Rural and Urban water issues have been addressed by Indo-German development cooperation for several decades and along with sustainable development in general it can be considered as one of the oldest topics covered. Indo-German joint activities focus on the sustainable management of water resources with due consideration to social and institutional issues. However, the initial rural and urban water programmes have had little in common with contemporary challenges, which address the topic “sustainable sanitation” in the context of rapid urbanisation and increased pressure on environmental resources in a holistic way.
Today provision of sustainable sanitation is identified as a key-driver for economic development and sustainable development in general. In recent years this has become more and more clear around the globe and had led the UN General Assembly to declare the year 2008 as the “International Year of Sanitation (IYS)”.
GTZ underlines that the achievement of the sanitation Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is one of the major challenges for sustainable development in the next decade. With this publication emphasis is laid on accelerating the implementation and the role-out of large scale innovative and peoples driven sustainable sanitation projects. Business as usual is not enough: a paradigm shift towards a holistic view on sustainable sanitation is needed.