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Dear Katrin

Thank you for notification ,Could you please send more information ,time schedule for me?
I thank in advance.
regards;
Mohammad

Dear Mohammad,

You can find more information on the discussion here

Under "Topics in Category" you will find the announcement text with detailed information on the discussion and the links to the background readings.

Best,
Katrin

Theme I – SDG indicators: The MDGs did not succeed in ensuring everyone has access to safe sanitation – will the new SDG indicators on sanitation increase progress to ensure that everyone has their right to water and sanitation realized?

The SDG Goal 6, Target 6.2 “By 2030, achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations” has two proposed indicators: (i) Percentage of population using safely managed sanitation services; and (ii) Percentage of population with a hand washing facility with soap and water in the household.

(*Note: There are additional proposed indicators that unpack these two overarching indicators)
_________________________________________________________________________________________

In order to effectively respond to the question posed for this discussion, a number of related questions will need to be addressed:
1. Are the [two] indicators (and the additional indicators) adequately defined to enable countries effectively deliver on 3 key aspects captured in Target 6.2 namely: access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all; end open defecation; paying special attention to women, girls and those in vulnerable groups?
2. Given that the target aims for universal coverage, countries will need to go to scale in their sanitation programs which means there will be a need for enhanced capacities and additional targeted resources to ensure sustainable investments are made, including for wastewater management/safe disposal of effluent, for example, in addition to provision of adequate sanitation access. Do developing countries have the necessary capacities and resources for such scaling up of efforts, and will the UN, the donors and other development partners be willing to make adjustments in their approach to funding and programming for purposes of the country achievement of the target?
3. How will the numerous data sets and data collection/management systems be harnessed in a way that they can effectively be verified and utilized in-country, and what role can the private sector, CSOs and other entities play in promoting this monitoring?
4. How will the Human Right to Water and Sanitation monitoring framework be effectively linked to the water and sanitation monitoring framework on access, in a mutually reinforcing way as part of in-country capacity strengthening?

For point number 1 above it is important to unpack the language of Target 6.2 if it is to be effectively measured in accordance with the normative and procedural framework of the Human Right to Water and Sanitation. For instance, what is equitable access?
Achieving equitable access will require progressive reduction and elimination of inequalities between population sub-groups over the 15 year implementation period of the SDGs. This includes addressing inequality in coverage between the poorest and richest, between rural and urban populations, and between ethnic groups, etc. JMP data shows that in many countries, the gap in access between the bottom 40% and the top 40% income groups is wide both in terms of access but also in terms of the level of sanitation service provided to each group from along the sanitation ladder.

As a first step to achieving the SDGs, countries will need to establish a baseline to help determine the existing structural (legal, policy/strategies and institutional which capture water administrative and the judicial and quasi-judicial systems that relate to HRWS), process (the concrete actions taken by duty bearers to reach the outcome including commitments of budget and staff capacities) and outcome indicators (overview of capacities to monitor the expected benefits associated with the benefits of enjoyment of the right to sanitation including e.g. progressive increase in standard of living or standard of health at the local levels) that correspond to the SDG target on sanitation (as may well be the case for all of the other SDG indicators). This will help identify gaps and provide guidance on the “what”, the “where” and the “how” of measuring the sanitation indicators and hence their baseline. Without the definition of a baseline, challenges may arise with respect to the definition of meaningful indicators and their subsequent development/refinement at the country level. This process of establishing a baseline could additionally contribute to the process of countries making the necessary adjustments to their comprehensive legal, policy and institutional frameworks (structural indicators) which, in turn, could help create coordinated linkages at all stages of sanitation for the different mix of settings and to leverage more targeted resources for scaling up.

There`s is going to be a need for proper targeting and prioritization of sanitation interventions; baselines will be useful in identifying who the different actors are and what the current provisions are in terms of budgeting and actual service delivery arrangements. This may often require a re-engineering in the planning, implementation and monitoring processes at the country level if the element of equity is to be effectively addressed. This in turn means that countries will have to be able to identify the gaps in their current indicator framework for measuring sanitation progress in order to be able to effectively implement and monitor the sanitation and hygiene targets.

