Regulating Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS) in Colombia

The conventional top-down scope of relying only on centralised sewerage has proven insufficient to reach the entire global population with safely managed sanitation and meet Sustainable Development Goals 6.2. and 6.3 by 2030. Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS) has emerged as an approach to accelerate progress by considering different technologies and service provision models within the same city to expand sanitation access equitably and sustainably. However, to generate an enabling environment for CWIS to be implemented successfully, regulatory frameworks must be adapted, as they are often unsuited for non-sewered sanitation solutions. By analysing the Colombian case study through a mixed qualitative methodology comprised of a policy review, semi-structured interviews, and workshops with key stakeholders in the urban sanitation sector, the country’s regulatory framework was evaluated to determine if it is adequate to implement CWIS. Regulations were identified to pose barriers for CWIS and produced a disabling environment for its application. This research proposes recommendations to adapt the regulatory framework to allow CWIS application in Colombia based on the encountered barriers. This is the first comprehensive study on regulations for CWIS in the Latin American context and therefore provides the basis for further research to understand the dynamics related to effective regulations for CWIS globally.