The PROMISE Consortium (Promoting Evidence-Based Investments in Sanitation and Hygiene for Health and Equity) is an international partnership that helps governments turn sanitation and hygiene evidence into better policy, planning, financing, and services. Since 2022, PROMISE has brought together 16 research, government, and implementing institutions across Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Scotland, and the United States.
Our aim is to reduce people’s exposure to environmental pathogens, improve health outcomes, and make the routine use of evidence part of how sanitation and hygiene decisions are made. Country teams lead research in their own cities and communities, supported by technical advisors at Emory University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, SaniPath International and Makerere University School of Public Health. Using practical decision-support tools such as SaniPath, ComPASS, and WASH FIT, we work with ministries, municipalities, utilities, and health facilities from the start, so findings move into national policies, guidelines, and investment plans. In Uganda, for example, PROMISE evidence has informed the 2026 Sanitation and Hygiene Policy and the National Environmental Health Strategy 2025–2030.
To reduce people's exposure to environmental health risks by making evidence a routine part of sanitation and hygiene policy, planning, and investment. We generate actionable, locally led research, strengthen the capacity of institutions to use it, and build equitable partnerships among researchers, governments, practitioners, and communities.
A world where every community is protected by safe, equitable, and climate-resilient sanitation and hygiene, and where evidence routinely guides the decisions and investments that make it possible.
Our work spans six integrated thematic areas:
The PROMISE Consortium promotes evidence-based decision-making about sanitation and hygiene policies, investments, and implementation by national, regional, and municipal governments, with emphasis on:
We produce locally led, quality-assured data on how people are exposed to environmental health risks and how sanitation systems actually perform.
We train researchers, environmental health officers, laboratory teams, and decision-makers to collect, interpret, and use that evidence.
We work with ministries, municipalities, and utilities to integrate tools and findings into policies, guidelines, budgets, and monitoring.
We grow an equitable network of institutions that learns together and attracts investment beyond any single project.
The PROMISE Consortium operates on principles of equitable partnership.
Partner countries share experiences, methodologies, and lessons learned through regular workshops, joint training programs, and peer-to-peer mentorship. This horizontal exchange strengthens regional capacity and ensures solutions are contextually relevant.
Technical institutions in the United States (Emory University and UNC Chapel Hill) provide scientific leadership, methodological guidance, and capacity building support while ensuring that research priorities and approaches are driven by country partners’ needs and contexts.
The Consortium bridges research institutions, government agencies, utility operators, and community stakeholders to ensure that evidence generation directly informs policy and practice.
We don’t just generate data—we work with governments to translate findings into actionable policies, investment priorities, and implementation strategies. Our tools and methods are designed for integration into existing planning frameworks.
Long-term sustainability requires local expertise. We invest heavily in training researchers, government staff, and practitioners to independently deploy decision-support tools, manage data systems, and advocate for evidence-based approaches.
From project inception, we engage policymakers, municipal authorities, and community stakeholders to ensure ownership, relevance, and sustained uptake of research findings.
Regular cross-country workshops, joint reflection sessions, and collaborative problem-solving create a learning environment where innovations from one context strengthen work in others.
The PROMISE Consortium emerged from a recognition that sanitation and hygiene research could better serve low- and middle-income countries through more equitable partnership models.
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed critical gaps in public health systems and highlighted the importance of environmental health data for decision-making. Recognizing that many sanitation tools were developed externally and not always aligned with local priorities, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's WASH team convened partners from seven countries in May 2022 to reimagine research collaboration.
Over two days in Seattle, partners from Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, alongside Emory University and UNC Chapel Hill, co-created the PROMISE vision. The guiding question was: "How can evidence improve health and development policy while ensuring local input from inception and building long-term capacity?"
Following the initial meeting, country partners conducted stakeholder engagement workshops to gather input from government agencies, utilities, NGOs, and communities. This participatory approach generated tremendous buy-in and ensured the Consortium's structure reflected partner needs and priorities.
With governance structures established and funding secured from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute, PROMISE transitioned from planning to active implementation. Field research began across all countries, capacity building intensified, and early policy impacts emerged, including Uganda's integration of decision-support tools into national policy.
A multi-country initiative advancing sanitation, hygiene, climate resilience, health security, digital decision systems, and healthy institutions in low- and middle-income countries
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