sharing it. However, the challenge of application comes at a precarious moment. Cuts to development assistance and geopolitical turmoil across the globe have exposed communities to further vulnerabilities and climate change is deepening insecurities for those least responsible for it. Water inequalities, if built by systems and institutions around us, should strive to dismantle them too, but only if we are willing to look beyond the water sector at the same time turn the lens on ourselves first. These ideas are brought together in the background paper Forging a Fair Water Future produced as part of the seminar series held at Stockholm. We invite you to engage with the paper by sending your comments to: nickhepworth@waterwitness.org

by Barbara Schreiner, Executive Director, Water Integrity Network; Aaron Salzburg, CEO, The American Water Resources Association; Nick Hepworth, Strategic Advisor, Water Witness International; Nchedi Moripe; Savrithi Sellapperumage; Christian Borja-Vega, World Bank; Reuben Akili, Director CHRA Photo credit Arindam Dutta. Women collecting water from the only source for more than five villages. Why aren't we moving forward? Perhaps nothing is more important to health, wealth, and well-being than water. Yet today, we continue to struggle to provide for the more than two billion people who lack access to safely managed drinking water, and four billion that experience severe scarcity every year. It’s not because we can’t do it - we have the knowledge, technology, and wealth to provide safe water and sanitation for everyone – but because we lack the resolve to make the changes necessary to address the systemic and structural failures that underpin individual access to water for domestic and productive purposes. For years, the story we've told ourselves is that the water crisis is a crisis of political will, a lack of resources, inadequate capacity, and poor governance. While all this may be true, a three-part seminar at the Stockholm Water Week argued that at the heart of the water crisis are drivers that exist outside of the water sector: that instead, the water crisis is the result of structural and systemically reinforced inequalities driven by unequal access to power combined with a failure Official Use Only of accountability. Water insecurity follows the distribution of power and financial resources. This makes the water crisis solvable. But only if we get the diagnosis right. There are three underlying conditions that contribute to these structural inequalities. Historical dispossession. Colonial era water rights, access to and ownership of land, institutions and legislation that carry historical patterns of inclusion and exclusion are still shaping who has access today. Dispossession isn't history. It's an active, present tense condition. Concentration of power without accountability. Water becomes a patronage resource wherever judiciaries, the media, and civil society are weak, in autocracies and democracies alike. An unequal global political economy. Trade, tax and investment rules, including investor state dispute clauses that protect the water rights of private international capital over sovereign water rights, constrain the public investment needed to tackle inequality at national level. Countries lose an estimated $492 billion a year to cross border tax abuse. Four decades of market led reform have produced predictably inequitable outcomes for the poor, without substantive reforms to change the course. These are reinforced through accepted practices that interact to keep these inequalities in place and, in some case, allows them to expand: Political exclusion locks communities out of decisions through fragmented governance and token consultation, at local, national and international level. Resource capture limits the financing flows to fragile utilities and marginalised communities, ensuring the poorest remain unserved and, when they do have access, often pay up to ten times more for their water than wealthier communities connected to serviced networks. Corruption and mismanagement divert a further significant share of sector finance and drive up the cost of service provision. Rights denial leaves informal settlements and Indigenous communities as, in effect, nonpersons in the water economy, with no legal standing to challenge the appropriation of their own water resources. Knowledge suppression means vast hydrological monitoring gaps and marginalised local knowledge leave the most water insecure communities invisible in the data that shapes investment decisions. Process capture operates inside the sector's own institutions: donor structures, "multistakeholder" platforms that legitimise decisions already made, and professional barriers of class and language that exclude poor and marginalize communities still further. Social reproduction means insecurity follows gender, caste, geography and class with remarkable consistency. Poor women in sub-Saharan Africa are four times more likely to collect water than men. Around half of Dalit villages in India are denied access to public water sources. A trap that tightens across generations These six mechanisms don't operate in isolation. They form a self-reinforcing loop. Political exclusion drives underinvestment. Underinvestment drives poor performance and reinforces social inequality. Poor performance drives invisibility in the data. Invisibility reinforces exclusion. The loop tightens across generations, and path dependency locks it in. The most insidious dynamic of all is normalisation: repeated, generational insecurity starts to look inevitable rather than political, the "there will always be poor people" mantra. The practical consequence is that single dimension interventions consistently fail, because the trap simply re-establishes itself. And we're meeting this challenge in a precarious moment. Cuts to development assistance have stripped the safety net from aid dependent communities, climate change is deepening insecurity fastest for those least responsible for it, and shrinking political space for civil society makes structural reform harder just as it becomes more urgent. What this means for how we respond Forging a fair water future demands transformative change across all six domains. It also requires the water sector to engage with the bigger transformative issues that sit outside the sector: tax regimes, illicit financial flows, international trade rules. You cannot fix water inequality with water sector tools alone. This thinking is set out in Forging a Fair Water Future, available here. Our goal is to build a shared understanding of what actually drives structural and systemic inequality in water and sanitation, tested against real case studies rather than treated as an abstraction. We invite you to engage with the paper by sending your comments to: nickhepworth@waterwitness.org In the next blog we will deal with the eight principles that arise from the paper and the seminars, and that underpin a Just Water Transformation.