Case study: Uganda country mapping methodology for establishing the baseline on status of implementation of the right to water and sanitation. This process has included both legal, policy and institutional mapping and has assessed the provisions that guide planning (including budgeting), implementation and monitoring. Uganda has developed an elaborate sector monitoring framework with measurable ``Golden Indicators`` for the sector which could serve as a good practice approach for other countries to identify key sanitation indicators which are focused on both outcomes and processes.


The need to enhance data collection, data management systems and verification mechanisms: As has recently been pointed out by Uschi Eid (UNSGAB) ``what is not being measured is not going to be done``
From the point of view of economic, social and cultural rights (from which the right to sanitation finds its origin), effective monitoring is a prerequisite to making human rights meaningful and for ensuring accountability when laws and policies create, perpetuate or exacerbate deprivations. Human rights indicators are therefore derived from two sources: firstly, the rights based norms themselves and, secondly, the need to hold duty bearers accountable.

Case study: Brazil National Water Supply and Sanitation Information System (SNIS). The SNIS sector monitoring and evaluation system has been developed over two decades, during which time the indicators measured, the data points collected, the methodology used for gathering and verifying the data, and the use to which the data is put, have all evolved. The annual process of gathering, compiling and analyzing the data has allowed for the refinement of the approach and for comparisons to be made by service providers with each other based on the resultant indicators. The federal government can leverage the system to encourage all service providers to submit the required data by making the provision of subsidized grants and loans contingent upon the timely submission of the data.

Case study: India’s missing toilets. The central government of India has directed millions of dollars at latrine building campaigns over the last fifteen years. However, the lack of a comprehensive and robust monitoring system means that the presence of millions of the toilets that were supposed to have been constructed could not be verified. Without a solid monitoring framework, efficiencies can consequently ‘leak’ from a sanitation program and lagging hotspots can be less easily targeted by the funding campaign.

Some of the more specific aspects on indicators for the sanitation target for consideration in this discussion for effective realization of SDG target 6.2. could therefore also include:
• Data will need to be properly and effectively disaggregated, e.g. by sex, age and wealth;
• WASH in schools – including exploring the linkages between targets 6.2 and 4.2 (multi-purpose indicators);
• Safe sanitation - extending to menstrual hygiene management (MHM) including in work places, among others.
• Linkages between the SDG sanitation indicators and those related to education and health should be established due to the obvious connection between poor sanitation and ill-health.
• Harmonizing the monitoring frameworks of the human rights world with the sanitation sector monitoring frameworks.
Rose Alabaster and Martin Gambrill

Dear Rose and Martin,

firstly thank you for your interesting post, albeit rather complicated and multi-facetted.

Just to check-in that I understand this SDG process (please correct me if I have got this wrong):

• So the Sustainable Development Goals are being signed off on by the UN assembly at the end of September
• And the SDG indicators are up for discussion until next March

As the timelines are not clear. If I have simply missed these timelines, please be so Kind to share a link with me, so I can read up on them.

Then I have seen that there have been an Appeal for inclusion of Gender indicators in 6.2 & 6.3 in a post made on this Forum here: forum.susana.org/forum/categories/182-su...dg-targets-62-and-63

What are your thoughts on this? As surely if we are seriously going to be

"paying special attention to the needs of women and girls"

an indicator would be useful as

"what is not being measured is not going to be done"

?

And then I have also seen that there is lobbying for hygiene indicators to be included in the SDGs with a Deadline of 4th September, also mentioned here on this Forum here: forum.susana.org/forum/categories/182-su...nd-for-hygiene-today
Here I ask myself, is 4th September the cut off for all Input on the indicators already? And secondly I ask myself surely if we seriously want to be

"ensuring everyone has access to safe sanitation"

a hygiene indicator would be a good one to check up on the level of safe.

I hope you are able to share your thoughts with me on some of my questions above, or steer me in the right direction to where I could find answers to my raised questions above.

