Beyond Financing: Building the Systems That Make WASH Work (Part 1)

PART 1 of 2
Reflections from Kathmandu — Global South WASH Financing & Sustainability Conference and Agenda for Change Engagements, April 2026

In early April 2026, Kathmandu became a fitting epicenter for one of the most important conversations in the global WASH sector. Across the Global South WASH Financing & Sustainability Conference (April 1–3) and the Agenda for Change (A4C) country collaboration engagement (April 6), a single, urgent message emerged from the discussions, keynotes, panels, and country presentations:

Financing alone is not enough. What we need are systems strong enough to make that financing work.

This is not a rejection of the financing agenda, resources matter and the funding gap is real. Rather, it is a recognition that the sector has reached a turning point. The question is no longer only “how do we mobilize more money?” but equally “how do we ensure that money delivers lasting, equitable, climate-resilient services?” Three sets of reflections from Kathmandu, on systems accountability, WASH financing reform, and country collaboration, all point to the same answer.

1. Accountability as the Missing Link

Well-funded WASH programmes continue to struggle with sustaining services over time. The pattern is familiar across contexts: investments are made, infrastructure is built, capacity is trained; yet, gaps emerge once external support tapers off.

The conference reinforced that the root cause is rarely a lack of technical solutions. More often, it is weak accountability,  the missing connective tissue between resources, responsibilities, and results. Accountability, at its core, is about clarity and follow-through: knowing who is responsible, what is expected, how performance is tracked, and what happens when things go wrong.

In practice, this means strengthening the chain at every link: clear rules, defined mandates, regular reporting, performance review, and consistent action when issues arise. From Ethiopia’s One WASH National Program to subnational experiences across the Global South, the evidence is consistent  when accountability structures are practical, used daily, and supported by coordination at all levels, service delivery improves. When they are not, even the best-designed programmes lose momentum.

The real shift Kathmandu called for is this: progress in WASH must be measured not only by how much we invest, but by how well delivery performs.

This reflection is explored further in a dedicated piece on accountability in WASH systems, where these themes are unpacked in more detail: From Financing to Functioning Systems: Reflections from the Global South WASH Conference

2. Smarter Systems Before Bigger Envelopes

The financing discussions in Kathmandu challenged a deeply held assumption: that WASH’s primary problem is insufficient capital. In reality, up to 30% of WASH budgets in many contexts go unspent or underutilised — lost to procurement bottlenecks, weak absorption systems, delayed disbursements, and fragmented planning. The crisis is as much about efficiency as it is about volume.

Several connected lessons emerged:

• Strengthen public financial management first. Governments must lead — designing financing strategies, integrating WASH into national planning, and owning the systems that make spending credible and predictable.
• Build funding pipelines, not just budgets. Many countries don’t lack willing investors — they lack investment-ready, technically sound, financially modelled WASH projects.
• Make data the currency of reform. Reliable evidence is no longer just an accountability tool — it is a financing instrument. Countries with strong monitoring systems are better positioned to attract investment, demonstrate impact, and build credibility.
• Embed climate resilience from the start. Climate change is already increasing infrastructure costs and maintenance burdens. Resilience must be a core design principle in financing models — not a donor-driven afterthought.
• Include and formalise informal actors. Small-scale sanitation enterprises and local service providers remain central to delivery in many low-income settings. Supporting them to become investment-ready is a scalable pathway for inclusive market development.

Kathmandu was a reminder that sustainable WASH financing is ultimately about governance, systems, and the choices we make in stewarding scarce resources for long-term public good.

What does it look like when it actually works?

The conference described the challenge. But the days that followed — spent with Agenda for Change country collaborators in Nepal — showed what a coherent, government-aligned response can look like in practice. In Part 2, we turn from the conference room to the collaboration room: what Nepal’s A4C journey reveals about country-level systems change, and what the network’s cross-country peer exchange offered as the real work began.

→ Continue reading: Part 2 — Collaboration as a Systems Change Tool

This post synthesises reflections shared by members of Agenda for Change following their participation in the Global South WASH Financing & Sustainability Conference (April 1–3, 2026) and A4C country engagements in Kathmandu (April 6, 2026), including: Bethlehem Mengistu (1, 2), Moses Asiimwe (1, 2), Michael Negash (1), Kate Harawa, and WASH Khabar (1).