The Importance of Coordination in Emergency WASH Response
Effective coordination is essential for ensuring a timely, scalable, and appropriate emergency water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) response that meets the critical needs of crisis-affected populations. In the face of an unprecedented rise in complex and protracted humanitarian crises, the WASH sector often struggles to deliver services that adhere to humanitarian standards. Too frequently, emergency WASH assistance falls short due to capacity limitations, lack of preparedness, and insufficient funding.
Strengthening coordination across diverse stakeholders is a key strategy for overcoming these challenges and enhancing the WASH sector’s capacity to provide a predictable, quality humanitarian response. By bringing together government agencies, development partners, civil society, the private sector, and crisis-affected communities, multi-stakeholder coordination platforms can facilitate a more integrated, efficient, and accountable emergency WASH intervention.
As a seasoned expert in the field, I have witnessed firsthand how effective coordination enables a more coherent, collaborative, and impactful WASH response, particularly in fragile and shock-prone settings. In this article, I will explore the essential characteristics and enabling factors for building robust multi-stakeholder coordination mechanisms that can better prepare for and respond to emergencies.
Key Elements of Effective WASH Coordination
Inclusive and Representative Coordination
Coordination for emergency WASH must be inclusive, bringing together a diverse range of stakeholders beyond just government agencies. Effective platforms engage representatives from different government sectors and levels, including health, water, sanitation, disaster management, and social welfare ministries, as well as national, regional, and local authorities.
Equally important is the participation of non-governmental actors, such as international and local civil society organizations, the private sector, research institutions, religious leaders, and crisis-affected communities themselves. This broad-based representation ensures that the coordination process reflects the priorities, capacities, and contexts of all key actors involved in the emergency response.
Gender equity is another critical aspect of inclusive coordination. Ensuring equitable participation of women, alongside men, in decision-making bodies is essential for understanding and addressing the differentiated WASH needs of crisis-affected populations. Coordination structures should actively promote the meaningful engagement of women at all levels.
Structural Characteristics of Coordination Bodies
The structural design and positioning of coordination bodies can significantly impact their effectiveness. Coordination mechanisms require clear mandates, defined roles, and sufficient authority to convene stakeholders and facilitate joint planning and action.
Coordination should be anchored in pre-existing structures, such as national or subnational disaster management councils or emergency operations centers, rather than relying on ad hoc arrangements. Established platforms with regular meeting schedules are better positioned to maintain functionality before, during, and after crises.
The appropriate level of coordination is also crucial. While national-level coordination is essential for strategic planning and resource mobilization, subnational coordination bodies are vital for translating plans into localized action and ensuring a contextually relevant response.
Organizational Capacities for Coordination
Effective coordination requires adequate human, financial, and technological resources within the organizations responsible for convening and facilitating the process. Coordination bodies must have access to skilled staff with technical expertise in emergency WASH, as well as the political savvy to navigate complex stakeholder dynamics.
Sufficient and sustainable funding is needed to maintain the operational capacity of coordination mechanisms, including supporting regular meetings, information management systems, and the capacity development of member organizations. Reliable communications infrastructure, such as reliable internet connectivity and video conferencing capabilities, is also critical for enabling coordination, especially across dispersed geographic areas.
Enabling Political Leadership and Incentives
High-level political leadership and commitment are essential for fostering a culture of collaboration and accountability around emergency WASH coordination. Strong backing from senior government officials, such as the prime minister or president, can lend authority to coordination bodies and motivate cross-sectoral engagement.
Equally important are incentives that encourage stakeholders to actively participate in coordination processes. This may include factors such as clear delineation of roles and responsibilities, access to shared information and resources, and recognition of contributions. Conversely, a lack of incentives or, worse, disincentives for coordination can undermine stakeholder engagement and the effectiveness of the overall system.
Leveraging Multi-Stakeholder Platforms for Improved WASH Outcomes
The Global WASH Cluster, the largest humanitarian WASH multi-stakeholder platform, has been at the forefront of efforts to strengthen coordination for emergency preparedness and response. Through initiatives such as the WASH Insecurity Analysis and the Joint Operational Framework for Health and WASH Clusters, the Global WASH Cluster is working to facilitate more integrated, evidence-based, and accountable WASH interventions.
For example, the WASH Insecurity Analysis is a tool that brings together diverse stakeholders to identify geographic areas and populations at risk of WASH insecurity. By providing analytical insights at the local level, this process can help governments and development actors prioritize WASH investments and enhance coordination for both immediate crisis response and long-term resilience building.
Similarly, the Joint Operational Framework for Health and WASH Clusters promotes enhanced coordination between these two critical sectors, ensuring a more holistic approach to addressing disease outbreaks in humanitarian crises. By aligning objectives, avoiding duplication, and prioritizing areas of greatest need, this framework strengthens the intersectoral response and outcomes for crisis-affected communities.
Recognizing the importance of learning and evidence-based practice, the Global WASH Cluster is also spearheading initiatives to translate research into practitioner-friendly tools and to support localized monitoring, evaluation, and research in humanitarian WASH. These efforts aim to reduce barriers to conducting new WASH research and enable more informed, adaptive, and accountable emergency interventions.
Conclusion: Strengthening Coordination for a Predictable and Scalable WASH Response
In the face of growing complexity and frequency of humanitarian crises, enhancing emergency WASH coordination through inclusive, well-structured, and capacitated multi-stakeholder platforms is essential for ensuring that crisis-affected populations have access to life-saving water, sanitation, and hygiene services.
By bringing together diverse stakeholders, establishing clear roles and responsibilities, building organizational capacities, and leveraging high-level political support, these coordination mechanisms can facilitate a more coherent, collaborative, and accountable emergency WASH response. Ultimately, strengthened coordination will enable the WASH sector to deliver assistance at scale, anywhere and anytime, and contribute to achieving the goals of the Water Decade Action Plan.
As we strive to leave no one behind and end humanitarian needs, the critical role of coordination cannot be overstated. I hope that the insights and strategies shared in this article inspire WASH practitioners, policymakers, and crisis-affected communities to work together and enhance the resilience of emergency WASH systems worldwide.
