Giving Compass' Take:

• In this Skoll Foundation post, Water For People's Kim Lemme discusses the systems change needed to address the continuing water and sanitation crisis around the world.

• Sharing data and building stronger cross-sector partnerships are keys to this effort — the term "fierce collaboration" is used to emphasize the need for more aggressive action.

• Here's why flexible funding may lead to better results for WASH interventions.

The global water and sanitation crisis is one of the world’s most intractable problems — and one that has been addressed by the development, public, and private sectors since the dawn of industrialization and urbanization ... With the mandate of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 6 — ensure availability and sustainable water and sanitation for all by 2030–the world is at a critical point for change.

A crisis so large demands a mandate so audacious, and no single organization can do this alone. Business, as usual, is not working. Drilling wells, laying pipe, and building toilets is difficult, but it’s only the beginning. We must create systems to change the status quo — to provide reliable services and show measurable and sustainable results. Water and sanitation system management, technical support, and financing are all necessary parts of delivering quality services and changing the systems around service delivery to be reliable and safe. Meaningful change requires political will, government leadership, and partnerships between government, private sector, and civil society.

Fierce collaboration — working with someone to produce or create something with an intense or ferocious aggressiveness — is necessary to bring water to the 2.1 billion people and sanitation to the 4.5 billion who lack these services. But fierce collaboration isn’t easy.

Read the full article about the global water sanitation crisis by Kim Lemme at Water For People, via Skoll Foundation.