This Accra convening serves as a pivotal moment—not only for sharing results, but for galvanizing deeper cohesion, cross-pollination, and alignment across country teams.
This reporting period demonstrates how collaborative science, participatory engagement, and North–South research partnerships can transform WASH from an infrastructure challenge into a driver of public health, climate resilience, and social equity.
Promise Consortium
How field-grounded PROMISE research is informing policy reform, institutional capacity, and sanitation practice across Africa and Asia.
Across all PROMISE countries, the reporting period illustrates how group science—anchored in strong North–South partnerships and South–South peer learning—has accelerated innovation, enhanced data quality, and deepened the real-world impact of sanitation research.
PROMISE’s multi-country framework enabled shared research design and comparative analysis across diverse contexts. By connecting northern institutions such as Emory University and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill with southern research bodies, government agencies and think tanks, the Consortium forged a networked science ecosystem that balances rigor and relevance. This partnership improved field and lab protocols , ensuring that locally collected data meet global scientific standards while informing municipal planning and policy reforms.
South–South knowledge exchanges among PROMISE teams have become crucial forms of learning. Uganda’s WASH FIT experience informed Senegal’s hospital assessments. Uganda’s Compass experience informed Zambia and Kenya approaches. Ghana’s SaniPath experience informed Tanzania's adoption and approach to implementation. These peer collaborations have allowed teams to troubleshoot challenges collectively, replicate best practices, and adapt tools to local realities.
Joint training programs, joint research funding proposals, co-supervised research, and student exchanges have developed a mature team of WASH researchers and practitioners. North–South collaboration links from Emory University and UNC Chapel Hill and LMIC partner country teams, ensuring equitable skill transfer. This distributed capacity now supports national systems in partner countries, where ministries are adopting PROMISE tools for routine sanitation and hygiene monitoring for policy and planning and investment.
The group-science model has amplified PROMISE’s influence in regional and global dialogues. Data generated across multiple contexts are informing city sanitation strategies, donor investments, and health sector policies. Dissemination through joint publications, conferences, and regional forums will ensure that lessons from one setting accelerate progress in another—demonstrating the value of science conducted together.
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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