FREE ONLINE COURSE Introductory level. Self-paced (4 modules, about 16 hours). Closed An exploration of how integrity can support the implementation of CWIS projects, with a focus on regulation for CWIS and how regulation and integrity complement each other in the realisation of the human right to sanitation. Citywide Inclusive Sanitation is a framework to ensure everyone in the city has access to adequate and affordable improved sanitation services over time through appropriate systems, both sewered and non-sewered. It is a response to investment policies that have prioritised the construction and extension of sewered systems (for example, pipes, water treatment plants, and in-house connections) but left large parts of the population unserved, especially in newer or informal settlements. This has serious consequences on public health and the environment, as well as on the development of the city. Improving existing sanitation options, including non-sewered sanitation, is key to increasing coverage. This approach requires more attention, resources and an enabling environment. Course outline: Module 1: Basic concepts: Integrity and CWIS Module 2: Integrity and regulation Module 3: Integrity risks along the sanitation value chain Module 4: Supporting integrity and regulation in CWIS programmes Who is this course for? Regulators, specialists, and professionals from the sanitation sector Academics and policy makers involved in sanitation projects Objectives By the end of the course, participants will have a clear understanding of how integrity supports the implementation of CWIS projects and how robust regulatory frameworks can ensure inclusive, equitable sanitation, fulfilling the human right to sanitation. They will be able to: Understand the basic concepts of integrity, regulation, and CWIS Analyse how integrity helps to achieve better regulation in CWIS programmes Understand and respond to integrity risks along the sanitation value chain Examine how transparency, accountability, participation, and anti-corruption play out in practice through case studies from different parts of the world. Language English Free Access Access to the course content and activities is completely free. Optional paid certification Participants who successfully complete and pass the course can obtain a certificate of completion upon payment of a fee.

FREE ONLINE COURSE Introductory level. Self-paced (3 modules, about 12 hours) Open now An exploration of the overlooked corruption and water integrity failures contributing to poor service in informal settlements, and what to do about them. This course highlights the importance of rethinking approaches to service in low-income areas and outlines the responsibilities of sector stakeholders, in line with the human rights to water and sanitation. Participants learn to identify integrity failures in the water and sanitation sectors and to explore how these issues might affect their work in cities or peri-urban settings. The course draws on case studies from Peru, South Africa, Kenya, and more to introduce ways to strengthen integrity and reduce opportunities for corruption through transparency, accountability and participation. Course outline: Module 1: Informal settlements overview Module 2: Manifestations of integrity failures Module 3: Strengthening integrity Who is this course for? Political leaders, civil society members, human rights advocates, regulators, and water utility staff. Students and researchers in social and technical disciplines. Urban planners, engineers, and architects. Language: English or Spanish Free Access Access to the course content and activities is completely free of charge. Optional paid certification Participants who complete and pass the course will have the option to obtain a certificate of completion upon payment of a fee.

