The world remains alarmingly off-track on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 6.2 and 6.3 – to achieve universal access to adequate and equitable sanitation and ensure safe wastewater management, respectively, by 2030. Despite progress, in 2024, 3.4 billion people lacked access to safely managed sanitation. Of these, 354 million still practice open defecation.

In 2020, only one-third of the global population (2.6 billion people) used private sanitation facilities connected to sewers with treatment, while the majority depended on on-site systems. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), more than 77% of people rely on non-sewered sanitation (NSS), yet utilities are rarely equipped to provide these services at scale. In Asia, some countries have predominantly septic tanks and other onsite sanitation facilities (Bangladesh – 93%, India – approx.. 70%, Indonesia- approx.. 90 %).

This session is an attempt to showcase the journey of utilities engaged in onsite sanitation services in Asia and Africa and the enabling environment behind non-sewered sanitation services including regulation, private sector and data.