Look forward to your and others reply posts. As time seems to be of the essence here.

Good wishes
F.W.

Dear Frankie,

first reply to your question until when you can submit your request to the SDG discussion to the UN statistical committee, it is until 7 September and please use this website here:
unstats.un.org/sdgs
there is a link for open consultation.

Second thank you for taking on the issue "paying special attention to the needs of women and girls" which is mentioned in target 6.2. But it is not yet clear how to address this. There is the request by many stakeholders to gather data disaggregated by sex, age and wealth quintiles, but I think that it is not enough.

As follow up of our side event on this issue at Stockholm WWW this year, we propose to include the following two indicators:

% of people using safely managed sanitation services including menstrual hygiene management (MHM) in working and learning environments/institutions (target 6.2.)

% of schools with pupils using safely managed sanitation services with separate toilets for females and males including MHM (target 4.2.) OR
Absenteeism of school girls and boys at the age of 14-16 years

The second one on WASH in schools is a multi purpose indicator covering 4.2 and 6.2 that is why I think it can be very powerful and attractive indicator also for politicians.
However I am not so sure if it is very attractive to monitor school toilets. Instead the indicator could be absenteeism but then this figure is surely not only because of the bad school toilets or missing MHM facilities but other underlying reasons as well.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts about this!

Please find attached also the follow up documents and please submit your request in the open consultation by 7 September latest!!

Best regards
Claudia

Hi everyone,

Martin has asked me to repost my opening comment from the theme IV discussing 'safe v basic', as it is also relevant to this discussion. If you are interested in the detailed discussion of the issues of 'safe v basic' sanitation, please do contribute to that threads discussion. In this discussion, the point is about the role and significance of 'progressive realisation' alongside 'higher ambition' when it comes to monitoring the SDGs.

So people can see where I’m coming from, this is WaterAid’s proposed changes to the current indicators framework, which we hope will be taken up by the Inter Agency Expert Group between now and March 2016.

bit.ly/1Ups8LF

My comment:

The JMP proposals were based on an extensive period of consultation and discussion, which WaterAid was involved in, and which arguably produced some of the most considered indicator proposals across the SDG framework. However, the subsequent political process finalising the SDGs has pushed and compressed those proposals, and the challenge is to preserve as much of the original thinking as possible.

JMP are proposing to monitor most of the parameters agreed through the consultation, and as Eddy correctly highlights, the ‘service ladder’ approach means that for monitoring we don’t need to say ‘basic v. safely managed’, we need to monitor both. Furthermore, recognising the importance of FSM and safety beyond the toilet facility itself, for communities and water quality, is a big improvement on the MDG indicators. However, when it comes to the SDG indicators, and the definition of success, the question of safe v. basic does come up.

The proposals that we’re putting forward (and would appreciate support if you agree!) are attempting to ensure that the SDG indicators monitor progress on basic services, as well as safely managed, to ensure that those with no service are brought improvements as a priority, rather than just upgrading existing services for the relatively wealthy.

The definition of success for the WASH SDGs is rightly universal access to safely managed services, but, and this point I think echoes Eddy's final point, the definition of good progress should be progressive realisation of universal access to safely managed services, which should be defined as disproportionate improvements in the level of service for the poorest - so increasing the number of poor people with ODF / basic services / shared safely managed is recognised as a priority.

The difference between safe and basic, in this sense, is that safe is the goal, basic is a step on the way, but if we incentivise only the goal, we may inadvertently encourage inequitable and inefficient means to get there.

Dear Frankie,
Many thanks for your inputs and apologies for coming in late with some of the clarifications you sort:
• The Inter Agency Expert Group on SDG indicators will hold its second meeting at the end of October. A final list of global indicators will be agreed by end of November. This will then be submitted to UNSC next March. For further details on the indicator development process see unstats.un.org/sdgs/
• There is broad support for further disaggregation of all indicators used for SDG reporting by location, age, sex, ethnicity, disability, migration status and other local forms of disadvantage. The JMP proposes to progressively disaggregate by affordability, place of residence (rural/urban) and socioeconomic status (wealth, affordability) in all countries. Disaggregation by other stratifiers of inequality (subnational, gender, disadvantaged groups, etc.) will be made where data permit. For further information see the JMP’s latest brochure on SDG indicators is available here: www.wssinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/re...st-2015-Brochure.pdf
• There is broad support for the inclusion of the following hygiene indicator under target 6.2 ‘percentage of population with handwashing facilities with soap and water at home’ - but it was not included in the list prepared by UNSD - so SuSana partners are encouraged to signal their support on the online platform.