FREE ONLINE COURSE Introductory level. Self-paced (4 modules, about 20 hours). Open now A deep dive into the practicalities of responding to the corruption and integrity failures threatening water and sanitation services in urban settlements in the city of Lima, Peru. This course shows the ways residents of informal settlements cope with service failures and integrity issues, highlighting the gaps between reality and universal access to adequate water and sanitation. The course also shows the technical, financial, and integrity challenges for service providers working in the area, the solutions they bring to the table, and the way integrity is crucial for their work. Participants explore how integrity failures impact access to water and sanitation at different spatial scales: city, neighbourhood, and household scale. They learn about what can be done at each of these scales to promote integrity in complex settings and address inequalities. Course outline: Module 1: Key concepts Module 2: City scale Module 3: Neighbourhood scale Module 4: Household scale Who is this course for? Political decision-makers, professionals, civil society advocates, regulatory entities, and water and sanitation utility staff. Students and researchers in social and technical disciplines. Urban planners, engineers, and architects. Language Spanish Free Access Access to the course content and activities is completely free. Optional paid certification Participants who successfully complete and pass the course can obtain a certificate of completion upon payment of a fee. Based on the course developed by the Water Integrity Network and Urbes Lab in collaboration with PUCP and Cap-Net, supported by SMUS, TU Berlin. SMUS - The Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with funds from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

FREE ONLINE COURSE Introductory level. Self-paced course in Spanish (3 modules, about 12 hours). Open An examination of how water and sanitation utilities in Latin America can effectively manage the integrity risks that jeopardise their work and impact. This course provides an overview of practical strategies and tools to promote ethical and transparent management within utilities and thus improve performance and service delivery. Participants explore different integrity dilemmas that may arise in their daily work and the ways to deal with them. They learn directly from the experiences of peers in Latin America and other regions to improve integrity practices. Course outline: Module 1: Integrity risks in water and sanitation utilities Module 2: Strategies and tools to initiate and strengthen integrity processes Module 3: The integrity dilemmas water and sanitation service providers face Who is this course for? Decision-makers in water and sanitation utilities in Latin America who want to initiate or strengthen integrity processes in their organization. Water and sanitation professionals interested in applying integrity management processes within utility companies. Language Spanish Free Access Access to the course content and activities is completely free. Optional paid certification Participants who successfully complete and pass the course can obtain a certificate of completion upon payment of a fee.

CURSO EN LÍNEA Nivel introductorio. A tu propio ritmo. En español (3 módulos, 12 horas aprox.) Abierto Un análisis sobre cómo las empresas prestadoras de servicios de agua y saneamiento en América Latina pueden gestionar los riesgos de integridad que ponen en peligro su labor y su impacto. Este curso ofrece estrategias y herramientas prácticas para promover una gestión ética y transparente en tu organización, y así mejorar su desempeño y la calidad de los servicios que brinda. Aquí podrás identificar dilemas de integridad que pueden surgir en tu trabajo diario y aprender cómo enfrentarlos. Además, conocerás experiencias de colegas de América Latina y otras regiones para fortalecer prácticas de integridad en tu propia organización. Módulos: Módulo 1: Riesgos de Integridad en empresas prestadoras de servicios de agua y saneamiento Módulo 2: Estrategias y herramientas para iniciar y fortalecer procesos de integridad Módulo 3: Dilemas de integridad en la prestación de servicios de agua y saneamiento ¿A quién está dirigido? Tomadores de decisiones en empresas prestadoras de servicios de agua y saneamiento en América Latina que deseen iniciar o fortalecer procesos de integridad en su organización. Profesionales del sector de agua y saneamiento interesados en aplicar procesos de gestión de la integridad dentro de las empresas prestadoras de servicios Idioma Español Acceso gratuito El acceso al contenido y las actividades del curso es completamente gratuito. Certificación pagada opcional Los participantes que completen y aprueben el curso podrán obtener un certificado de finalización mediante el pago de una tarifa.

