This paper identifies opportunities from targeted and integrated sanitation action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This is contextualised to the case of Brazil through a systematic approach applied to the sanitation sector that considers the range of infrastructure, management services and people involved in different phases of the service chain, from municipal wastewater containment to safe disposal or re-use. Articulating the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sanitation, this study analyses their links with each of the 169 SDG targets. We demonstrate that 87 targets across 16 goals require action in Brazil's sanitation sector to achieve the SDGs. Furthermore, we identify synergies between sanitation and 124 targets in four domains: basic services for resilience building, equity and
Highlights
COVID-19 has exposed service gaps in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in informal settlments in cities.
The vulnerability of informal settlements to COVID-19 is not accidental, but a result of the type of cities that were built.
The Sustainable Development Goals provide a framework for integrated actions in WASH benefitting other sectors.
Partnerships for interventions must consider scalar dynamics with different responses taken at different governance levels.
Global challenges such as climate change, resource scarcity and poverty must increasingly be tackled in cities. While cities can be significant contributors to climate change and resource scarcity, and face considerable risks as a consequence of these, they are also central to the solutions for these challenges. The quality of infrastructure, reliability of service provision and other economic and political conditions in urban areas shape levels of resource use by, and exposure to risks for, residents. This paperwhich introduces a special issue on resilience and resource efficiency at the city scaleintroduces these two concepts and explores the nexus between them. It uses several case studies from different contexts to illustrate the relationship between these ideas, and describes how the papers in the issue engage with them.
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