Water has been an important resource in our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Without water, there is no hand washing—an effective measure to slow down the spread of the virus, in the absence of a vaccine. However, this simple act of washing hands using soap and clean water is beyond the reach of many who lack access to adequate water and sanitation services, particularly in urban, low-income communities.

According to a sero-surveillance study conducted by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), compared to rural areas, the risk of COVID-19 spreading in urban areas and urban informal settlements is 1.09 times and 1.89 times higher, respectively.

Cities across India have responded by creating emergency water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure and building awareness about the importance of good sanitation. For instance, cities in Maharashtra and Odisha have partnered with a number of development organisations to install no-contact hand washing stations in informal settlements and have been running communication campaigns on the importance of hand washing.

The pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of marginalised urban populations to crises, and underscored the importance of building their capacity to respond to and recover from future shocks or stresses—a concept popularly known as resilience.

By its very definition, resilience is tied to disasters and their management. Typically, disaster management frameworks focus on moving from responding to the crisis in the short-term to medium-term recovery, and finally to mitigation and preparedness for future disasters in the long run.

However, the pandemic is unlike any other disaster we have seen before, and has pushed us to rethink our understanding of disaster management. Usually, natural disasters such as earthquakes or floods have a definite beginning and end, and their impact is limited to certain geographical areas. The biological and open-ended nature of the pandemic means that this blueprint will not apply in the same way as before.

Local governments and communities are the primary stakeholders in WASH resilience. Ward-level plans can help identify areas that are more prone to risk, what kinds of risk, and develop strategies and emergency plans for overcoming them, in case of disasters (including epidemics and pandemics). The ongoing crisis has forced many communities to implement measures of tracing, tracking, quarantining, as well as providing drinking water, distributing food, and improving sanitation management. Based on the analysis of these, ward-level plans should be drafted to make sure that the learnings from this crisis help us prepare better for such future events, which will make the governance system more resilient.

Read the full article about access to sanitation during COVID-19 by Shubhagato Dasgupta at India Development Review.