CRUSO EN LÍNEA Nivel introductorio. A tu propio ritmo (4 módulos, 20 horas aprox.) Abierto Comprende los desafíos de integridad que afectan el acceso al agua y al saneamiento en Lima Explora, desde una perspectiva práctica, cómo la corrupción y las fallas de integridad afectan la prestación de servicios de agua y saneamiento en los asentamientos humanos de Lima, Perú. En este curso conocerás de cerca cómo los residentes de asentamientos humanos afrontan las deficiencias en el acceso a estos servicios y los problemas de integridad que enfrentan en su vida cotidiana. También explorarás los desafíos técnicos, financieros y de integridad que enfrentan los proveedores de servicios de agua y saneamiento, así como las soluciones que desarrollan para responder a estos retos. A través de diferentes escalas (ciudad, barrio y vivienda) aprenderás cómo las fallas de integridad pueden afectar el acceso al agua y al saneamiento, y qué acciones pueden implementarse para promover la integridad, reducir las desigualdades y mejorar la prestación de servicios en contextos urbanos complejos. Módulos: Módulo 1: Conceptos claves Módulo 2: Escala de ciudad Módulo 3: Escala de barrio Módulo 4: Escala de vivienda ¿A quién está dirigido? Tomadores de decisiones y reponsables de políticas públicas Profesionales y personal de empresas de servicios de agua y saneamiento. Entidades reguladoras Representantes y organizaciones de la sociedad civil Estudiantes e investigadores de disciplinas sociales y técnicas Urbanistas, ingenieros y arquitectos. Idioma Español Acceso gratuito El acceso al contenido y las actividades del curso es completamente gratuito. Certificación pagada opcional Los participantes que completen y aprueben el curso podrán obtener un certificado de finalización mediante el pago de una tarifa. Desarrollado por la Water Integrity Network (WIN) y Urbes Lab, en colaboración con la PUCP y Cap-Net, y con el apoyo de SMUS y la TU Berlin. SMUS (Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability) cuenta con financiamiento del Servicio Alemán de Intercambio Académico (DAAD), con fondos del Ministerio Federal de Cooperación Económica y Desarrollo de Alemania (BMZ).

CURSO EN LÍNEA Nivel introductorio. Nivel introductorio. A tu propio ritmo. En español (3 módulos,12 hours aprox.) Abierto Descubre cómo la integridad puede transformar los servicios de agua y saneamiento en asentamientos informales Explora las formas de corrupción y las fallas de integridad que, aunque a menudo pasan desapercibidas, contribuyen a la deficiente prestación de servicios de agua y saneamiento en asentamientos informales. Este curso te invita a repensar cómo se planifican y prestan los servicios de agua y saneamiento en estos contextos, teniendo en cuenta los derechos humanos al agua y saneamiento y las responsabilidades de los diferentes actores del sector. A lo largo del curso, aprenderás a identificar fallas de integridad y a analizar cómo estas pueden afectar el trabajo y la prestación de servicios en contextos urbanos y periurbanos. A través de casos prácticos y experiencias de Perú, Sudáfrica, Kenia y otros países, conocerás diferentes estrategias para fortalecer la integridad y reducir las oportunidades de corrupción mediante la transparencia, la rendición de cuentas y la participación. Módulos: Módulo 1 - Primer Acercamiento a los Asentamientos Informales Módulo 2 - Manifestaciones de las fallas de integridad Módulo 3 - Fortaleciendo la integridad ¿A quién está dirigido? Tomadores de decisiones y responsables de políticas públicas. Representantes y organizaciones de la sociedad civil Defensores y organizaciones de derechos humanos Entidades reguladoras Profesionales y personal de empresas de servicios de agua y saneamiento. Estudiantes e investigadores de disciplinas sociales y técnicas Urbanistas, ingenieros y arquitectos Idioma: Español e inglés Acceso gratuito El acceso al contenido y las actividades del curso es completamente gratuito. Certificación pagada opcional Los participantes que completen y aprueben el curso podrán obtener un certificado de finalización mediante el pago de una tarifa.

CRUSO EN LÍNEA Nivel introductorio. A tu propio ritmo (3 módulos, 12 horas aprox.) Próximamente Próximamente más información ¿A quién está dirigido? Tomadores de decisiones y reponsables de políticas públicas Profesionales y personal de empresas de servicios de agua y saneamiento. Entidades reguladoras Representantes y organizaciones de la sociedad civil Estudiantes e investigadores de disciplinas sociales y técnicas Urbanistas, ingenieros y arquitectos. Idioma Español e inglés Acceso gratuito El acceso al contenido y las actividades del curso es completamente gratuito. Certificación pagada opcional Los participantes que completen y aprueben el curso podrán obtener un certificado de finalización mediante el pago de una tarifa.