Regional assessment of the operational sustainability of water and sanitation services in Sub-Saharan Africa

This report provides an evidence-based overview of the ‘operational sustainability’ of water and sanitation services across Sub-Saharan Africa. It brings together large-scale representative data collected in Ethiopia and Mozambique as part of the VFM-WASH project, as well as robust secondary data and literature on service sustainability related to Sub-Saharan countries. Indicators of operational sustainability are organised around two key perspectives: the level of effective water/sanitation service understood as the household experience of service over time; and operational service, understood of as the functionality of water and sanitation systems over time and associated service attributes. These represent the outcome of the financial, institutional, environmental, technical and social dimensions of a water or sanitation service. As such operational sustainability will falter if any of these dimensions are not sustained.