Dear SuSanA WASH & Nutrition members,

After the Working Group meeting at the Welthungerhilfe in Bonn, I would like to raise the issue on how to optimize the factsheet on WASH and nutrition in the forum.

Great efforts have been put in the document with an impressively long and detailed table of studies and evidences. This "draft version" factsheet is already being used in many occasions. A review of the factsheet will thus be a valuable investment of time and effort.

The points that came up in the discussion comprise:

• Update table of evidences
  The last publication listed is from 2013, what has happened since? What are the latest and valuable publications of the past two years?
• Expand the five main axis
  The “Olympic Rings” form the basis of the WASH in Nutrition strategy; brief explanations to each one of the axis would ensure a better understanding of the strategy and give them more significance in the factsheet
• Include short descriptions to embed the graphs/maps
  Highlighting the main findings that can be drawn from the graph or map helps understanding the data better
• Throw light on SDGs
  What are the interfaces of WASH & nutrition with the SDGs? E.g. wasting has been officially listed as SDG target
• Clarification of WASH & nutrition
  The factsheets deals exclusively with undernutrition as it is the nutrition problem #1; the idea is to rename the factsheet into WASH & Undernutrition or to include 2 sentences in the introduction to justify this focus

Overarching thoughts on the factsheet include:

• “Nutrition perspective”
  There is a need for a closer consideration of the nutritional security perspective overall in the factsheet and requires nutrition experts to have a closer look
• WASH in nutrition AND nutrition in WASH – careful to not limit interventions of both sectors to its common interface
  Malnutrition needs multisectoral support: Health services, nutrition sensitive agriculture, Natural resource management/environmental protection, health services, care ...
  WASH is more than its nutrition component: e.g. economic development, education, dignity etc...
• Target Group
  Who reads the factsheet and what are the most relevant information that should be included? The SuSanA community is extremely diverse, what makes it a challenge to create a document for various readers (practitioners, engineers, decision-makers, beginners…)
• Series of factsheets
  The current factsheet has a strong focus on research with its detailed table of evidence. Including other thematic chapters (governance framework, best practices, capacity building…) cannot fully be included as it would go beyond the format of a factsheet. Nevertheless can information on these topics be collected and later form the basis of additional factsheets in the same category.

What to do now?

• Read the factsheet
• Identify the point that interest you and that you want to optimize
• State your idea about your contribution here in the forum and send an email with your comment/input to the working group leads Claire Gaillardou and Stephan Simon
• Claire and Stephan will include your input in the factsheet using the sanitation portal of the Wiki platform *
• Follow the optimization process of the factsheet on the Wiki
• Finalisation of the factsheet in summer 2016

The main objective is to engage interested people in the revision process and have an updated final factsheet in in the first half of 2016.

Looking much forward to your contributions!

Best regards,
Jona

*A wiki (or a page or an article) is a tool to work jointly on documents online. Click here for the SuSanA wiki help section. Wikis of all working groups can be found on the SuSanA website here .