(Thanks to Tom Slaymaker (UNICEF) for confirming the above information!!)

Dear all,

Thank you for sharing your ideas and thoughts on the topic of SDG indicators. For those of you who have joined the discussion late, I would like to provide a brief summary of the issues addressed so far and point to some of the questions that have been raised to facilitate further discussion:

(I) ISSUES ADDRESSED SO FAR:

(a) Timeline SDG indicators
For details on the indicator development process, see unstats.un.org/sdgs/
* September 7: The deadline to submit your request for the SDG discussion to the UN statistical committee is September 7. See links under “Open Consultation on the global indicator framework” at unstats.un.org/sdgs/
* Oct 26-28: Second meeting of the Inter Agency Expert Group on SDG indicators
* November: final list of global indicators will be agreed on by end of November
* March 2016: Final list of global indicators will be submitted to UNSC

(b) Inclusion of Gender indicators in 6.2 and 6.3.
As Claudia stresses (#14822) it is not clear yet how to address the target of “paying special attention to the needs of women and children”.
Inclusion of the following two indicators is suggested:
(a) % of people using safely managed sanitation services including menstrual hygiene management (MHM) in working and learning environments/institutions (target 6.2.)
(b) % of schools with pupils using safely managed sanitation services with separate toilets for males and females, including MHM (target 4.2.)
OR Absenteeism of school girls and boys at the age of 14-16 years
For further information, please see the two attachments to Claudia’s post.

What is your opinion on the issue of gender sensitive indicators? What could adequate gender sensitive indicators be in your opinion?

(c) Lobbying for inclusion of Hygiene indicators:
As Rose highlights (#14826) there is broad support for the inclusion of the following hygiene indicator under target 6.2: ‘percentage of population with handwashing facilities with soap and water at home’ but it was not included in the list prepared by UNSD so SuSanA partners are encouraged to signal their support on the online platform .

(d) Indicators that monitor progress both for safe and basic sanitation services
As Tim points out (#14823), SDG indicators should monitor progress on both basic services and safely managed services to ensure that those with no service are given improvements as a priority, rather than just upgrading existing services for the relatively wealthy.

For more details on safe v. basic sanitation, also refer to the specific discussion here ( forum.susana.org/forum/categories/203-th...sus-basic-sanitation )

(II) DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Are the two indicators for Goal 6, Target 6.2 adequately defined?

Do developing countries have the necessary capacities and resources for such scaling up of efforts? (-> universal coverage is the target)

How will the numerous data sets and data collection/management systems be harnessed in a way to ensure that they can be effectively verified and utilized in-country?

How will the Human Right to Water and Sanitation monitoring framework be effectively linked to the water and sanitation monitoring framework on access, in a mutually reinforcing way as part of in-country capacity strengthening?

I look forward to your thoughts and opinions on the matter!

Best,
Katrin

Dear all,

My contribution might not fit 100% into this theme on indicators but it fits even less in the other 3 themes, so I am putting it here.

