The Center for Water and Sanitation is a part of the CEPT Research and Development Foundation (CRDF) at CEPT University, Ahmedabad. CWAS carries out activities related to action research and capacity building by working closely with city and state governments and enabling them to improve delivery of services. CWAS began work in 2009 with a pioneering WASH Performance Assessment System which has now been deployed in over 1000+ Indian cities. PAS has precipitated more programmes that align with the current priorities and policies of India including a series of city sanitation projects for piloting innovative approaches in faecal sludge and septage management and the principles of CityWide Inclusive Sanitation. Lessons from these cities feed into state level implementation of Swachh Bharat Mission, where CWAS is a technical partner to the Government of Maharashtra. With water re-emerging as a focus in development discourse, CWAS is revisiting its efforts in water governance towards supporting governments in their water and sanitation reform by providing policy and technical advice, developing water governance knowledge and helping to strengthen institutional capacity.

• Action-research for “Water-Sanitation as a public good”: Design and deliver appropriate and sustainable solutions for water and sanitation through action-research and advisory services in partnership with other ecosystem players.
• Government engagement at all levels: CWAS views Water and Sanitation as a public good. It supports design, develop and implement policies and monitoring systems with governments at city, state, and national levels through amplification and evidence sharing.
• Collaboration and Partnerships: CWAS believes in systemic interventions and aims to foster strong relationships with key stakeholders with alignment on longer-term outcomes.
• Academic Engagement and Capacity building: Support capacity building of sector partners and students of CEPT University to undertake research and action for sustainable WASH services. Borne out of academic grounding, CWAS maintains close linkages to the academic body at CEPT and aims to develop and test new/innovative approaches and translate to CEPT’s academic programmes.
• Working at scale: Develop implementable and scalable solutions. Translate findings from action research projects at city level to policies and programmes at state and national level.

It is estimated that globally nearly 750 million people lack adequate access to drinking water and 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation facilities. Provision of appropriate water and sanitation services in human settlements has been recognized as an important goal globally and nationally. In this context, CWAS vision is “To be a leader in transforming governance and monitoring systems for safe and equitable water and sanitation services at scale for all”. Over the past decade CWAS has worked on various projects on water and sanitation, creating a wide range of impacts:

• 1000+ cities database updated annually for WASH service performance
• 200+ treatment plants operationalized across Maharashtra for faecal sludge
• 350 cities supported for Swachh Bharat Mission certifications
• 6000+ professionals and city officers engaged to build their capacities
• 100+ student Projects supported under Masters and PhD programmes
• 500+ knowledge products available online on various themes
• 70+ city studies and plans developed CWAS works closely with the local, state and national governments and supports them in delivery of water and sanitation services in an effective and equitable manner.

The interventions for various project are identified and developed through a consultative process with government officials and are in complete alignment with the guidelines and programs of the state and national government. While working with governments, the approach of CWAS has always been to provide technical assistance to them and enable them to take the lead and implement the proposed activities. This resulted in active engagement of the political and administrative leadership as well as of the officials from various departments for the implementation of the programmes.