Research priorities for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in humanitarian crises: A global prioritisation exercise

There is a paucity of good quality evidence related to the effectiveness and implementation of water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programmes in humanitarian crises.  Using the Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI) method, the aim of this study was to generate consensus-based actionable research priorities for the humanitarian WASH sector.

A diverse range of 286 global WASH and health experts engaged in the process to generate a list of 128 questions were generated and scored by experts. The identified priorities reinforce that more evidence is needed. It underlines the need for research to evaluate current practices in order to improve the quality of humanitarian response. Stakeholders, including donors, international and national organisations, governments and academic institutions, are invited to use this research agenda to encourage, inspire and enable relevant and high-quality research that will be used to inform humanitarian responses.

Building on an existing collaboration between the Global WASH Cluster (GWC) and Elrha, this research priority setting was commissioned by Elrha’s Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises (R2HC) programme.