I came across a post that Joe made on the forum on 1 May which I would like to pick up again ( forum.susana.org/forum/categories/159-in...an-development#13151 )

Joe had posted:

An interesting new study in the open-access journal PLOS Neglected Diseases:

I am not sure what to post here from the study - but it is basically saying that too little notice is being given of helminth infections and that policies to tackle them, such as deworming, should "should become an essential component of the SDGs"

The full paper is here: journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10...journal.pntd.0003618

+++++

Title:

Helminth Elimination in the Pursuit of Sustainable Development Goals: A "Worm Index" for Human Development
Peter J. Hotez , Jennifer R. Herricks

I copy here something from the paper:

Given the strong associations between helminthic and other NTDs and mental, physical, and economic human development, vulnerable and excluded populations, and HDI, in the coming months and years it may become essential to give due consideration to eliminating helminth infections as a means to achieve SDGs. Of course, poverty, “Water, Sanitation and Hygiene” (WASH), and nutrition play an important role in health outcomes. As we look to reduce poverty and increase WASH and nutrition, we must also focus on chronic diseases such as helminth infections that reinforce the cycle of poverty and malnutrition. Therefore, we suggest that the NTDs need to be an important consideration in any discussion about the SDGs, and helminth control and elimination as proposed by the 2012 London Declaration for NTDs must be embraced by the SDGs and the sustainable development community [23].

How do you feel about these statements? Does anyone know if the health goals have in the meantime included such indicators? Helminths are so closely linked to lack of sanitation...

The paper also says:

To date, unlike MDG 6, which includes combatting “AIDS, malaria, and other diseases,” the preliminary SDGs outlined at Rio+20 do not list specific diseases. Yet over the last decade, increasing evidence links the major neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) to a significant adverse impact on both human and economic development, especially for the major helminth infections, i.e., hookworm and the intestinal helminth infections, schistosomiasis, and lymphatic filariasis [2]. According to the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (GBD 2010), these helminth infections rank among the leading NTDs in terms of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), accounting for approximately 10 million DALYs [3].

As I've said elsewhere ( www.forum.susana.org/forum/categories/19...eries-about-the-sdgs ) I really wish we'd understand not only our "own" SDG better but also the health SDG and - above all - make personal direct connections with the people involved there.

Perhaps it would be an idea to contact the authors and ask them if their call has had any impacts?
It's Peter J. Hotez , Jennifer R. Herricks, does anyone know them?

Regards,
Elisabeth

Dear all,
Not sure if my post should go in this theme either.. Anyway, I would like to pose a question if we really should limit the discussion to “Access to safe sanitation”. I think that there is high risk that we continue focusing on counting the number of toilets being implemented without really considering the broad set of sustainability aspects of these installations. If we look at the whole set of goals and targets in the SDGs (and do not only focus on goal 6 on water and sanitation) it is clear that the SDGs aim for the broad definition of sustainability, i.e. addressing health, gender equity, sustainable rural and urban development, sustainable production, improving water quality, conserving natural ecosystem. Hence, I think that we really need to be talking about access to sustainable sanitation, which not only cares for the different user needs but in addition protects natural environment and as far as possible safely recovers natural resources to produce these multiple benefits, e.g. improved nutrition, food security, water security, energy security..

I would like to share a graph that SEI has been developing in an ongoing study, soon to be published together with UNEP (Title: Making Wastewater Management and Sanitation More Sustainable: -Showcasing the shift from Waste Disposal to Resource Recovery). In this graph we try to link the 'functional sanitation ladder' concept with the SDG targets. The columns show the ladder steps and the rows the goals and the numbers are references to the specific targets being addressed (for list of targets see for example sustainabledevelopment.un.org/focussdgs.html ).
It becomes quite evident that if we invest in achieving high functional level on sanitation, it is possible to contribute to many of the SDG targets. This opportunity can also potentially attract new sectors and new investments to the sanitation sector, since it can address a broad sustainable development agenda..

Achieving multiple SDG benefits when moving up the functional sanitation and wastewater management ladder [SEI 2015]



Since the total number of indicators are said to be limited (probably less than number of targets) it will be important to encounter multi-purpose targets by linking different goals and targets. So besides depicting the potential multiple benefits of sustainable sanitation, the graph also shows where to initially look for these integrated indicators.

Looking forward to hear your opinion on this and receive your feedback on the graph!!
Thanks and all the best,
Kim

I agree with Kim and Elisabeth. Many of the other goals depend on Goal 6 delivering safe sanitation. Aiming for anything else will likely mean they can't be achieved either.