Enhancing Global WASH Data Accessibility through Collaborative Initiatives
Category
Contribute
Institutions
ETH Zurich
Data type
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Data
Field
Urban studies
Researchers
Tilley, Elizabeth
Description
The WASHCollab project strengthened the global data ecosystem for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) through a partnership between openwashdata at ETH Zurich and WASHWeb. We maintained existing open-source tools for critical WASH data, developed new tools for economic data analysis, and disseminated our work globally. We maintained the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) R data package through strategic guidance on architecture and documentation. We developed an R package for UN-Water GLAAS data: the production-ready glaas package (v0.1.3, Zenodo DOI 10.5281/zenodo.15497462) with 263,033 observations. WHO requested the updated package for dissemination alongside their 2026 GLAAS report. The R package follows FAIR principles with open licensing, comprehensive documentation, and permanent identifiers, making critical WASH data accessible to researchers, practitioners, and policymakers worldwide. We co-organized a hybrid session at Stockholm World Water Week (August 2024) with six speakers from government, research, NGOs, and UN sectors representing six countries. Approximately 100 participants engaged in cross-sectoral discussions. We hosted a webinar in March 2025 on WASH open data innovations.