WaSH-UPP national workshops and a series of public engagement activities in Nigeria and Malawi significantly raised awareness and interest in WaSH as a development issue. The wider publicity as a result of these and other WaSH-UPP activities has contributed to increased awareness and involvement among the general public, policy makers and scientists (through education, research and improved policy outcomes). WaSH-UPP public events were timely and served as catalysts to achieving the goals for the presidential declaration of a state of emergency in the sector.
Work is underway (July 2020) to synthesize all the core findings from this project into a standard textbook for use in teaching and research. Consequently, post-project will be committed to further research, literature review, as well as expanding fieldwork areas/scope to further identify experiences, practices and challenges associated with implementing sustainable water, sanitation and hygiene management policies across sub-Saharan Africa. WaSH-UPP maintains a future agenda of establishing a research institute for sub-Saharan Africa and the researcher continues to actively network with institutions, experts, professionals, students, civil society groups and policy makers. The initial expectation is that WaSH-UPP will transit to a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that will be committed to grant applications, research, education, knowledge dissemination, public engagement, consultancy and community services across sub-Saharan Africa with the aim of addressing the various WaSH related challenges that continue to affect society. Our long term plan is to establish a WaSH-focused development institute for sub-Saharan Africa that will be committed to long-term research, training and development. This project has been used to build a critical mass of potential collaborators and the ambition is to the build on this by targeted research grant funding bids for further research and related activities.
