The publication “No One Left Behind: Good practices to ensure equitable access to water and sanitation in the pan-European region” presents good practices and lessons learnt from throughout the pan-European region on the policies and measures to be enacted to provide equitable access to water and sanitation. It distinguishes three key dimensions of equitable access:

•     geographical disparities
•     specific barriers faced by vulnerable and marginalized groups
•     affordability concerns

It presents a range of available policy options to fight inequities.

One of the main messages of the publication No One Left Behind is that current governance frameworks are often "equity blind". Ensuring equitable access requires a results-oriented action plan, building on country situation analysis and context specific indicators.

An analytic tool, the Equitable Access Score-card, was developed to support Governments and other stakeholders to establish a baseline measure of the equity of access, discuss further actions to be taken and evaluate progress in ensuring equitable access to water and sanitation through a process of self-assessment.

The publication The Equitable Access Score-card: supporting policy processes to achieve the human right to water and sanitation contains recommendations on how to plan for the self-assessment and provides concrete examples of the benefits of using the Score-card.

The Guidance Note on the development of action plans to ensure equitable access to water and sanitation aims to help countries in translating the priorities identified through the self-assessment into actions. Specific Equitable Access Action Plans are needed to guide country (or sub-national entity) efforts to achieve equitable access to water and sanitation by identifying priority actions to be implemented and ways of implementing them. The Note describes the content of Action Plans and their process of development.

These various guidance tools contribute to improve the governance and policy framework needed to develop an inclusive and effective response to epidemics crisis such as the COVID-19 crisis. More information on the importance and relevance of these tools for preparedness and response to the COVID19 is available here.

Since 2011, the work under the Protocol on Water and Health has accelerated national and local efforts to improve equitable access to water and sanitation in the pan-European region.

The publication The Human rights to water and sanitation in practice: Findings and lessons learned from the work on equitable access to water and sanitation under the Protocol on Water and Health in the pan-European region capitalizes on he experiences of the region, and particularly of eleven countries, which have committed to improving equitable access. The publication maps out the lessons learnt from the Equitable Access Score-card based assessments, presents concrete technical and policy actions taken by these countries and examines national experiences with the development of Equitable Access Action Plans, considering the practical steps that can be taken to improve the planning and financing of specific action plans.