Equity
At CWAS, our mission is to ensure sustainable and equitable access to safe water and sanitation services at scale. For this, CWAS has focussed on service delivery for the urban poor. Under PAS, the service level benchmarks were aligned to the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) framework. However, CWAS also introduced equity through indicators for service delivery in slum settlements in urban areas. It captures the coverage of access to services to households in slum settlements.
CWAS has actively contributed to various national and international platforms to amplify a focus on equity. CWAS has been closely associated with urban local governments to support and strengthen their efforts designing and implementing delivery of WASH services in urban slum settlements. A number of studies across cities were carried out to assess issues related to equity, and to support development of plans for improving service delivery in slum settlements.
Another aspect of equity focuses on gender inclusivity across our work at CWAS. CWAS has initiated support to Swachh Maharashtra Mission for a state-level gender-inclusive strategy for sanitation. A state level strategy convergence strategy across the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) has been adopted in the state of Maharashtra. Specific focus is also on supporting women self help groups (SHGs) to participate in sanitation related activities. This draws on the work at city level in various cities. At CWAS we strongly believe on the importance of bringing safety and dignity to sanitation workers for which CWAS work in the city of Wai is now being scaled up to more cities in Maharashtra.
